The Sounds of Aloha Chorus (SOA) is led by one of Hawaii’s home-grown local barbershop talents, Bryce Irvine. Bryce became Interim Musical Director early in 2023 when longtime Musical Director Mark Conching, also a home-grown leader, had to step back to attend to professional commitments.
Bryce first learned about the Sounds of Aloha Chorus at the tender age of nine, as a member of the Honolulu Boy Choir, when one of the chorus quartets came to sing for the choir's retreat. He attended the next SOA Annual Show in 2003, and the showcase of barbershop singing he heard there convinced him he wanted to try it himself someday. He eventually joined the chorus at age 17. In the years since then Bryce became a lead section leader and then assistant director, and he sings lead in the with the quartet 19th Avenue.
Bryce grew up in Kailua and is a graduate of Kamehameha Schools Kapālama. When not engrossed in barbershop harmony, he is the Assistant Musical Director for the youth program Hawaii Education of the ARTS (HEARTS) and a staff member for the Windward Clubhouse of the Boys and Girls Club. After performing as a kid for the Honolulu Boy Choir, in SOA’s former youth barbershop group 8zero8, and at Kamehameha Schools, as an adult Bryce went on to perform in six community musical productions directed by the legendary Ron Bright, for three years with the University of Hawaii at Mānoa Chamber singers, and for 11 years in the traveling musical “Honu By the Sea,” with which he toured worldwide.
INTERIM ASSISTANT MUSICAL DIRECTOR ROB HARTLEY
Sounds of Aloha Interim Assistant Music Director Rob Hartley was introduced to harmony singing early in life; his family would gather in the living room after dinner and sing. This progressed into lifelong participation in school and church choirs. The 1964 international champion barbershop quartet champions Sidewinders hailed from a 
neighboring California city, and Rob wore out their vinyl records singing along on the tenor part. He switched to bass in his high school quartet, and after he moved to Hawaii he joined the Sounds of Aloha in 1979. Over the years he continued to perform in Hawaii quartets, most notably The Sugarcane Express, The Tropichords, and currently 19th Avenue. Rob’s career as an elementary school music teacher prepared him for the antics of the Sounds of Aloha members when he assumed the leadership of the chorus in 1987. Family obligations led him to step down in 1990, but he served a second stint as musical director from 2010 to 2013, when among other things he led the chorus to the Pan Pacific Convention in Australia.
When called upon, Rob enjoys writing parodies and arrangements, and the mere threat of one of his dad jokes is enough to bring even the most rambunctious singer in line. Over the years Rob has brought 25 men into the Barbershop Harmony Society, among them Interim Musical Director Bryce Irvine. Bryce was Rob’s assistant director for several years, and Rob is looking forward to their collaboration now that their roles are reversed.
