Singers from the Rogue Valley Harmonizers have joined forces with singers from Southern Oregon Sound to create a mixed chorus, Rogue Voices.

From the ashes of pandemic restrictions, the men’s Rogue Valley Harmonizers barbershop chorus is combining with the women’s chorus, Southern Oregon Sound, to make up for lost members.

“We are down to a reasonably small but talented group. The same phenomena seems to have happened to the women’s barbershop chorus,” men’s chorus member Mark Larsen said in an email promoting the newly formed mixed-chorus group’s first concert, which was held May 13 in Medford. The chorus’ new name is Rogue Voices.

Previously, Larsen and his fellow chorus members have always been an exclusively single-sex group like their female counterparts. The mixing of the two groups represents a change that is happening on a broader scale in the world of barbershop singing, he wrote.

“Turns out there is music that has been arranged for mixed choruses and mixed quartets. Instead of having the four parts being lead, baritone, bass and tenor, the new arrangements feature soprano, alto, baritone and bass. The national society has gone in this direction to some degree also,” he wrote.

Larsen was optimistic about the new mixed chorus, but in a phone call, he was frank that the combination has sometimes felt like swimming upstream.

“Women sing in a different range in general. Guys who used to sing tenor or lead are now either singing baritone or bass. Women who used to sing bass are singing something else in the new show. It’s been a little bit frustrating, but we’ll get there,” he said.

He was nostalgic for the world his group enjoyed before the pandemic.

“We had so many really good shows for 20 years. The last three years have been hard. But singing with older people in a confined space is a really dangerous thing to do,” he said.

The group used to perform at theaters, do vocal coaching in schools, compete in contests, enjoy dinners and an annual trip to Brookings. The men would bring their wives along on the trip to Brookings, where a vocal coach would meet them, and the group would practice, play and perform for audiences at the coast, he said. They kept spirits up as best they could through Zoom calls through the long COVID years, but “you really can’t sing on a video call,” he said.

After COVID put an end to the social side of singing barbershop, some members drifted away in both groups. Larsen is optimistic that as the world reopens, some of those “lost sheep” will return.

“A lot that has dropped off is reappearing. I keep in contact with everyone; I send out a weekly newsletter. I’m hopeful some of those guys will come back,” he said.

Even if they don’t, the combined group is moving in its new direction with optimism and no small amount of determination. Larsen said he was happy to celebrate the strengths of the group. Their singers are strong, and their songbook is expanding.

“Our musical director has the most incredible ear. We’ll be singing something, and if he hears anything, he stops everything and he’ll be like, ‘Half-step down Larsen! You’re a half-step flat,’” he said with a laugh.

The group had its first concert together — “Feelin Mighty Fine”— May 13, featuring songs like “I’m Feeling Fine,” “Daydream,” “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” from the animated movie “Toy Story,” and ”I Will Go Sailing, No More,” also from “Toy Story.”

The act of barbershop, he said, is more than singing.

“We try to perform rather than just sing. I also sing with another chorus, the Rogue Valley Community College Chorus. We just hold the music up and sing and they’re lovely. It’s very musical, but barbershop is a different sport to me. It’s a performance,” he said.

That performance comes with costumes and choreography that can be altered to suit the music. The group has been taking on more modern pop music with a cappella percussion parts, he said. They’ve created movements to combine with the sound. The joy of the “sport” is different for every member.

“To me, it’s about learning a new song. The learning process is almost more important than the performance. I’ve been an engineer all my life. I like learning new things,” Larsen said. But he acknowledges, “there are guys who say, ‘No, I want to get out on a stage and entertain an audience.’”

Larsen has been practicing since he was very young.

“I think it’s my father’s fault. He was in a barbershop chorus in the Sixties, and when I was in high school, he made me go. I thought it was neat. Music was always important to me,” he said.

He fondly remembered performing in “Oklahoma” in sixth grade, and being a part of the band in high school.

The Barbershop Harmony Society was formed in 1930 to preserve a certain kind of music and performance, he said. In the intervening decades, other singers like himself have passed the tradition along.

It has become increasingly difficult to draw in younger people to join the chorus, he said. Larsen has been advocating for barbershop singing for years. When auditions for the group fell off, he started bringing anyone who was interested into his own piano room at home to sing a few tunes from “The Barberpole Cat” book. The book is a collection of songs created by the Barbershop Harmony Society to preserve the music for generations to come.

“If you’ve ever sung in a church choir, you can do this. If we go through a couple songs in my piano room and they don’t like it, OK. But if they do alright, I have them come out to see us rehearse,” he said.

Larsen is also working on converting his grandson to the benefits of music and a harder sell — reading.

“He lives in San Jose, so we get together on video calls. Every Monday, we play music together; on Fridays we read. He doesn’t want to sing — yet — so we’ll work on that. He doesn’t understand (why) reading (is important) because, ‘You can ask Alexa anything or look it up on Google,’” he said of the 10-year-old.

Larsen helps keep the tradition alive not only with the newly-forged Rogue Voices, but with another men’s quartet “Lytning.”

To learn more about the chorus, including future performances, see roguevoices.com, email singers@rvhsings.com or call 541-450-9352.