A Love Letter in Four-Part Harmony

When Sound of the Rockies walked off stage last month at the Colorado Convention Center, I braced myself for the adrenaline high — the whoops and fist bumps, the post-performance glow. We’d sung our hearts out, and I thought we’d delivered the goods. But out in the hallway, the applause had faded to quiet. A volunteer who’d been high-fiving us as we filed onto the stage now lingered off to the side, while my chorusmates, still catching their breath, drifted silently to the performers’ table to grab their phones and keys. I glanced around for the hometown crowd that had cheered us going the opposite direction — the faces beaming with pride. Had we reached them?

For anyone outside the barbershop world, the scene might have seemed unremarkable, the self-doubt perhaps a touch overblown — but this wasn’t just any performance. The Barbershop Harmony Society international convention is the organization’s annual world championship, drawing thousands of singers from around the globe for a week of high-stakes competition. This year, Denver was the host, offering a rare chance to showcase our music to our city — and our city to the world.

This had been the opportunity we’d been building toward all week — and just fifteen minutes earlier, in the final moments before leaving the warm-up room, my confidence was bursting. “Put your arms around your brothers,” director Tyler Wigginton said, motioning us to press together on the risers. “Let’s start the ballad.” As the pitch sounded, singer embraced singer — 95 men in cowboy hats and boots, faces streaked with charcoal and ready for barbershop’s biggest stage. The melody began: “Oh, give me a home…”

Our Western-themed contest set had been months in the making — a pairing of a two-song cowboy medley with a gunslinging parody of “We Need a Hero,” designed to impress a panel of judges evaluating our singing, musicality and overall performance.

And yet, the performance wasn’t just for the judges. This was our love letter to Colorado — a celebration of our home that, throughout the convention, had been answering back. The city had given us so much that week. In the aftermath of our performance, I had to wonder: Had we given enough in return?

The first sign of the city’s embrace came at the opening party — a Sunday evening at Rock Bottom Brewery, where we gathered with three international choruses that had traveled to Denver. The night was a swirl of harmonies, clinking glasses and jet lag, spilling onto the sidewalk as singers serenaded the patio. A group of young women watched with bemusement until one of them hopped the railing to join us. She lent her voice to a song she’d never sung before, then returned to her table laughing — the final chord fading onto the street.

The following night, the Daniels & Fisher Tower was lit up like a giant barber pole — a welcome beacon to the thousands of singers who had descended on the downtown streets, a reminder that the city was celebrating alongside us. And on Wednesday afternoon, our voices spilled from the decks of the Denver Performing Arts Complex parking garage, singing the barbershop standards — “Sweet and Lovely,” “Coney Island Baby” — for the crowd gathered below.

In those moments, it wasn’t about scores or rankings; it was about the connection shared between chorus and community. But still, the results mattered — not for bragging rights, but as a way to honor the city that had lit its landmarks for us, stood in the summer heat to hear us sing, and welcomed our harmonies into its streets. Taking home a medal would be our way of giving something back, a way of proving ourselves worthy of the belief shown in us.

So when the contest administrator took the stage to announce the scores, the stakes felt higher than ever. My doubt from the hallway still lingered, and as he began reading the results, my mind ticked through the likely medalists. Fifth place came with the kind of mark — 90.1 — we’d hoped for all week, but one which, after walking off stage, I hadn’t imagined we’d reach. I braced myself for another chorus’s name. Instead, I heard our own. For a moment I didn’t move, not quite believing it, until the cheering snapped me into focus. Then I was on my feet, cowboy hat waving in the air, nearly tripping down the stairs in my rush to join my brothers — knowing that in that instant, we’d given Denver a reason to cheer back.

Later, in the rehearsal room and with our medals in hand, the pride in the air felt bigger than the results. It was a realization that, just as the city had embraced us in those fleeting moments around town, maybe we’d found a way to embrace it back. That the spirit of our set had found its way home.

I thought back to that moment on the risers earlier, after we’d finished singing but before we left for the contest stage. Tyler’s final words: “I can’t wait to share what we’ve created with this crowd.” By week’s end, that crowd included strangers on a brewery patio, passersby beneath a parking garage, and pedestrians gawking at a barber pole glowing above the skyline.

I had thought for sure, in the moments after our performance, that we had let them down — but the final results told a different story. Whatever rough edges I’d felt on stage hadn’t dimmed what the audience heard, or what they took away with them. For one week, Denver had been the capital of our barbershop world — and the Sound of the Rockies its hometown soundtrack. The medal was ours, but the harmony belonged to the city.

Zachary Shell is a freelance writer and teacher living in Denver, whose work has appeared in 5280, Hinterland and The Educator’s Room, among others. He is also a seven-year, card-carrying member — and two-time medalist — with Sound of the Rockies. Learn more about upcoming performances at SoundoftheRockies.com.

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