Masters of Harmony

Briners Make Hall of Fame History

Andy Edwards, May 7, 2007

The month of March 2007 was extra special for Dave and Sally Briner. Dave (one of our emeritus members) was honored with the Hall of Fame award for the Far Western District of the Barbershop Harmony Society at the FWD Convention March 17, 2007, in Reno. Sally received the Hall of Fame award for Sweet Adelines International Region 21 at their convention March 31, 2007, in Phoenix.

This is the first time a husband-wife team have each received these awards, let alone in the same month.

If you joined the Masters of Harmony after 2003, you may not be well acquainted with Dave and Sally even though there is an extensive bio of Dave on the Masters of Harmony website.

For the FWD, the objective of the HOF award is to honor “men who have performed unselfishly with dedication and devotion the highest degree of service to the District.” The FWD HOF award was instituted in 1968 with the first award given in 1969.

Dave’s musical training started at age nine when he began piano lessons. He became enamored with the trumpet at age 12 and continued his musical development by playing piano and trumpet in high school and college. At Pennsylvania State University, Dave broadened his musical interests by playing in an on-campus Dixieland band.

In 1951, Dave moved from Pennsylvania to California to take an engineering position in the aerospace industry. It was at the South Bay, California Chapter in 1958 that Dave became personally acquainted with the barbershop music style, and there found an outlet for his musical interests.

In the early 1960s, Dave lent his interests in arranging music to the barbershop medium. With local choruses and quartets beginning to solicit his arrangements, it wasn’t long before our International organization declared interest in publishing Dave’s work. To date, more than 90 of his arrangements are in the Society music library.

Dave served as an Arrangement judge for 20 years, was on the faculty of Harmony College for 15 years, and for five years chaired the Society’s Music Publications Committee.

For a period of 20 years he sang bass with the madcap quartet The Manhatters, easily the zaniest and among the most popular quartets of their time. Dave later joined with MOHers Lefty Parasson, Art Taylor, and Les Weiser in Mutual Fun, second-place silver medalists in the 2000 International Senior Quartet Contest held in Phoenix.

He joined the MOH in the early days, and continued through the swan song performance in Montreal in 2003, winning five gold medals and singing on the international contest stage 10 times. Dave continues to serve the MOH as copyright records manager.

The selection criteria for SAI Region 21 is to honor a past or present Sweet Adeline who has “given selflessly of her time, talents and expertise for the love and joy of singing and who has had a profound impact on the entire membership of Region 21.” The HOF award was instituted in 2001 on the 25th anniversary of Region 21.

Sally has been a Sweet Adeline for 40 years. She was an active member of the Board of Directors and secretary for Region 11. When Region 21 split from Region 11, Sally was elected to their Board of Directors, serving for six years. When Sweet Adelines International adopted the Regional Management Team form of government, Sally became the chapter coordinator. As moderator of the President’s Forum, she shared her strong administrative skills with chapter presidents across the Region, mentoring them in their role as chapter leaders.

Sally is an accomplished quartet singer, winning two crowns as an international quartet champion with 4 For the Show in 1984 and Panache in 1990. She has shared her musical expertise in Region 21 and other regions across the nation by teaching skills to quartets and coaching individual singers. Sally joined the Harborlites Chorus in 1993 and has remained active with them ever since, winning the international chorus gold medal with them at Indianapolis in 2004.

Both Dave and Sally well deserve the HOF honors they have received, and we salute them in recognition of their accomplishments and contributions to their respective barbershop organizations. We continue to see both of them at MOH rehearsals from time to time, at our spring and Christmas shows, and at the MOH annual banquet. They have been Gold Star Ambassadors of Harmony for the past two years.

As Paul Harvey would say, “And now you know . . . the rest of the story.”