Masters of Harmony

Champions Emerge Anew

Dan Place, Apr 8, 2008

What do you get when you take a piece of Gotcha!, a piece of Michigan Jake and you add a couple of pieces of Nightlife? Of course, the resulting mixture is one of the chapter’s newest quartets, Masterpiece. The quartet consists of Rob Menaker, tenor, and Brett Littlefield, bass, who won their quartet gold in 1996 with Nightlife. Mark Hale, lead, won his quartet championship with Michigan Jake in 2001 and Alan Gordon, baritone, is the newest addition to the golden circle, winning his gold medal in 2004 with Gotcha! These experienced champion quartet men have missed the joy of performing and competing in a quartet and decided that it would be great to give it a shot once more.

The first exposure for the quartet was at the 2007 SoCal West Divisional Contest. They had been making the learning CDs for the chorus with Pat Claypool singing bari. They entered this first competition for the fun of it, knowing that their score would not impact any quartet wanting to go on to district. The quartet did well in the divisional and began to consider the next step. Pat was, of course, unavailable due to his commitment with OC Times. They decided to ask Alan Gordon to join the group. His involvement with Gotcha! was winding down and it was a good fit. This new version of Masterpiece began singing together in the late summer of 2007.

The initial hurdle for the quartet was to prepare for their first performance, which was to appear on the Masters of Harmony Christmas show. They learned eight songs for the show, most of them original arrangements. Their performance was a success and then it was time to take the next step, learning additional repertoire and contest songs. This process had to be accelerated when the quartet was asked to fill in and appear the first weekend of February at the Masters’ show in Calimesa. Songs that had been in a six-week learning cycle were prepared in two weeks and the quartet successfully performed a five-number set in Calimesa.

Next it was on to preparing songs for this year’s divisional contest. The quartet did not want to try to compete at the international level the same year that the chorus was preparing for the 2008 competition, feeling that the chorus would take a lot of energy and their full focus and effort. The quartet did very well winning SoCal West again this year, and Masterpiece will compete at district in the fall.

The quartet’s goal is to have mostly original material. The plan is to have Mark and Alan do some arranging. The group has many friends and contacts within the barbershop world, and they plan to work with some of the top arrangers in the country to develop an interesting, entertaining and varied repertoire. They will be performing on shows, but do not want to have as aggressive a travel schedule as they had in their previous quartets. Given their busy schedules and families, a limited show schedule will best fit the quartet. They would mainly like to perform on the West Coast for members of the Far Western District. Masterpiece also hopes to do some recording in the future.

The members of Masterpiece are looking forward to the journey ahead. They feel this experience will be less stress-driven, more relaxed and fun than that of a first quartet. They liken it to a “Second Marriage.” From their past quartet experiences, they now know what works best and they hope to make better musical decisions. These guys have known each other for a long time and are good friends. This is a quartet that just wants to have fun. The Masters of Harmony wishes the best for its new quartet, Masterpiece.