May 7 to be Barbershop Harmony Day in Naperville
In honor of the International Barbershop Harmony Society’s 75^th anniversary, Tuesday, May 7, 2013, will be proclaimed Barbershop Harmony Day in the City of Naperville.
At the Naperville City Council meeting at 7 P.M. on that day, Mayor George Pradel will proclaim the day as Barbershop Harmony Day in the City of Naperville, IL. The proclamation will be accepted by John Morrison, President of the Chorus of DuPage, which is the Naperville chapter of the International Barbershop Harmony Society. He will be accompanied by the entire men’s Chorus of DuPage who will perform a song at the council meeting in gratitude of the City Council’s proclamation.
The Barbershop Harmony Society, historically named the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America, Inc. (SPEBSQSA), was founded by Owen C. Cash in 1938 when 26 men met at a rooftop restaurant in Tulsa, Oklahoma to sing four-part harmony. Today, nearly 25,000 men in the United States and Canada are members of this organization focused on a cappella music.
In 1961 in Naperville, thirty-four men met in a second floor room above a restaurant on Chicago Avenue to sign a charter to become a local chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society. Today, the chapter’s fifty-three members meet every Tuesday at 7 P.M. at Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church, 815 S. Washington Street in Naperville to sing four-part barbershop harmony.