Eye of Modok

Left to right: Marshall-lead, me-bass, Steven-baritone and Paul-tenor - The One Night Stand-Ins

Left to right: Nancy-baritone, Grace-bass, Wendy-lead and Becky-tenor - The Treblemakers

The whole gang with our hostess Sarah Randt

I’m amazed at the access I get through music in this town. I’ve already performed a few times at the British Ambassador’s residence, not that surprising when you consider that the conductor for the International Festival Chorus is British, but when the chance came up to perform at my own native US Ambassador’s house, of course I jumped on it! To make matters even better, it was barbershop quartet style music!

Technically, we were performing for the for the ambassador’s wife, Sarah Randt, as the true stars of the show were friends of hers from her Hong Kong days before coming to Beijing. It turns out that Sarah was quite active in the music community in Hong Kong and now invites her friends, The Treblemakers, a female barberhop quartet style musical group, to perform in Beijing every year for a select group of around 80 guests. This year, to change things up a bit, they decided to sing a duet with a male group for one of the songs. Only problem is, there is no male barbershop quartet group in Beijing. Well, there is now. Or, there was at least for that night. Thus, the One Night Stand-Ins was born.

The show was a tribute to the great American Songwriter, Irving Berlin. All told there were a total of 14 songs, two of which the male quartet sang alone, and one of which the male quartet sang as part of an octet with the ladies quartet. The songs were chosen to illustrate certain stages in the life of Irving Berlin and dialogue accompanied each song so that the audience (and I) could learn something of the history of the composer. It was a great show, especially the ladies, who really had their act together. The One Night Stand-Ins gave a passable performance, which was, from the feedback we got, well recieved. I enjoyed it so much, I’d love the chance to do it again. We’ll have to change the name though.

[tags] barbershop, quartet, embassy, ambassador, US, Beijing, Irving, Berlin, treblemakers [/tags]