Harford’s Upper Chesapeake Chorus is in perfect harmony

Barbershop singing is more than a guy thing. Women do it, too. For nearly half a century, the Upper Chesapeake Chorus, an all-female ensemble, has entertained audiences with their four-part harmony, a capella style begun by one gender and enhanced by the other.

Immortalized by a male quartet in the movie “The Music Man,”  the genre breached stereotypes long ago.

“People think of barbershop music and they think of four guys in straw hats. Well, we’re not them,” said Beth Rupert, a founding member of the UCC. “We say that men invented [the barbershop style] and women perfected it.”

The chorus, 32 strong, will perform at the Bel Air Festival for the Arts on Sept. 17. Its eclectic repertoire ranges from pop to patriotic, and from show tunes to standards. In a one-hour concert, the women, ages 21 to 81, might sing everything from “Over The Rainbow” to “Rock Around The Clock.” They’ll harmonize familiar tunes by Doris Day and Bonnie Raitt. One minute, they’ll belt out “The Star-Spangled Banner”; the next, a hit by Fleetwood Mac.

Members include teachers, lawyers, bank tellers and new mothers who arrive, babes in chest slings, for Monday practice (7 p.m. at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Aberdeen).

“We’re a sisterhood, on and offstage, with a camaraderie that hooks you from the start,” said Rupert, 73, of Bel Air. Performed in sync, barbershop triggers a natural high, she said:

“When all the voices are in tune, it creates a vibration, and you can feel the harmony.”

How good is the group? Three times, in recent years, the UCC has dispatched regional competition and advanced to the Sweet Adeline Internationals, in 2011, 2012 and 2014.

Twenty times a year, the UCC performs at town functions, senior centers, fund-raisers and nursing homes. Most members are middle-aged, like Carol Klein, 66, of Bel Air.

“Singing barbershop provides a sense of relief, and it keeps your brain sharp,” said Klein, who joined the group in 1982. “I’ll sing until they put me in my grave.”

Tyler Horton directs the chorus. At 30, he is barely half the age of many members, a gap not lost on the group.

“Most of us have shoes that are as old as Tyler,” Rupert said. “But barbershop was made for him; he can hear a bad note from a mile off.”

Klein described Horton’s aural skills in another way.

“Musically, Tyler has the ears of an elephant,” she said.

Director of music and liturgy at St. Margaret Catholic Church in Bel Air, Horton’s roots in the group run deep. His late grandmother sang with the UCC, and Horton’s goal is to rebuild the chorus to its pre-pandemic numbers.

“We’re on the upswing,” he said. “Women who never sang barbershop have joined and fallen in love with the style. The hobby really grabs you. One year, while on a ski trip, Carol [Klein] broke her pelvis and was back at practice within two weeks.

“We have a saying that ‘You come for the music and stay for the people.’ ”