Many Voices, One Chorus

Our Mission

The Greater Richmond Chorus (GRC) of Sweet Adelines International (SAI) is a nonprofit organization of treble singers dedicated to advancing the musical art form of barbershop a cappella four-part harmony through vocal and showmanship education, performance, competition, and community service.

Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

The Greater Richmond Chorus creates harmony where every voice matters. We foster a culture that provides a joyful place to share our uniqueness within a global community united in song. We follow these guiding principles, as set forth by Sweet Adelines International:

• Musical Excellence: We honor and embrace artistry, education, and innovation in the performance of women's a cappella music while championing the barbershop style.
• Culture of Belonging: We create harmony where every voice matters. We foster a culture that provides a joyful place to share our uniqueness within a global community united in song.
• Diversity & Inclusion: We celebrate our differences as essential to the rich harmony that unites us. As we recognize barbershop’s African American origins, we reject discrimination and unwaveringly strive toward greater awareness, openness and understanding of each other.
• Personal Empowerment & Leadership: We encourage and empower everyone to lead from where they stand. We foster individual skills, nurture personal growth, and provide education and mentoring to develop strong, effective leaders on and off the stage.
• Outreach: We build strong connections by sharing our love of barbershop harmony throughout our communities, countries, and the world.

GRC Culture

As a team that values respect for all members, it is important that all members understand and follow our shared vision. This vision is articulated throughout mission and vision statements and our Core Values.

The vision of GRC is that we are a united and dynamic chorus. We highly value musical excellence and each other. We are committed to personal responsibility, growth, and positivity.

Every member of GRC makes a pledge to align to our Core Values when they become a member. These values drive everything we do as a chorus and as individual singers. The acronym JEUCE helps remind us of each component:

Performance

We love to entertain by putting on our own musical events each year for the community, our friends, and families. We sing at annual shows, a number of community events, private receptions, and at an annual competition. We also partner with local memory care/assisted living facilities and community nonprofit organizations to help spread the joy of music.

If you're looking for a unique musical experience to liven up your event, please get in touch! We can customize a program to meet your needs.

Education

In addition to sharing our music with others, another great passion of ours is learning more about the art of a cappella singing. Vocal instruction is a regular part of chorus rehearsals, and a very important component of the chorus experience. Multiple times a year, we receive coaching from a visiting master in the art of barbershop, where we learn many fabulous new techniques to elevate our performances and musicianship.

Competition

We are a competitive chorus, and raising our singing level is part of the fun we have as we strive for musical excellence.

Each spring, we participate in the Sweet Adelines International Region 14 chorus competition in North Carolina. Competitions are an exciting time for quartets and choruses from our region to come together and sing for each other and get constructive feedback from a panel of judges. The winners of the regional competition in both quartet and chorus categories travel to our International Competition, held each fall in a city selected each year.

Quartets

Greater Richmond Chorus is home to a number of wonderful quartets, and we are very proud of them! We also have a thriving novice quartet program to encourage and support singers who want to extend their skills and explore quartet singing.

Affiliation

Greater Richmond Chorus is a chapter of Sweet Adelines, International, a non-profit organization of approximately 23,000 members in choruses and quartets, worldwide. Their headquarters is in Tulsa, Oklahoma.