Who is 8th Amendment and what are they up to?

I’m directing (and singing in) an octet of tenor, baritone, and bass singers. It’s fun and we are consistently psyched to sing together. We’re called 8th Amendment.

The other 8th Amendment

I love singing in harmony. For reasons I am unable to verbalize, I am especially drawn to singing with voices in a similar range to my own. This is why I have recruited “men’s” ensembles over the years. These days, I’m trying to avoid the cis gendering stuff, so I’m looking for other ways to label such a choir.

For a while, I called it a TTBB (tenor 1, tenor 2, baritone, bass) ensemble. Unfortunately, that just meant explaining the abbreviation every time I shared it. So, when I started to rehearse with this current octet, we chose a name.

“8th Amendment” is the name we chose. It has many meanings, but mostly is a reference to the fact that there are eight of us and we care about our culture where we live (Finger Lakes, New York, USA).

Singing Live

We are preparing for a concert on the 14th of June. We’ll perform twice that day: at 10:00AM and 3:00PM. Both concerts will be at the same venue in Trumansburg, New York, USA. (Check the BandsInTown listing for details including livestream.)

The afternoon concert will include many of our musical friends. In addition to the octet, there will be duets, piano solos, a barbershop quartet, and madrigal singers. We’re quite stoked to be presenting this wonderful afternoon of music.

Practice and What’s Ahead

As you can imagine, we are practicing diligently. It takes work to learn the songs for these concerts. The ability to blend; maintain rhythm and pitch; and to know each other well enough to make the music beautiful for ourselves and listeners takes even more effort. At least until it becomes effortless.

I have no idea if 8th Amendment will perform again in the future. It may be a once-and-done deal. No matter what, I can fully feel the rewards of singing together. So, we will keep singing with this group or whatever choir is next…