She’s the bridge in four-part harmony

For a woman who leads an a capella barbershop chorus, Harriette Walters has an amazingly competitive outlook to life.

“We measure our achievement like any sport that’s competitive,” she said. “Listen to any coach. We all say the same thing.”

The “thing” that Walters, a Baldwin resident, tells her “players” is that reaching technical perfection is not enough. The singing, like any sport, she said, “has to be from the heart.”

Walters’ group, the Greater Nassau Chorus, has chalked up numerous wins and high rankings among its parent group, Sweet Adelines International.

Walters speaks proudly about her troupe’s accomplishments, including placing in the top ten 10 among the world’s women’s barbershop choruses in a competition in October.

As the director of the chorus for 31 years, Walters, a 25-year resident of Baldwin, has led the group to 11 regional first-place finishes and eight top 10 International finishes. This, despite the fact that the Greater Nassau group only has about 60 singers; most of the other groups have 150 or more.

“These are high-achieving women,” she said, noting that although the singers have other commitments, including family and work, the troupe pledges to attend weekly rehearsals at First United Methodist Church of Baldwin.

“We have to be that way,” said Walters. “At the higher level, you must be about perfection and connecting to the characters. If they don’t do at rehearsal, they won’t do it onstage.”

For Walters, the chorus is a labor of love that evokes her family. Her mother was a pianist and her father, a mechanical engineer at Grumman, was a singer with Nassau Mid Island, a men’s barbershop chorus. Both of her parents died young, said Walters, an Oceanside native.

She said the music was always a presence in her home although it “wasn’t anything that was ever talked about.” But she was always in choirs in school. And she tried other types of music, but the barbershop format always drew her back. The music became a bridge to her family.

“It’s a really old American art form that’s been around for a long time,” said Walters, whose husband, Robert, is president of the Baldwin Eagles Soccer Club.