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If you happen to enjoy the exquisite harmonies of a capella (or unaccompanied) singing and relish the idea of listening to a good barbershop quartet, you have about 600 good reasons to mark Friday and Saturday (Oct. 30 and 31) on your calendar.
Those two days will see some 600 barbershop performers converging on the Telus Whistler Conference Centre for an annual regional district convention as well as a set of harmony-laden ticketed performances.
Barbershop was a term first associated with African-American gospel quartets that formed and practiced around neighbourhood barbershops.
“Back then, men would go to the barbershop for entertainment as well as haircuts,” said Moe Jones, member of Vancouver’s Gentlemen of Fortune barbershop chorus who are hosting the Barbershop Harmony Society Convention in Whistler. “It was almost like a social club.”
But barbershop as a genre might have died out if it weren’t for Owen C. Cash, an investment banker who loved the sound and was determined to see it survive, despite what seemed like waning interest.
“So they started what was then the ‘Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America,’ basically as a lark,” Jones said. “But in a nutshell, the idea spread across the U.S. and into Canada, and throughout the world to where we now have 800 chapters in North America and chapters everywhere from England and Australia to New Zealand and Japan.”
Jones, originally from Port Alberni, has been a member of the (more succinctly named) Barbershop Harmony Society for more than 47 years.
“I sang in high school in a quartet,” he said. “A teacher suggested the society and I basically joined right out of high school.
Traditionally, barbershop is categorized by four-part harmony where each part generally has its own role. The lead sings the melody, the tenor harmonizes above the melody, the bass sings the lowest harmonizing notes, while the baritone completes the chord, usually below the lead.
“I love the harmony and the four-part chord,” said Jones. “It’s pure music. When you get a good quartet singing — it’s pure music. You can hear it ringing in your ears.”
Now, imagine 600 voices singing that pure four-part chord music.
In addition to serving as a convention and get-together for the Evergreen District of the Barbershop Harmony Society (comprising Alaska, British Columbia, Alberta, Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana), the two-day event will see two public contests and a final show of champions.
“On Friday (Oct. 30) we have a quartet contest,” Jones said. “And on Saturday we’ll have the chorus contest and then the show of champions.”
Nineteen choruses are performing at this year’s competition, with the winner moving on to the international finals in Philadelphia in July.
The quartet contest begins at 6 p.m. on Friday night and costs $25. The chorus contest gets underway on Saturday at 10 a.m. at a $20 ticket price and the final show of champions starts at 7:30 p.m. with a ticket price of $35. You can buy your tickets at the Tourism Whistler office in the conference centre.
