Two nonprofit volunteer organizations are teaming up to provide local youth with a musical and educational experience. The Youth in Harmony Festival, presented by the Central City Chordsmen and the Tri City Sound Chorus (of the Barbershop Harmony Society and Sweet Adelines International, respectively), will teach young vocalists from five area high schools the art of barbershop-style harmony on Feb. 25.
The festival is an offshoot of Youth in Harmony, a program created by the Barbershop Harmony Society. This will be the second Youth in Harmony Festival to come to Santa Maria; last year the event was at Pioneer Valley High School and was such a success it called for larger premises this year.
“The First United Methodist Church is letting us use their chapel,” said Robert Maurer, the Youth in Harmony chairman. “They have a lot of rooms for practice and sectionals.”
Vocal students from Righetti, Orcutt Academy, Valley Christian Academy, Santa Maria, and Pioneer Valley high schools will participate. So far, the roster is at 59 kids who will all benefit from the clinic-style daylong event, which will culminate with a concert at 4 p.m.
The concert will showcase the skills of a boy chorus and a girl chorus. Directing the boy chorus this year will be guest director Shawn Mandragon, a member of the Barbershop Harmony Society and lead singer in the quartet Blue Steele, which has won accolades from the society and will perform at the Youth in Harmony concert.
Directing the girl chorus will be Barbara Nigh, director of the Tri City Sound Chorus. Nigh has been directing her chorus for 17 years and returns to the Youth in Harmony Festival for the second time, having directed the girls chorus last year.
“I thoroughly enjoyed it last year—they were so eager and so enthused about learning,” Nigh said. “I’m a retired school nurse, so I am used to being around kids that age. They learn so fast.”
The event begins at 8:30 a.m. with a meet-and-greet and breakfast followed by an introduction, then warm up. The goal of the event is to provide education on not just the barbershop style, but on how to sing properly. The different groups will be taken into sectional rehearsals, all facilitated by volunteers from either the Chordsmen or Tri City Sound.
The barbershop style of singing is a cappella—meaning no accompaniment by instruments—and takes from the pool of songs written from 1890s to the 1920s. The emphasis is on the harmony the singers are able to make with their voices and the feelings it emotes.
“One of the things that you work for when you sing barbershop harmony is to achieve what they call ‘lock and ring’” Nigh said. “When you sing the harmonies properly, there is a harmony that rings above what they are singing, a fifth note or overtone.”
The boys and girls groups will each learn two songs that showcase their skill and the barbershop style. The Chordsmen and Tri City Sound paid for the sheet music necessary, as well as practice tapes to help the students rehearse their parts before the festival.
Other preparations necessary for the festival included registering every student, organizing refreshments, sending home permission slips for minors, and other safety precautions, Maurer explained. The students aren’t required to pay a registration fee, so the entire event is at no cost to the student vocalists.
“They sing together, and there’s camaraderie,” Maurer said. “Music is just a wonderful, God-given art. The feeling they get out of singing and hearing chords, they just smile and you can see their inner glow. It’s just a great thing.”
The concert portion of the event will include performances by smaller ensembles from each school. The end of the concert will welcome the audience to sing along with some patriotic tunes sung by not just the boy and girl choruses together, but also the members of Blue Steele, and volunteers from the Chordsmen and Tri City Sound. The public is invited to the free concert to see the end result of the daylong effort.
“It’s such a great thing to do, because the schools these days, some of them aren’t able to do the music programs they could in the past because of budget cuts,” Nigh said. “Students who love music are very enthusiastic about it; it’s a great outlet.”
The guitar guy
Patrick Montgomery will be singing and playing his guitar at the Santa Maria Brewing Company on Wednesdays and Sundays through February from 4 to 9 p.m. Hear him at 2401 Preisker Lane, No. 3, Santa Maria, for free. More info: 354-0219 or davidsnyder561@comcast.net.
Conscious music
Amy Obenski brings her “Carbon Conscious” tour to Lompoc on Feb. 26 at 2 p.m. at Howlin’ Bryoon’s Music Exchange, 107 South H St., Lompoc. Obenski performs her original songs to raise awareness of climate change and deforestation on the tour, which makes its way across the United States and France. Admission is a $5 donation. More info: 736-3111, contactamy@obenski.net, or amyobenski.com.
Contact Calendar Editor Joe Payne at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 23 – Mar 1, 2012.
