Masters of Harmony

Crowds Aghast at Daring Choice of Younger, Dynamic Banquet Speaker

Kirt Thiesmeyer, Nov 24, 2008

The dribbles had barely dried on last year’s tux shirt when the search began for a Masters of Harmony keynote speaker to grace our 2009 Awards Banquet and Installation of Officers. I knew it must be someone with the wit and vivacity of David Wright, Jim Henry, Peter Feeney, Drayton Justice, Unka Lloyd Steinkamp and other recent banquet speakers. But in a major concession to the Westminster Chorus and what they have meant to us for the last five years, it also had to be somebody under 50.

After Max Q won the 2007 International Barbershop Quartet Contest, and then sang for our spring show, it was obvious that the only responsible speaker choice for our swan song year must be the man who, virtually unaided, had nursed that shy quartet to victory: Greg Clancy! After all, while visiting Los Angeles last May, the quartet had shown their youthful worldview by lunching at Hooters. Greg is also semi-famous for having won all 11 chorus gold medals with the legendary Jim Clancy and The Vocal Majority, something they have done with apparent ease ever since stealing back our one-time director Jeff Oxley and long-time leader Dan Fullerton.

“Mr. Greg,” as his wife Luann probably calls him, started singing barbershop with his father at the tender age of 12 and, despite his distaste for nepotism, Greg has risen rapidly to become heir apparent to the top director position. Like Charles, Prince of Wales, Greg is noted for his tenacity and endurance, quietly tending his garden in anticipation.

Greg is associate director and lead section leader of the VM, centers the front row, and thoroughly enjoys sharing chorus and quartet experiences with his many friends in the barbershop world. A long-time quartetter, Greg sang in Gatsby (6th at International in 1985) and with 1973 champs Dealer’s Choice when they came out of retirement. He helped form Max Q in 2002.

“Barbershopping has played a HUGE role in my life,” Greg says. “Without it, I wouldn’t have been prepared for my career, I wouldn’t have met my wife and I wouldn’t have had countless significant experiences that have shaped who I am as a person.” [One can only speculate on the directionless lives of men who fail to find barbershopping at an early age, like the writer.]

Greg produces and sings retail commercial jingles in the Dallas-Fort Worth market. He owns a publishing company that administers ASCAP royalties for jingle houses. Greg also owns a fitness-related music company, Pro Motion Music, as you can tell from his full head of hair and rippling abs.

Now facing another challenge to the VM’s dominance, Greg looks forward to July 2009 in Anaheim with clear-eyed defiance, knowing that the Westminster Chorus will eventually grow up and be too big for their stage costumes, Northern Lights’ teeth are already chattering [it’s winter!], and the Ambassadors of Harmony are too nice to want to beat them.

We hope that Greg, a frequent and welcome coach to MOH, will take inspiration from his visit with us who have been, after all, greatly inspired by his chorus and his dad (our 2004 speaker) from the inception of our organization.