"Gesang ist dasein," said the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke: "To sing is to be."
The poet's message has not been lost on James Murphy, a senior at River Hill High School in Clarksville who has been an avid aficionado of vocal music since he began singing as a third-grader at Waverly Elementary School in Ellicott City.
Murphy, whose love for the choral art would blossom in the Patapsco Middle School Chamber Choir, Peabody Children's Chorus, Howard County Children's Chorus and Maryland's Junior All-State Choir, is still an impassioned singer.
His favorite style these days is barbershop, that delightfully anachronistic idiom where the most treacherous chromatic harmonies imaginable are put to the service of breezy standards that seem uniquely suited to a stroll down Memory Lane.
"There's just something great about hitting those really nice chords and hearing them ring," he says, summing up the joy of singing.
Barbershop ensemble
Murphy's enthusiasm for unaccompanied choral music has turned him into an impresario as well as a performer. At 7:30 tonight in the River Hill High auditorium, Murphy and his barbershop ensemble, the Gentlemen's Quartet, will headline a full-length concert that the 17-year-old tenor has produced and is calling "A Cappella for Life." Admission to the event, which will benefit the service organization Habitat for Humanity, is $3. Tickets will be sold at the door.
Other student groups appearing on this evening's bill are InToneNation, a 10-voice mixed choir from Montgomery Blair High School in Montgomery County, and the Leading Ladies, a female septet from River Hill.
Mill Town Sound, Radio Daze and Accapella Gold - three adult ensembles - will also appear, with singers representing the Patapsco Valley chapter of the Society for the Preservation & Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America.
"It should be a fun evening," says Murphy, whose fellow quartet members refer to him as Jeeves.
"We've got a great group, and we really love to perform together," he says of his River Hill colleagues Danny Ji, Kenneth Arnold and Gavin Shown, who will join him for vintage ditties such as "My Blue Heaven," "You're a Grand Old Flag," "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and a four-part arrangement of "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler on the Roof.
Murphy is the foursome's senior member, having been its sole freshman three years ago.
"He's giving us a great opportunity to do something that's a lot of fun," says baritone Shown, 17, a River Hill senior who, as he puts it, gets to sing the "leftover notes" - the thorny inner harmonies that give such character to barbershop's inimitable four-part sound.
"This is a very creative thing that James is doing by bringing all of us together," says Ashley D'Ambra, a Leading Ladies soprano who hopes to major in music performance next year at Elon College in North Carolina. D'Ambra says she and five other group members rehearse after school Thursdays and often come together for quick run-throughs during their lunch period.
'They're the best'
"We expect a lot from our kids in the choral program," says Betsy Graff, a 24-year veteran of the Howard County school system who has directed River Hill's vocal music program since the school opened in 1996. "These kids singing barbershop are also in Concert Choir, Madrigal Singers and the Men's and Women's Choirs. They do it all because they're the best, they love it, and we need them."
She says Murphy is one of the truly special singers she has had in her teaching career.
"Kids like James and the rest of this year's seniors take great pride in their work, but also want to see their friends and the whole music program do well," Graff says. "They step into the limelight, then right back out of it to give someone else a chance. They're special musicians and special kids."
Murphy's other passion at River Hill is the extensive technology program. He has applied to Towson University, University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Virginia Tech with the idea of pursuing a career in technology education.
"I love the hands-on aspect of it, being inside the computer, learning about the engineering, then explaining it to others," he says.
Possessed of spiritual substance and a social conscience, Murphy has spent portions of the past three summers building homes for the needy in West Virginia under the aegis of Habitat for Humanity.
"This cause has become very near and dear to me over the past couple of years," he says. "I want to people to hear of Habitat for Humanity with the same joy they hear the music."
"A Cappella for Life," a benefit concert for Habitat for Humanity, will be presented at 7:30 p.m. today in the River Hill High School auditorium, 12101 Route 108, Clarksville. The Leading Ladies, Mill Town Sound, InToneNation, Radio Daze and Gentlemen's Quartet are among those performing. Tickets are $3. Information: 410-313-7120.