St. Thomas’ only all-male a cappella group, the Summit Singers, is looking to create its first ever full-length album by fall 2015.

Senior Chad Berg, the president and founder of the Summit Singers, said a number of factors have motivated the group to produce its first album.

“As the president of this group, I’ve always been kind of pushing the group to become bigger, to take the next step, and we just feel like the next step right now is to produce a CD,” Berg said. “Now that we’ve got our big semester concerts that we’re doing and a lot of people are coming to, the next step would be to produce an album.”

Berg said he believes the group provides value to the surrounding community and that a CD would enhance that value.

“We want to continue to create that value to the community by having something that people can listen to when we’re not necessarily there,” Berg said. “We’re really aiming to make a high-quality CD to make that happen.”

The Summit Singers set up a fundraising page on the website GoFundMe.com in hopes of receiving support for producing the album. They hope to raise $10,000 by the end of the school year. According to Berg, the amount would allow the group to make ongoing album production payments and is based on the expected cost of producing the entire album.

The Summit Singers believe their loyal fan base may help them reach their reach goal. Junior Ashley Zweber said the group’s creative and engaging performances are a big reason for its success.

“They always do Twitter contests throughout the concerts, so you’ll tweet and get a chance to win merchandise,” Zweber said. “They oftentimes bring people up on stage to sing to them. They’re really good at that.”

Freshman Will Goodwin agreed and said all St. Thomas students should attend a concert if they have the opportunity.

“Just the way they reach out and touch the student body, I think it’s an amazing thing,” Goodwin said. “Other than that, their music is incredible. I think it’s just amazing.”

Berg said the Summit Singers’ album will be a mix of both old and new songs. The Singers plan to begin producing the album within the next month and aim to finish recording by early summer. The production team will then handle post-production features, including mixing, mastering and editing the music.

“Ideally we would have this thing ready to go by the fall of next year,” Berg said.

William Faust can be reached at faus5612@stthomas.edu.