Harmonizers at International Convention

The Hunterdon Harmonizers will join dozens of quartets, choruses, and their families from our area, across the country, and around the world in Philadelphia over the 4^th of July weekend for the Barbershop Harmony Society’s annual International Convention. The society has a membership of nearly 30,000 in the United States, with affiliate organizations in nine countries.

“Barbershop singing is very much alive and has not faded into oblivion, as have silent movies, gramophones, and the Model-T,” said Ed Watson, the Barbershop Harmony Society’s executive director and chief executive officer. “Today’s barbershop harmony has strong intergenerational appeal, with tunes to please Grandpa and grandson alike,” he continued.

That appeal is illustrated by the singers who are members of the Harmonizers of Flemington who range in age from grandsons to grandfathers.

Barbershop quartet singing, immortalized by the Buffalo Bills in Meredith Willson’s The Music Man, is a style of a cappella, or unaccompanied vocal music, characterized by four parts combining to make chords.

Although most of the Harmonizers will be taking in the contests as members of the audience, three of the Harmonizers will be singing with other chapters.

Dennis and Max will be singing with The Big Apple Chorus from New York City. David will be singing with the Voices of Gotham, a chapter made up of mostly young singers from lower New York City. The rest of us will be rooting the three of them on.

I last sang on the International Stage of the barbershop Society when our full chapter was ranked 14^th in world and competed in Indianapolis in 1997. We have not since focused so strongly on contest, but have become more of a show and fun chapter of the Society.

Our next show will be the free performance sponsored by the Hunterdon County Park System in Deerpath Park on July 8, 2010. For directions and more detailed information see my prior post, or visit our web site at www.NJHarmonizers.org