26th Annual Rexburg Barbershop Festival to showcase champion quartet After Hours
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REXBURG — Now in its 26th year, the Rexburg Barbershop Festival happens this weekend, featuring world-class a cappella talent and high school performers from all over the region. Concerts are this Friday and Saturday, and tickets are available at eastidmc.com/tix.
This year’s headlining act is After Hours, an award-winning quartet founded in 2007 in Peoria, Illinois. The group won first place at the 2018 Barbershop Harmony Society International Quartet Championship, a festival that has been running yearly since 1939.
“I can not emphasize enough the pure talent and musicality of this group,” says organizer Thomas Scott. “It will absolutely leave the people of Rexburg floored. They do things with their voices that you didn’t know you could do with your voice. They’ve traveled around the world singing, and they have come together here in Rexburg for one weekend only, thanks to a grant from the Association of International Champions and Harmony International.”
The long-running Rexburg Barbershop Festival brings high school musicians from east Idaho and Montana together each year to learn from award-winning musicians and to perform for their friends and family. Kim Newcomb will return as this year’s women’s clinician, with After Hours as the men’s clinicians. The high school concert will be this Friday, Feb. 28, at 7 p.m. at the Madison Performing Arts Center at 2300 University Boulevard in Rexburg.
On Saturday, After Hours will share the stage with the Carousel Chorus, the Idaho Falls A Cappella Chorus, Luminescence, and Sound Check. The concert begins at 7 p.m. at the Romance Theater, 2 East Main Street in Rexburg.
Tickets to both shows are limited, so Scott encourages everyone to get tickets early at eastidmc.com/tickets.
“Tons of artists will be performing, and then After Hours is just going to blow you away,” Scott says. “This opportunity does not come around very often at all. They are world-class talents in a small town environment.”
Scott has been involved with the Rexburg Barbershop Festival for many years. He has been the festival director for three years, following in the footsteps of festival founder Phil Ricks, who was succeeded by Cecil Ricks. Scott took the reins after Cecil’s passing and hopes to keep the tradition alive for years to come.
“Barbershop four-part harmony and a cappella harmony really changed me and my life in 2008 when I started with a chorus down in Phoenix,” Scott says. “So when I had the opportunity to either watch the festival die or have it keep going, I was like, ‘I want to change the lives of these kids.’”
Scott says several of the festival’s business sponsors are past participants of the festival.
“The reason they’re sponsors is because they did this when they were in high school, and now they’re the business owners looking to change the lives of these high school kids.”
Scott says all concert proceeds go back into the festival, “So that next year we can come back and do this again.”
This year and in recent years, the Rexburg Barbershop Festival has served high schools from all over east Idaho, including Madison, Bonneville, Rigby, Teton, Sugar-Salem, Thunder Ridge, North Fremont, Century, Marsh Valley, Shelley, Beaverhead High School from Dillon, Montana.
Scott says it’s an extra special experience for the Montana students, as it provides a unique experience to sing in a larger group than they’re used to.
“This is their big event,” he says. “This is where they get to sing with a real chorus, and it’s pretty magical for them.”
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