The 505: New Mexico's Premier A Cappella Youth Chorus

A cappella singing encompasses a number of styles, including:

• Collegiate a cappella – primarily arrangements of pop tunes with beatbox percussion and vocal sounds imitating instruments.
• Choral – the “art music” repertoire originally written or arranged for a cappella chorus, including early music.
• Barbershop – the American style featuring 4-part homophony and rubato rhythms that emphasizes the “ringing” of overtones in justly-tuned consonant chords.

These styles all convey characteristic and seemingly disjunct images – the college glee club, the robed choir singing in a church, a quartet of elderly men wearing boater hats – but Albuquerque, New Mexico’s 505 Chorus combines all three in an effort to introduce a cappella singing to a new generation of young male singers (The 505’s sister group OnQ provides the same experience for young women).

The 505’s story begins with the Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS), officially the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America (the partnership remains strong: a picture of The 505 is featured on BHS’s homepage as of April). Realizing that barbershop singing was literally dying off, BHS organized the Youth Chorus Festival, allowing choruses from across the globe to compete with sets containing two contestable barbershop arrangements and a third song of any 4-part a cappella style. A group of students at the University of New Mexico formed the 505 Chorus originally to enter the festival, and decided to remain together and sing a repertoire consisting of equal thirds collegiate, choral, and barbershop arrangements. Since that first competition in 2009, the chorus has traveled to every Youth Chorus Festival while presenting a full concert season. Now under Tony Spark’s direction for three years, The 505 is actively recruiting members and selecting repertoire for the fall season and 2015’s Youth Chorus Festival in New Orleans.

I sang with The 505 for two year before moving to Boston. I especially enjoyed the musical excellence of the group and that we sang a wide range of repertoire. A cappella singing provides excellent ear-training, and my experience with The 505 gave me excellent pitch accuracy that I could apply to my studies at the Longy School of Music. This summer, I will become too old to appear in the Youth Chorus Festival, but I look forward to dropping in on the chorus during my trips home and passing on my love of harmony to the next generation of upcoming singers.

London to Hold Inaugural A Cappella Competition

A cappella singing is a fascinating genre of music. A cappella means “in the style of the church” in Italian, and it harkens back to the earliest forms of western music in medieval Europe, plainchant (of which Gregorian chant is part) and later organum, which were unaccompanied liturgical singing. Yet, a cappella singing can embrace some of the most current trends in music, limited only by the capabilities of the human voice.

St. John’s, Smith Square, originally an Anglican church in London, was firebombed in World War II and left to stand as a ruin with a gaping hole in its roof for over 20 years. It was restored as a concert venue in the 1960s and now, in a nod to the genre’s ecclesiastical roots, is set to host the inaugural London International A Cappella Competition. The competition features groups from the British Isles, Continental Europe, the Scandinavian Peninsula, and the USA. Originally planned to celebrate British composer Sir John Tavener’s 70th Birthday, it was reorganized as a memorial, and features a mixture or Renaissance polyphony and recent compositions. The renowned early music singers The Tallis Scholars open the festival, and Lady Maryanna Tavener presents the awards at its close.

I am happy to see a new competition a cappella singing, though I do not see this inaugural event as much more international than the World Series. I expect in future years that we will see more competitors from outside Europe who will bring their own mixture of old music and new music to this exciting competition.