Today we feature a Chapter member for whom music and singing is practically inseparable from his identity, his happiness and a passionate 47 year avocational pursuit; 15 years of which he has contributed abundant energy, time, skills and ebullient enthusiasm to the Big Apple Chorus. We are lucky and proud to turn the spotlight on a member, the likes of, Pat Kelly:

"Music has always been just a part of who I am" It's no surprise that Pat's childhood would draw him to popular songs, melody and vocal harmony. He recalls, sometime in 1960, at the impressionable age of 9 years, how he looked admiringly up to his 18 year old brother, Joseph and his brother's friends, who, living near Newark New Jersey, were always listening to singers like Bobby Rydell, Elvis Presley, The Del Vikings and The Four Seasons and do-wop.

The itch to perform caught him around that time too; in 7th grade, at Edison Jr. High School, Pat auditioned and got the leading roll as George M. Cohan, in "Yankee Doodle Dandy" The following year he grabbed the opportunity to perform in a school show as Elvis Presley singing, "Hound Dog" and, as a high school freshmen, he sang and played the part of Al Jolson, in "You Ain't Heard Nothing Yet". Unwittingly he was also having fun getting his first taste of classic "standards" from The Great American Songbook.

Pat, like many of his peers, when the Beatles first came to the US, took up guitar. By his high school Jr. year he was the lead singer in a popular dance band, "The Saints" Besides performing cover songs they also did originals with lots of three-part harmony, influenced by the Beach Boys. Many of Pat's band's songs were also written by him. "Were you cool? " I asked. "We thought so…we had Nehru jackets!" Yes, the girls dug them too!

In his early 20s, Pat was performing solo, guitar and vocals, semi-professionally, in bars and cafes around New Jersey and later in California. He continued to favor melodic, lyrical, harmonious songs like those of Neil Young, James Taylor and Willie Nelson.

After satiating his '70s wanderlust, he eventually returned to NJ, settling down to marry and start a family with the New Jersey, sweetheart he had taken to her Senior promo and was his Californian expedition companion, Sandy Magliaro (who, I am happy to report, is still his lovely wife and is still a sweetheart-as well as a great homemaker, hostess, mom and, today, a savvy barbershop listener).

But, you can't take the performer out of the man. In 1979 Pat saw an ad reading "Wanted Men Who Love To Sing". The Bloomfield chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society posted it. He attended the meeting and essentially joined that night. Now, 28 years later, he's still an active and involved member of the Barbershop Harmony Society.

In 1981 at Farcher's Grove (once a NJ institution and singing event, now defunct) three fellows from the Iselin chapter invited Pat to sing Tenor in what was to become his first quartet: "Cats-N-Jammers" (Tom Southard-lead, Steve Kuchinski-Bass, Mark Dubivsky- Baritone). They also successfully drew Pat into the Iselin chapter.

In fact, Pat spent twelve year with several of the New Jersey's best barbershop choruses before hunkering down with Manhattan and the Big Apple Chorus in 1991. He was a member of Livingston's "Dapper Dans of Harmony Chorus" under directors: Dave Mittelstadt, George Avener and Renee Craig. The "Dans" eventually merged with the Montclair Chapter, where Pat sang and served as chorus performance coach. He also served as the Director of The Morris Music Men chorus of the Morris County Chapter.

Beside being a dependable singer and chapter leader, Pat has also admirably served the Barbershop Harmony Society's Mid Atlantic District twice as its Northern Division's Contest Chairman, staging the region's largest and challenging annual convention.

Besides being a stalwart chorus member all these year, Pat remains a passionate quarteter and an occasional competitor too, singing both Tenor and Lead (though not simultaneously) To date, he has been in 6 officially "registered" society quartets!

After "Cats-N-Jammers" disbanded, in 1985, Pat briefly sang tenor in "Not Brothers"; (Mitchell Shapiro -Lead, Dave Welter-Bass, Mark Lubart-Bari). At the time, it seemed that every quartet was made up of and named after family members; The guys in this quartet however, were not brothers and made no bones about it. They competed in the Atlantic Division and came in almost last; Pat was not deterred even if the quartet disbanded shortly after their first division.

Soon after, Pat joined, what was to become, his longest standing and most active quartet named "Park Ave"(1985-1990) with Jim Batykefer (lead), Jim Bongard (Bari) and Jack McDermott (Bass).

In 1992 with a lead singer's gung ho personality he switch to lead singing because, "I wanted to tell the story". He sang in "The New York Chimes" (Steve Brecker -Bari, Paul O'Connor -Bass, Neal Siegal -Tenor).

From there he moved onto sing in "Applause" and "Vocalese" (Glynn Fluitt -Bari, Mike Hydeck -Bass and Steve Dunie (Tenor in "Applause") and Scott Russell (Tenor in "Vocalese"). Today his favorite quartet gigs are singing at the third leg of the Triple Crown at Belmont Park and an occasional production of "The Music Man"

As an ambitious and experienced quarteter he has been an invitee of the North Carolina Harmony Brigade and he is a founding member and operations manager of the new Atlantic Harmony Brigade (associations focused on intensive quartet singing, networking and development).

With the Big Apple Chorus, Pat has earned the distinction of being among a select few to have performed solos (brief ones albeit) perennially at: the South Street Seaport, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Symphony Space and on the Big Apple's holiday CD recording, "The Chorus Tree" He is a member of the Big Apple's music team and has served as the Chapter's event coordinator and as an Assistant (Lead) Section leader.

Somehow he finds time to run his own residential appraisal business, and, with Sandy they have brought up four children: Erin, Luke, Suzanne, Ben How does his family feel about Pat's barbershopping? "Well, Sandy likes that I have this hobby; she likes the people" and "you know… a little absence makes the heart grow fonder" he says with a laugh, while adding that they always savored the chance to lose the kids for a weekend once a year to enjoy the District convention at the shore. "It probably kept me from drinking too"

For all the cool gigs and accolades Pat's most memorable barbershop experience was mentoring a group of inexperienced Morris County chorus's men who had never tried quarteting. When the chapter was overwhelmed by requests for quartets to deliver singing Valentine's Day messages (as part of a chapter fund raiser) Pat fearlessly lead the men through 10 touchingly intimate performance as a quartet all in one day! "It was great because at the end of the day, these guys were so excited. They couldn't believe they did it and how well they did"

What has kept him singing barbershop all these years? "I just love it; I like singing; I sing every day. it's good for your soul. I like the camaraderie; it's where my circles of friends are too. He's also found that practicing barbershop chord voicing and progressions has improved his guitar playing, "for me a light came on. I wound up understanding music other than rock & roll, country and do-wop" But then he was never far from the home of those first loves either.

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Steve Adams	Dan George	Gabe Butler	Glynn Fluitt	Jim and Michael Steiner

Scott Brannon	Gary Ford	Brad Verebay	Vinny Haynes	Frank Hendricks	The Patricias

Bob Kovach	Joe Husstege	Gordon Harrison	Roger Payne	Dick White

John Gouveia	Pat Kelly