Steve did most of his growing up near Elkhorn, WI, and has been involved in music his entire life, performing in grade school music programs, taking piano lessons, acting in school and community theater musicals, and singing in school and church choirs. He got his first taste of barbershop in 1986 by performing as Olin, the bass in the Music Man’s school board barbershop quartet, something he’s done twice now. But he wasn’t completely hooked until two years later, when his parents took him to the Country Gentlemen barbershop chorus’s annual show, which featured the International Champion quartet “Chiefs of Staff” and International Medalist comedy quartet “Chordiac Arrest”. He promptly joined the chorus and got involved in his first quartet, “The Last Resort”, which sang for two years in the Lake Geneva, WI, resort area. Upon going to college,
Steve joined the school choir to find three more “youngsters” to sing barbershop with, and ultimately formed his second quartet, “The Accidentals”. The group sang on tours and shows with the school choir, as well as with the Country Gentlemen and Badger Chordhawks barbershop choruses, for four years. They performed hundreds of shows and Singing Valentines in the upper Midwest, and also participated for two years in the International Collegiate Quartet contest, winning the Land O’ Lakes District contest twice before ultimately earning a fourth place medal in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, in 1993.
Upon graduation, the group disbanded and Steve moved to Ripon, WI, where he sang for nearly 5 years with the Winnebagoland barbershop chorus in Oshkosh, WI, as well as with “The Sawdust City Slickers”, a popular and competitive Land O’ Lakes district comedy and show quartet. He moved to Chicago in 1997 and began singing with “Trebled Spirits” in 2000, capturing the novice quartet trophy and a District finalist finish before disbanding in the fall of 2004.
After 15 years of singing bass, he switched voiceparts
to sing baritone (leaving many to question his
judgment!) in order to join “GENEVA!” in
February, 2005. He has sung on the international chorus stage with “The New
Tradition”, capturing a third-place medal in Louisville in 2004, and with “The
Southern Gateway” of Cincinnati, finishing ninth in Salt Lake City in 2005.
Steve lives in Chicago, and is a member
of the New Tradition barbershop chorus of Northbrook, IL.
He is employed by the Sara Lee Corporation as a director of co-pack procurement at their corporate offices in Downer’s Grove.