Harmony Showcase provides variety

Published 7:38 pm Monday, March 17, 2014

FILE PHOTO | DAILY NEWS A CAPPELLA: Carolina Chord Connection members and guests sing a cappella during the group’s luncheon at Washington’s First Baptist Church in 2011.

FILE PHOTO | DAILY NEWS
A CAPPELLA: Carolina Chord Connection members and guests sing a cappella during the group’s luncheon at Washington’s First Baptist Church in 2011.

If you can’t catch the Harmony Showcase at 2 p.m. at Transitions Theater in Washington on March 29, don’t despair. There are two other performances scheduled, one that day, and the other April 5.

Carolina Chord Connection, a barbershop chorus based in Greenville, is presenting its Harmony Showcase at 7 p.m. March 29 at Greenville’s First Christian Church on 14th Street. The showcase will be presented at 7 p.m. April 5 at Belhaven’s First Christian Church.

Not only will Carolina Chord Connection perform, but so will Whammy, a guest quartet, and the Magnolia Belles, a group sponsored by the East Carolina Alumni Association’s. Whammy finished fourth in the most recent barbershop-music contest in North Carolina. The quartet is from the Raleigh area.

“They can expect of variety of music from a cappella singing by the Carolina Chord Connection chorus plus a performance by the … Magnolia Belles,” said Bob Paciocco, a member of Carolina Chord Connection and a Washington resident.

“The repertoire includes love songs, good, old-fashion barbershop songs and patriotic songs,” Paciocco said.

As for Whammy, the group’s members are younger than most members of similar groups, he said.

“They’re a barbershop quartet, so they’ll be doing a cappella like we’ll be doing,” Paciocco said.

Whammy’s singers are Craig McDaniel, lead; Matt Gorman, tenor; Dr. Bill Adams, bass; and Israel Keefer, baritone. Adams serves as musical director of the Durham-based Heart of Carolina Chorus.

Whammy will not perform at the Belhaven show.

The Magnolia Belles, founded in 2006, is an a cappella group.

“The Magnolia Belles name recalls the beautiful magnolia trees that adorn our campus and honors the memory of three sisters who came to East Carolina Teachers College from Magnolia, NC in the 1920s,” reads a page on the East Carolina Alumni Association’s website.

Tickets are $10 each in advance or $12 each at the door. For tickets, call 252-439-1116 or visit the Inner Banks Artisans’ Center on Main Street in Washington of Fox’s Pizza in Chocowinity. Transitions Theater is at 239 E. Eighth St., Washington.

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

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