Organization
Singing a cappella music in the barbershop style is a hobby enjoyed by men and women worldwide. The hobby is practiced mostly within one of the three main barbershop associations, which have a combined membership in the neighborhood of eighty thousand.
The primary men's organization in the US and Canada is the Barbershop Harmony Society. Women have two organizations in North America, Sweet Adelines International and Harmony Incorporated. Sweet Adelines, Inc was founded in 1945 by Edna Mae Anderson of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Harmony, Incorporated was formed in 1959 by five chapters that split from Sweet Adelines in 1957 over a dispute regarding admission of non-Caucasian members. SPEBSQSA and Sweet Adelines at that time restricted their membership to whites, but both opened membership to all races a few years later. All three organizations comprise choruses and quartets that perform and compete regularly throughout the US and Canada, and Sweet Adelines International also has a portion of its membership outside North America.
Organizations affiliated with the Barbershop Harmony Society and Harmony Incorporated exist in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, Spain, South Africa, Scandinavia, New Zealand, ony sralia, Japan, and elsewhere. Some national and regional barbershop groups include:
- Sweet Adelines International (SAI)
- Harmony, Inc. (HI)
- Barbershop in Germany (BinG)
- British Association of Barbershop Singers (BABS)
- Ladies Association of British Barbershop Singers (LABBS)
- Dutch Association of Barbershop Singers (DABS)
- Ladies Association of Dutch Barbershop Singers (Holland Harmony)
- Irish Association of Barbershop Singers (IABS)
- Spanish Association of Barbershop Singers (SABS)
- Society of Nordic Barbershop Singers (SNOBS)
- Southern Part of Africa Tonsorial Singers (SPATS)
- New Zealand Association of Barbershop Singers (NZABS)
- Barbershop Harmony Australia (BHA)
- Irish Association of Barbershop Singers (IABS)
A worldwide association for mixed groups, the Mixed Harmony Barbershop Quartet Association, was established in 1995 to reflect the growing popularity of male-female barbershop singing.
Read more about this topic: Barbershop Music
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