Paul Ellinger

Paul Ellinger is one of the most requested coaches in a cappella singing today. He is a perennial Harmony University Faculty member for the Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS).

As a performer, Paul won a District Championship singing lead with Chordiology and has more than 300 performances to his credit with the quartet. He also sang with the five-man contemporary a cappella group, elmoTHUMM, who won the Harmony Sweepstakes Chicago Regional; were Harmony Sweepstakes National Finalists; performed through two rounds of America’s Got Talent; sang for the President of the United States by request; had over 300 stage performances all around the country; once performed 40 shows in 40 cities in 90 days; were given contracts to be on the NBC show The Singoff and earned between ¼ and ½ of a million dollars during their decade-long tenure together.

Paul has presented numerous Master Classes at International Competitions; coached in many of the Areas and Regions of both Harmony Inc. and Sweet Adelines International; coached in all 17 Districts in the BHS; and coached in over half of the States in the U.S., nearly half of the Provinces of Canada, on Cruise ships, and as far as Singapore, Australia, and Indonesia.  Paul has performed with both the Nylons and members of Rockapella; is a pursued guest writer for the BHS Harmonizer.

Paul is the past Marketing VP for the Pioneer District of the BHS; is the past Membership Vice President for Pioneer; is a past member of the BHS Membership Task Force; is past Chorus Director Development Vice President; past Executive Vice President and President of the Pioneer District; and isthe only person to be inducted into the Pioneer District Hall of Fame…twice.

Paul has been teaching and working with chapters around our singing organizations on Supercharging Your Chapter, Wavebox Singing, and the Performance Sphere.  

Supercharging Your Chapter

Paul is creator of the Supercharging Your Chapter outreach which helps chapters to grow and retain members, be relevant in their communities, and also sing at higher levels more quickly and more consistently.

Here are some impressive outcomes when groups work with Paul: 

• Fifteen choruses have won most improved, some of them twice consecutively and are looking for their third!
• Quartets that have been trained in Wavebox have seen some of the largest one-year increases of placement in Barbershop Harmony Society history. 
• Additionally, seven choruses brought Paul in for a one-day “Wavebox Singing Regional” training event. Only two of the participating choruses had previously qualified for the International Contest, and some were placing last or second to last in their area. Three months later, all seven chapters qualified for International. Possibly the more impressive point is that Paul didn’t even work their contest sets; he focused solely on increasing their core competency so that every song now is sung at a higher level.

Wavebox

Paul is the creator of the Wavebox holistic approach to singing which has gone viral with singers of all styles (and now even instrumentalists are utilizing the Wavebox approach to music). 

Performance Sphere

Paul has created the Performance Sphere which distills “performance” into one elegantly simple concept allowing groups to discover why they are stalling in their progress and how to break through those perceived “glass ceilings” and move forward. And now, Paul has created The Roadmap, an approach to greater growth over time because all of the concepts build from one strategy to the next creating a clear “Roadmap” to ongoing improvements.

Team Barbershop Staff

RIC kEASTER

Ric is a member of the Huntington Tri-State Chapter and Voices of the Valley mixed chorus in Huntington, West Virginia. He continues to serve as Chapter President following his appointment in 2016 and served as the Johnny Appleseed District’s “Director of Administrative Leadership.” preparing and delivering the district’s Leadership Academy/Harmony College. At the national level, he has also served as a BHS Leadership Facilitator (conducting workshops for chapter leaders) and as a BHS Ambassador (collecting input from chapter leaders on needs). Ric’s chapter grew over 200% from 2019 to 2024 using strategies that mirror Team Barbershop’s approach to chapter growth.

Jake Bavarski

Jake Bavarsky began his Barbershop Harmony Journey as a high school vinyl collector and lover of the Boston Common and Dealer’s Choice. Jake is the current Artistic Director of Prism having directed them 2 years in a row at the International Chorus Competition. In addition he currently holds the JAD Mixed Barbershop District Championship with “Intermission” and has served on staff at the Power of Harmony Program where he educated youth of incarceration towards rehabilitation. During the day, Jake works as a Data Analyst and arranges acapella works for ensembles inside and outside of the Barbershop ecosystem. He currently resides in Pittsburgh, PA where he sings with Vocal Confluence, Homecoming (SWD), and the contemporary acapella group: Vocal Steel!

LYNN PAULS

Lynn has been a member of Valley Echoes in Abbottsford, BC, Canada since Nov 2009. Lynn began her directing journey under the expert tutelage of Charlie Metzger and attended Director Workshops at Harmony College and various other workshops and seminars. In April 2017, Lynn became their director.
Along with being a great technical help, Lynn is also Paul’s Zoom assistant.

JUDY GALLOWAY

Judy is an 18-year member of the Evergreen District (EVG) where she’s is the district webmaster, 2020 EVG Barbershopper of the Year, and has been very involved in the continued success of EVG’s Harmony College NW.
Judy is the director of the Harmony of the Gorge Chorus (BHS) in Hood River, Oregon. The chorus was one of the groups to be involved in Team Barbershop’s WAVE ONE and has more than doubled in size in the last 9 months — plus they now have an “I CAN’T SING” chorus that meets weekly.

GREG KRONLUND

Greg is a 20-year member of the Evergreen District and is on the EVG District Board for Communications, 2022 EVG Barbershopper of the Year, and he is very instrumental in EVG’s informational out-reach through targetted mailings, district calendar, social media, and the EVG DISTRICT app.
He is also the director of the growing Midday Melody Men who rehearse from Noon to 2:00pm regularly in Puyallup, Washington.

GLENN HAYES

Glenn is a 21-year member of the Evergreen District, member of the Northwest Sound Chorus (Bellevue, WA), 2021 EVG Barbershopper of the Year, and Dean of Harmony College NW (HCNW).
His work provided the first virtual HCNW during the pandemic which attracted students from around the world to join in over 36 Zoom sessions.
He is Team Barbershop’s “tech guru” with years of experience in administration, installation, monitoring, and support of network systems: (www.eagle-web-services.com).

The start of “Team Barbershop”

During the 2023 Harmony College Northwest June weekend, leaders of HCNW were talking with Paul about his series of classes – which we called the Boundless Initiatives for Growth and shortened it to The BIG Idea. 

His goal was to provide an affordable way to provide ongoing support for our chapters and choruses throughout the year with videos followed by Paul conducting ZOOM chat meetings with attendees from across the country. This content spans both areas of growth he targets (singing and numbers).

HCNW was instrumental in bringing the “Boundless Initiatives to Growth” to life in the beta series, held between August 2023 to May 2024. 

Now, Team Barbershop is alive!