BARBERSHOP PHOTO COURTESY LORIN MAY
2016 BARBERSHOP HARMONY SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION COMING TO NASHVILLE IN JULY If channel surfing on the couch after a day’s good work ever ends up settling on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon’s The Ragtime Gals barbershop quartet bit, then it’s understandable that four-part harmony is quite catchy and soothing, if not completely mesmerizing. The Middle Tennessee area is actually well-to-do in the barbershop musical realm, and has been for quite a while. The barbershop quartet idea is simply a pure, clean-cut American musicality. Many may not know that Nashville is the home of the Barbershop Harmony Society’s headquarters, located at 110 7th Ave. North in that easy-to-miss three-story gray building a block off Broadway. An appropriate Norman Rockwell painting is draped down the north side of the building that’s the home of the oldest preservation and promotional organization in the country committed to keeping that melodic sound alive, well and archived. All they really need to do for more attention would be to have four of their members busking in front. But the Barbershop Harmony Society is taking it a bit further—a lot further—with the 2016 International Barbershop Quartet Convention taking place in various locations around downtown Nashville July 3–10. It’s probably going to be as ridiculously entertaining as anything Fallon can do with three of his songbird writers baring their voice boxes on a 30 Rock stage garbed in pinstripes, white pants, boater hats and all. The Barbershop Harmony Society was founded in 1938 by Owen Clifton Cash and Rupert Hall, whose absolutely hilarious original invitation to a “song fest,” in Tulsa, Okla., began the initial gatherings that would eventually became the Barbershop Harmony Society: Gentleman, In this age of dictators and government control of everything, about the only privi-
lege guaranteed by the Bill of Rights not in some way supervised and directed, is the art of Barber Shop Quartet Singing . . . It is our purpose to start right in at the first, sing every song in numerical order, plow right down the middle, and let the chips fall where they will . . . Just thinking about it brought back to your committee found memories of a moonlight night, a hay ride and the soft young blonde visitor from Kansas City we dated on the occasion years ago. Hall signed it as “Royal Keeper of the Minor Keys,” to the 14 friends they invited and that letter got them 26 people in all, “crashing the party.” Since Cash and Hall’s creation of the #1 chapter, the idea grew over the years and throughout the country, eventually and appropriately placing their archiving/ promotional/preserving headquarters in our Music City. So, we landed the International convention this year. The first day of actual singing, July 5, will be at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, where the Harmony Foundation Youth Barbershop Quartets will get together and compete for the gold medal. July 6–9 are reserved for the International Quartet Contest at Bridgestone Arena with the quarterfinals at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, the semifinals (top 20) at 11 a.m. on Thursday, and the Finals (top 10) at 7 p.m. on Saturday. The Association of International Champions Show, Pitch Perfected: An Evening of Vocal Harmony, will be at the Schermerhorn at 7:30 p.m. on July 6 and 7; the International Chorus Contest will be Friday, July 8, at 10 p.m. in Bridgestone, while the World Harmony Jamboree acts as the convention’s “parade” of quartets and choruses held at Davidson Ballroom in the Music City Center. For more information on the 2016 Nashville International Barbershop Harmony Society Convention, visit barbershop.org. — BRYCE HARMON BOROPULSE.COM
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