Masters of Harmony

The Masters of Harmony recently took several steps to make barbershop music available to an ever-wider audience. Thanks to John Loftus and Gary Stone, the MOH posted a new two-minute promotional video on its website. Viewers can see recent videos of MOH performances narrated by Ron Andreas, whose infectious enthusiasm opened so many MOH shows over the past 30 years. Another innovation was the creation of a smaller group of singers called Masters Ensemble. Group members perform at places such as churches, city functions, shows and events best suited for a smaller group.

On May 22, the Masters of Harmony presented their annual spring show, Planes, Trains & Automobiles – A Musical Odyssey. The audience responded enthusiastically throughout the well-paced program, especially to the chorus’s International contest package – The Very Thought of You and At a Georgia Camp Meeting. Masterpiece (Rob Menaker, Patrick Haedtler, Alan Gordon, Brett Littlefield), The Newfangled Four (Joey Buss, Jackson Niebrugge, Ryan Wisniewski, Jake Tickner) and American Pastime (Graham Pence, Tom Moore, Steve Pence, Joe D’Amore) showed why they have amassed so many quartet competition honors. Guest quartet Boardwalk opened the second half of the show and was a huge hit. Probably the longest applause of the show followed The Garfunkel Montage and Stars and Stripes Forever that ended one of the best Masters of Harmony shows ever.

From June 3-5, the Masters men traveled to the Idyllwild Pines Camp for extensive honing of the chorus competition package to be performed in Nashville a month later. Under the keen eyes and ears of Director Justin Miller and Choreographer Erin Howden, the package emerged more finely polished.

A week later, the Masters traveled to Lake Arrowhead. As in 2015, they performed in Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church, whose naturally fine acoustics are enhanced by local Audio Technician Ken Beaupre. The closeness of the audience to the chorus made possible a measure of chorus-audience connection beyond what chorus members usually experience. The contest ballad The Very Thought of You moved some in the audience, and even some in the chorus,to tears.

As the Masters headed to Nashville, members knew they faced formidable challengers, including two whose district qualifying scores were better than theirs, something the Masters had faced before yet gone on to win gold. The 29 competing choruses included seven former gold-medal winners. Three had won a gold medal within the past five years, and for the first time ever, the Masters would have less than 100 singers on the risers. As it turned out, the choruses ranked 1-2-3 on the basis of their district contest scores finished 1-2-3 in Nashville. The Ambassadors of Harmony (first) and Central Standard (second) each presented a contest ballad with audience-moving sensitivity and passion and uptunes with joyful exuberance and finely tuned choreography. The Masters of Harmony (third) drew loud, enthusiastic applause with a contest package that clearly moved the auidnece.

Quartet competition saw MOH quartets American Pastime and The Newfangled Four and Flightline take the stage. In the first competition, the Harmony Foundation Youth Quartet Contest, Flightline (Oscar Sotelo, Cody Littlefield, Daniel Huitt, Kyle Williamson) finished just seven points behind contest winner Pratt Street Power. In the International Quartet Contest, The Newfangled Four just missed a top ten finish, but its 11th place finish established the quartet as mike testers for the quartet finals on Saturday night. The youthful foursome gave a dazzling, high-energy performance that clearly indicates its potential for success in Las Vegas.

Special kudos go to The Westminster Chorus for its swan song performance – one so stunning in its mastery of the barbershop art form that it produced a standing ovation lasting more than 30 seconds.

Since the last edition of Westunes, Harrison Ashkenasy, Miles Brown, R.J. Esquivias, Carlos Franquez. David Haedtler, Andrew Hernandez, Craig Hughes, Justin Klemballa, Jeromy McMahon, Marcus Nielsen, John Rhodes, John Speirs, and Richard Tran were welcomed into membership.