Alex Liu & Eric Jung take best overall entry at 2014 Spring Sing

This post was updated on May 18 at 3 p.m.

United by the traditional 8-clap, Friday night’s Spring Sing 2014 audience was in for a night of music, laughter and wild applause inside Pauley Pavilion.

Spring Sing 2014 featured a variety of acts from soloists and bands to a cappella groups and musical theater performances. In between each act, Company entertained the audience with comedic skits that poked fun at the typical daily struggles of UCLA students.

Also rousing the crowd were the night’s celebrity judges, including actress and singer Raven-Symoné, actors Dennis Quaid and Jonathan Bennett and Green Bay Packers running back and UCLA alumnus Johnathan Franklin.

Midway through the night’s performances, the UCLA Alumni Association presented the George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement to singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette. In Morissette’s acceptance speech, she expressed her appreciation for higher education and a place for the arts.

After all 17 acts performed on the Pauley stage, all performers gathered on stage for the unveiling of the night’s winners.

The duet of fifth-year world arts and cultures student Alex Liu and fourth-year neuroscience student Eric Jung, with the soulful performance of “Notice You,” took home the Northern California Alumni Grand Sweepstakes Award for best overall entry, as well as the Bruin Choice Award and the Rose Bowl Bruins Award for best duet entry.

“It’s surreal. It’s not even a dream because I didn’t even expect any of this,” Liu said. “Being on the stage was winning for us – like that was a dream come true.”

Liu’s vocals and Jung’s jazzy electric guitar echoed throughout Pauley Pavilion, with the audience responding enthusiastically to Jung’s bluesy harmonica. After the duo’s performance, judge Jonathan Franklin gave the pair a standing ovation.

Fourth-year geography student Nessa Rica Ramos, known under the stage name Nessa Rica, won the UCLA Mortar Board Award for best solo entry with the performance of her original song “Saving the World.” She said she dedicated her performance to her parents, who were in attendance.

“When I was on stage, I was a little nervous,” Rica said. “But I told myself: Remember the time when you were in your house when you just wrote it and just do it the way it’s supposed to be told.”

The UCLA Affiliates Award for best production entry went to Hooligan Theatre Company. Hooligan performed a “Peter Pan”-inspired musical theater performance called “The Boy Who Wouldn’t Graduate.”

“(The night) was amazing, like when I came off the stage I had like tingles all over me still,” said third-year history student Cindy Lin and member of Hooligan Theatre Company. “Like a bunch of adrenaline, you just go on once and it’s over.”

The UCLA Las Doñas Award for best band entry went to We the Folk for its performance of “Won’t You Come Back?” The alumni world folk band performed its winning song with fourth-year ethnomusicology and music education student Elena Loper.

Alternative rock band The AM was presented with the Gold Shield Alumnae Esprit de Corps Award for best overall participation for the group’s original song, “Wake Up.”

Other notable award winners were Random Voices A Cappella, who received the UCLA Prytanean Alumnae Award for best a cappella entry, and Delta Gamma & Lambda Chi Alpha, whose musical theater performance, “UCLA Video Music Awards,” received the best group director award.