Submitted by Sounds of Aloha on
After two years of lock-down, on May 7, 2022 the Sounds of Aloha Chorus brought back its Annual Show! This year's production was an original musical melodrama, a western comedy called "Rhinestone Rides Again!" The audience was invited to dress in western garb themselves and, like in any good melodrama, cheer for the chivalrous hero Rhinestone and his horse Bruce, boo and hiss for the dastardly villain Black Bart, and sigh for the plucky heroine Sweet Sue. Joined by guest performers Miguel Cadoy, Stephanie Conching, Sophie LeFebvre, Peggy Wagner, and Plaid-itude, a women's barbershop quartet formed just for the occasion, the chorus guys and quartets H4, Funny Bones, and VHF spun a yarn full of great songs and laughs.
The play was followed by an audience sing-along led by quartet 21 North, an appearance by quartet 19th Avenue, and then our featured guest quartet, the outstanding 2008 international quartet champs OC Times. Their return to the Sounds of Aloha show and Hawaii Theatre marked their first barbershop chapter show since March 2020! As always, their high energy style and musical artistry brought down the house.
The finale of the show was a musical Tribute to World Peace combining the chorus and guest quartets with the high school singers with this year's Hawaii A Cappella Academy -- also the first one post-pandemic! Our young guest vocalists received the sheet music and digital learning tracks for the piece ahead of time and had a clinic the day of the show with guest clinicians Bonnie McKibben, SOA's former musical director and member of the 1990 International Sweet Adelines Quartet Champions, Panache, and Tim Waurick, a Sounds of Aloha chapter member well known to local audiences and barbershoppers worldwide as the tenor of the 2004 international men's championship quartet, Vocal Spectrum. Tim also contributed a key solo in the show, with his customary roof-raising flair.
On this the 100th Anniversary of the Hawaii Theatre, the Sounds of Aloha Chorus was especially thrilled to be able to reinstitute our Annual Show in this wonderful venue with which we have so much history.
