Mo’ Harmony: Same values, new name

Photo courtesy of Aaron Diament

When walking through Chapman’s club fair in recent weeks, you might have noticed the array of a cappella groups recruiting members. From Sound Check to The Chaptones, there are many options for a vocalist looking for a community. One group in particular, though, had a bit of a barrier when recruiting members.

Chapman’s Mo’ Harmony, previously known as Men of Harmony, was a long-standing men's a cappella group. This year, at the club fair, while going through the normal recruitment process, Vice President Matthew Dewey noticed something that made him question the structure of their group. 

“I kept seeing really talented female vocalists going by our table to like Simply Vocale, The Chaptones and Sound Check,” said Dewey.

Dewey, a sophomore screenwriting major, felt that while the team was technically inclusive, the name turned some talented people away. Throughout the years of its existence, Men of Harmony had always been open to all members regardless of identity; as long as you could sing within the tenor and bass range, you could be on the team. 

When Dewey noticed the reaction the group was getting simply because of their name, he posed the issue to President Borey Kong, a senior biology major who has been on the team for all four years of his college career. Kong told The Panther that changing the name had been on his agenda for some time.

“It's been on my mind for a year, like last year, I was already thinking about doing the name change just because I wanted to promote a group that was based on inclusivity,” Kong said.

With this new name change, Kong and Dewey were able to recruit more non-male members who fit well into the group. Sophomore creative producing major Sarah Falco said that while she had her doubts initially, she is now confident that the group is the right place for her.

“I thought that it wasn’t an option for me to join because of the former name Men of Harmony. I thought that it was only men,” said Falco. “For that reason, I feel very good about the shift, and also I felt very welcome there.”

The group's rebranding was sparked after some hardships in the previous year. Due to the absence of a music director, the group couldn’t continue. MOH was disbanded for an entire semester, and Kong was deeply affected by the group’s absence.

“It did really resonate with me, when I saw what my life was like without my a capella group,” Kong said. “A lot of my peers would often ask me ‘When is MOH performing?’ Because they really enjoyed the performances.”

The disbanding affected not only Kong and his peers but also Dewey, who had just joined as a new member. He said he was excited to begin with the group when he was notified it was no longer continuing.

“I was in the group for, I think it was literally, like, 20 minutes because we got accepted into the group, and then 20 minutes later, I got an email saying our group is disbanding,” he said.

With Kong’s time on the team almost cut short, he knew that if he was going to bring the group back, he wanted to put inclusivity first. But getting people to audition and join was the most difficult challenge they had to face. 

“(The hardest part was) seeing if people would even be interested in joining the group,” said Kong. “I was down to probably about five people, including myself, before the auditions, and now we're a solid group of 17. So really, it's weird, but it really worked in our favor.”

Now that the team is up and running, they are taking the semester to settle into their new dynamic. Falco said she is still adjusting to singing as a tenor, but that the flexibility of the group has been accommodating.

“Our music director is very flexible about (singing low enough) too, with me and the other two non-male members,” Falco told The Panther. “And like being flexible with if we can't hit a low enough note, we can sort of let other people carry there.” 

While they adjust, Mo’ Harmony will take a break from competing in the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICAA) and focus on working together as a team.

“Since we're coming back, we have a brand new group,” Dewey said. “We wanted to focus more on both like just creating, creating our environment and also collaborating with other a capella groups.” 

As everything falls into place with Mo’ Harmony, Kong ensures that the values are still the same; the group just has a different name.

“I think that we created a comfortable environment where people can, you know, freely, freely express themselves. And I think that that's just a wonderful thing,” said Dewey.