The Kings of Herts Chorus

HARPENDEN BARBERSHOP HARMONY CLUB

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Dan Parkes is hands-on when it comes to helping our afterglow bar steward, shifting a piano, or putting up the risers we sometimes stand on. A mean street-dancer, he’s vocal too! - with us and with the local amateur operatic society.

Ken Smith’s voice is heard whenever there’s a guitar at hand; as a King among Kings; as one of the quartet Broadside; and with his brother Roger (of Oxford Harmony) bringing together scratch ensembles as Brothers in Harmony – click Visits on the navbar. Ken was a respectable banker, in the good old days…

Bari

Bass

David Lumsdon’s credentials in architecture, management and economics have yielded to letters-patent from BABS and a Kings’ course of yore. Once buildings and  databases came to life on his desk-top; now his neck-top harbours numbers to croon  and numbers to crunch, driving this website.

Richard Burton is an immigrant: he overran Hadrian’s Wall at the age of two. Before becoming a King in 2011, he sang in a short-lived staff choir at a school where he offers IT support. An outdoor man into dog-walking, fishing, sailing, kayaking and e-biking. (e-biking?) after thirty years in the London Fire Brigade.

Lead

Tenor

How time flies

when you’re having fun...

In the 1980s, a group of young men in a Harpenden local put their heads together and decided to sing in harmony. They succeeded. Kings always succeed.

Today, we number around fifty, including a healthy regular turnout of thirty at weekly rehearsals, plus singouts, concerts, national events and home-and-away do’s with other harmony clubs.

Ages range from early twenties to infinity. We originate from all over the British Isles, but - of course - we’re based in Herts. We’re a harmony of bankers, a builder, two architects, a naval architect, a design engineer, two lecturers,  a minicab driver, a fireman turned educator, a shipbroker, some IT people, an oilman, a financial manager, a car mechanic, a wholesaler, a sales manager, a programme director, energetic retirees and, these days, a couple of job-seekers.

RIGHT: A selection of voices

Musical Director

Michael Bowden joined Kings of Herts Chorus in May  2011 and brought with him a style of direction quite different from his predecessor’s. He works us hard at Thursday rehearsals, letting up only occasionally with the characteristic grin captured here.

Aficionados will know Michael from his dedication in leading the Islington Operatic Society; and in his background he can lay claim to arranging and directing  barbershop music and more, so the Chorus looks forward to responding to his arm-waving with a wider repertoire. There are no plans to compete with the IOS  - but watch this space!