Joined in song

When Skip Stradtman and David Mandt were seven years old, their mothers made them an appointment that would change their lives.

“She said you're going to audition for the Birmingham Boys Choir,” Stradtman said. “And I was like, ‘okay.’ I had been to a couple concerts before I was old enough to audition, so I assume that she saw that I was interested."

Over the next 10 years singing in the choir, Stradtman and Mandt found their lives’ calling and became best friends. On March 22 the fellow Mountain Brook High School graduates returned to Samford University to perform a joint concert with the their college acapella group. It was the first time that a graduate of the Birmingham Boys Choirs returned to arrange a song, according to Ken Berg, the choir’s director for the last 37 years.

When Stradtman auditioned for the choir 15 years ago, he had already taken some piano lessons but was an undeveloped singer. He discovered that, although he needed his parents’ discipline to keep practicing on the piano, he loved the social aspect of making music immediately.

"Things like piano lessons, there is always a couple years where you want to quit because you don’t want to practice,” Stradtman said. “With the boys choir I never really felt that way.”

During one of the many trips he took with choir, as a high school freshman, Stradtman knew he had found his calling. He was in Japan, a place where he couldn’t speak the language and few people understood him. But some in the audience were so moved they started crying.

"That really spoke to me as a kid,” Stradtman said. “To see how kids who are so different could connect on an emotional level."

The experience was no accident. Berg teaches young boys in the Birmingham area not only how to sing like a professional, but how to grow into manhood. “Kids want to be entertained of course, they want to have fun,” Berg said. “But really they want to be meaningful in their world; they want to have impact.”

In the last few years the choir’s non-profit board expanded Berg’s position from part-time to full-time, so that he can give more time to his more than 100 students, who come from a variety of backgrounds all over the Birmingham area.  

Stradtman and Mandt are now seniors at Florida State, where they both hold leadership positions in their acapella group, Reverb, and are studying to teach music. When they arrived at Florida State as freshmen, they could’ve auditioned for one of the three co-ed acapella groups on campus, but they only wanted to sing for Reverb: They had grown to love the sound of and the camaraderie of an all boys choir.

They not only were accepted into the choir but, because of their extensive experience in Birmingham, as sophomores they took over the leadership of Reverb and have traveled the country performing and competing. They won fourth place at a national competition of collegiate acapella groups in New York. 

Because it’s just boys, the Birmingham Boys Choir is able to draw on a tradition of music that is over 1,000 years old and keep the boys focused on the music, according to Berg. "Girls are wonderful creatures,” Berg said. “ But they tend to complicate life for boys for all sorts of delightful reasons."

The choir helped solidify the lifelong friendship of Stradtman and Mandt. They already attended the same church and would start attending the same school in junior high. But after both holding leadership positions together in the community choir, they decided to attend the same college, room together, major in the same subject and pursue the same profession.

“It’s funny we basically have the same lives and we’re somehow not sick of each other yet,” Stradtman said. "At least I hope he’s not sick of me."

They’re not totally alike. Mandt is a red-haired baritone with a broad chest who keeps the pace by beat boxing. He’s got an affable personality and has served as president and public face of Reverb.

Stradtman is a brown-haired tenor, who prefers the more academic side of arranging the music. For the concert Stradtman arranged the closing James Taylor song, “How Sweet it is to be Loved by You,” for both their old and new choirs to perform together.

“To combine those two worlds for a weekend is really special for David and I,” Stradtman said. “We’re showing the community what the Birmingham Boys Choir has done for us, where we’re headed and how we’ve developed as performers.”

. The Birmingham Boys choir sang mostly classical music with some modern jazz and folk songs, but their college group, Reverb, frequently performs medleys of pop music such as Michael Jackson and Montell Jordan. Alabama doesn’t have as strong a tradition of collegiate acapella music, according to Mandt, so Reverb gave a workshop at their old high school the day before the concert.

It was a bit of a swan song, as both will likely have to head their separate ways after graduation: It can be difficult to find teaching jobs in the same area. Both are considering applying for jobs in Florida or Alabama, or even a place like Georgia.

Perhaps in another 10 years, however, they could find themselves back together again in the Birmingham area.  

“Mr. Berg has joked that in 10 years when he retires he wants one of us to take over his job,” Stradtman said. “Which is extremely flattering but would be a very daunting, tall task.”