Sing It Forward
A chord that starts a lifetime.
In school gyms and summer clinics across the country, a teenager who has never heard four voices lock into a chord hears it for the first time, and something clicks. That's where a lifetime of singing begins, and it's what Educator Outreach is for.
98.4%
of young people in our Next Generation program plan to keep singing barbershop for life.
$76,797
awarded last year in scholarships that put young quartets and choruses on the contest stage.
300+
students reached when a single chapter reimagined how it works with its local schools.
Figures from the 2025 Barbershop Harmony Society Annual Report.
What Educator Outreach is
It's the Society's long game: getting barbershop in front of students before they've ever heard it, and putting real support behind the educators who teach them. Through summer clinics like Harmony Explosion, in-school visits, and the broader NextGen pipeline, often in partnership with chapters, districts, and the Association of International Champions, young singers spend a day, a weekend, or a week inside the sound. Some leave with a scholarship. Almost all leave changed.
What it means for the students
For a lot of teenagers, a barbershop clinic is the first time they've made a sound like this with other people: no headphones, no screen, just voices finding a chord in a room. The students singing melody discover there are three more parts holding them up. The ones who've never been picked for anything find that here, they're essential.
And it tends to stick. Young singers who come through these programs overwhelmingly say they plan to keep singing, many carrying it into a chorus, a quartet, or a music classroom of their own years later. A single weekend becomes a thread that runs through a whole life.
What it means for the educators
Most school music teachers are a department of one, stretched across choir, band, and everything in between. Educator Outreach gives them something rare: ready-made repertoire, visiting clinicians who know how to coach teenagers, and a community of singers eager to help. For chapters, it's a reason to sing that has nothing to do with a contest score, and a direct hand in who shows up to rehearsal a decade from now.
It's also the gift that compounds. Fund a clinic this year and you're not buying a single afternoon. You're seeding the singers, directors, and audiences barbershop will depend on long after.
Every gift is a bet on a sixteen-year-old who hasn't discovered this yet.
Two ways to grow the next generation
Help reach the next singer
Every gift to Sing It Forward funds clinics, scholarships, and the educators who put barbershop in front of students who've never heard it, including the ones who'll carry it forward.
Bring a Champion Quartet to your School
Through the AIC Outreach program, international champion quartets lead in-school workshops, youth festivals, and performances in under-resourced communities. Local and regional organizations can apply for a grant to bring a champion quartet to their students, with ten grants awarded for 2026.
Support the next generation of harmony.
Every gift to Sing It Forward reaches a student who hasn't heard this yet. Add your voice today.