Bringing Barbershop Harmony to Veritas Prep

Veritas Prep is home to a not-so-traditional barber shop quartet. Here’s there’s the twist – they are a quartet with a little extra harmony, boasting five members instead of four. The musical group was born of performers who were not ready to hang up their straw hats and striped vests after their debuts in the 2023 school musical.

“Originally, we had our production of Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man last year, and within the musical itself, there is a barber shop quartet,” said senior Ethan Mathew, who sings baritone and lead for the group. They had a lot of fun with the genre of music and decided to form a singing group. “This is a really fun thing, and we want to keep it going,” he said.

Mathew admits to coming up with the group name, Shave Shack. While no one in the group, originally consisting of a whopping eight members, was crazy about the name, they couldn’t decide on anything else, and Mathew said the name just stuck. Three of the members graduated last spring, leaving the remaining five to form this talented quintet with Henry Burch (junior), Cade Huseth (junior), Ethan Mathew (senior), Benedict Tawney (sophomore), and Jude Tawney (senior).

The barbershop style is characterized by its four-part harmony without instrumental accompaniment, or a cappella. “It’s just you and your voice. You’ll have four main parts: the base – the low notes, the baritone – a bit higher, then you’ll have the tenor, who have the really difficult job of singing those really high notes that you do not think is humanly possible to sing, and you have the leads – now the leads are the people that are usually singing the melody. They’ll stick out the most in your memory. Those four parts all come together and then we’ll make some music,” explained Mathew.

The harmonic vocals these young men deliver will bring you back to the simpler eras of Americana. Their voices transcend their young ages and transport you to a euphoric nostalgia. Before you know it, you will find yourself tapping your foot to the familiar ragtime tunes.

The group loves to sing but found they didn’t have a lot of opportunity in other music groups to sing a cappella. “Here we have more control over our harmonies, our tempo, and that gives us a lot of freedom. Our harmonies are more close-knit. It takes a lot of effort to be able to get our harmonies right,” said Mathew. The group is overseen by choir director and music instructor, Melissa Sassaman, who provides musical instruction and support to the group.

Shave Shack has performed at school assemblies and most recently represented Great Hearts at the Charters at the Capitol event. The group is definitely getting much deserved notoriety for their talents and with “Barbershop Quartet Day” coming up on April 11^th, when they will perform in studio for an Arizona Midday segment on 12News and a live morning segment on Fox 10 Phoenix.

“It’s just a better sort of community, too. Smaller group, so we form closer bonds with each other,” said Mathew.

“It’s just really fun,” added senior Jude Tawney. “It’s less serious music I would say. It’s fun to sing and you can kind of get into it a little bit.”

Do you have a story or know of a story that you would like to see featured at Great Hearts?  Please contact jmoore@greatheartsamerica.org.