Musical Journey #1

Prof. Schaller here. Interesting things can happen on the weekends at Immanuel. This past Saturday night I was participating in the Dunn County Northern Lights Chorus Annual Barbershop Show. I talked with college junior Joel Bernthal about the event and it went something like this: Me: Joel, do you want to go to a barbershop show tonight? Joel: Alright. So we went.

The first half of the show featured the chorus that I sing in doing songs about the old west: Home on the Range, Don't Fence Me In, etc. The second half of the program featured two professional barbershop quartets from Minnesota, Kordal Kombat and Tonality. After the show Joel and I went to the "afterglow" at the Whitetail Golf Course in Colfax. An afterglow is the barbershop equivalent of a cast party. Anyone is invited and there's food and drink and lots of singing until the building closes. The cool thing about the afterglow is that you get to rub shoulders with the guest artists. Before the end of the night, Joel was being coached by two championship-level quartets and he was holding his own with them on tenor! Check out a few pictures. The two quartets, Joel, and myself, were still singing at midnight when the party finished mainly on account of the restaurant turning out the lights and locking the doors. We both made some new friends and had a great musical experience. Maybe another time I'll write about how a fellow there told me it was great that I was Joel's Greek teacher and was so impressed that our college taught four years of Biblical Greek before seminary. You really never know the conversations you're going to get into and where...