When Sound of the Rockies walked off stage last month at the Colorado Convention Center , I braced myself for the adrenaline high — the whoops and fist bumps, the post-performance glow. We’d sung our hearts out, and I thought we’d delivered the goods. But out in the hallway, the applause had faded to quiet. A volunteer who’d been high-fiving us as we filed onto the stage now lingered off to the side, while my chorusmates, still catching their breath, drifted silently to the performers’ table to grab their phones and keys. I glanced around for the hometown crowd that had cheered us going the opposite direction — the faces beaming with pride. Had we reached them?

For anyone outside the barbershop world, the scene might have seemed unremarkable, the self-doubt perhaps a touch overblown — b

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