Red, White, and Tunes
Nothing says America like listening to a Barbershop Quartet and eating Ice Cream! For our annual Visitor Appreciation Day, the Museum hosts strolling performances in the galleries and museum campus featuring the vocal stylings of Brew City Harmony. The quartet specializes in Barbershop, which is a truly original American musical art form, emerging here in the late 1800s largely from the same African harmonic and rhythmic heritage that produced Gospel, Ragtime and Dixieland jazz. This don’t-miss event is for all-ages.
Enjoy the live musical performances, which are included with museum admission, and experience the two exhibitions on view - Legacies: Selections from the Elmhurst Art Museum Permanent Collection and CROSSINGS by Bernard Williams.
More about Brew City Harmony:
Brew City Harmony is Niel Johnson, Rick VanGomple, Bruce Vitale, and John Peters. The quartet draws together these four members of the Barbershop Harmony Society from several choruses in the Milwaukee area, with combined Barbershopping experience totaling 125 years!
Sung in four-part harmony, without instrumental accompaniment (a cappella), Barbershop differs from traditional choral music by placing the melody (Barbershop “lead”) in the middle rather than highest voice part, with a high tenor harmonizing above, a bass singer providing foundational harmonies below, and a baritone sweetening the mix with intricate harmonies in-between. Historically sung with improvised harmony (typically among men loitering in local barber shops), today’s Barbershop music is artfully arranged to create unusual chords designed to “ring” with resonant overtones.
Formed in 1938 to preserve and promote this style of singing, the Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS) today comprises more than 14,000 members. Approximately 670 choruses and more than 1800 quartets perform in the U.S. and Canada (both male and female) as part of BHS, with thousands more among affiliated organizations in at least 11 other countries contributing to an estimated total of 70,000 Barbershoppers worldwide.