The Cherry Hill Pine Barons Chorus competed in the International Barbershop Harmony Society’s annual Quartet and Chorus Competition on Saturday, July 8 against 34 choruses and 60 quartets from around the world.
It was the a capella group’s first time on a global stage in decades. The chorus is made up of about 40 to 45 South Jersey men who sing and perform year-round.
“Over the last year or two, we’ve been getting better and better and better in our singing quality,” said Larry Melton, president of the chorus and the Haddonfield Lions Club. “ … We’re thrilled to be rubbing shoulders with the elite in the world,”
To qualify for the Louisville, Kentucky, contest, the chorus participated in two competitions, and achieved the necessary score of 72 at its last district contest in the fall in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Melton noted that while there are about 1,200 barbershop chapters in the world, only 36 are invited to compete in the international competition.
The Cherry Hill Pine Barons Chorus is a branch of the Barbershop Harmony Society whose members also hail from Marlton, Haddonfield, Mount Laurel and Barrington. The group is split into four sections – lead, tenor, baritone and bass – and harmonize familiar songs together. The last time the group qualified in and won the district district contest was in 1980.
This year, they performed two songs, As Time Goes By, from the film Casablanca, and In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning, a Frank Sinatra standard.
“The bottom line is that both songs need to have an impact on people,” Melton explained. “They need to look at us and say, ‘Oh boy, that is so nice. I’m enjoying this as an experience,’ not necessarily, ‘Oh, all the right notes and all the right words.’
“We’re coaching our singers at all times on singing fundamentals, artistic delivery, which is a very big part of what we do at our performances, and also visual engagements,” noted Chorus Director Rich Gray. “ … We don’t hold music in our hands, we memorize all of our music and our notes and words, and we add a visual element so that every song we sing, we hope goes first to the entertainment value of the piece and secondarily to the technical aspects.”
Gray noted that the barbershop a capella singing style was designed so singers of all levels can pick up the music predominantly by ear and learn it to sing their parts.
“ … One of the original tenets in our hobby was what we called wood shedding, and this is just someone singing a familiar memory and guys harmonizing just by ear, no sheet music, no set arrangements or anything, just guys figuring it out,” Gray said.
“ … It wasn’t designed for the professional singer,” he added. “It was a genre of music that originated and was intended for amateur singers and intended to be sung easily by anyone.”
The chorus performs year-round at local events and offers programs that engage high- school and college-age students involved with barbershop singing, including students from East and West performing in their annual shows. The group is most known for their annual spring and winter shows.
The Cherry Hill Pine Barons Chorus welcomes new members and encourages anyone interested in listening or joining to attend a practice. The group meets every Monday at 7 p.m. at St. Andrews Methodist Church, next to Ponzio’s.
