WARREN — The four-part harmonies of a barbershop choir will fill Christ Episcopal Church for the first time in three years on Sunday.

The Stephen Foster Chorus, a Mahoning Valley institution for 75 years, played its final concert there in December 2021 before disbanding due to declining membership.

Making the final performance was only possible with the help of Akron’s Derbytown Chorus, whose members voted to come perform in Warren and help fill out those harmonies.

“When they agreed to come three years ago, it was very emotional,” said Frank Bozek, who was president of the Stephen Foster Chorus when it disbanded. “This was the last performance of the Warren group, and I was just expecting maybe a couple of guys to show up and lend their voices, but when the whole chorus came to support us, I broke down. I got very emotional.”

Bozek and Vice President Bob Kranyak were so touched by the group’s generosity that they joined the Derbytown Chorus and drive twice a week for rehearsals. Bozek does it even more often, driving to Akron for Thursday quartet rehearsals and performing Sundays with The Gospel Disciples of Song.

“We’re pretty dedicated to that drive,” Bozek said. “It’s because of the love of music, the sound that we produce and the sound that we hear. That four-part harmony, once you hear it, you’re hooked. That’s all. It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up when we strike the perfect chord. And the camaraderie is key, too.”

Since that 2021 show, Bozek said he’s been stopped several times by people who told him how much they enjoyed the concert and wished the chorus would get back together.

The group only had seven full-time members when it ended, so that was unlikely. Instead, Bozek and Kranyak asked the Derbytown Chorus if they would consider returning to Warren for a benefit show.

“They fell in love with the idea, and I thought, ‘How nice would it be to come full circle?'” Bozek said.

The Derbytown Chorus already has a program with Akron Children’s called Music Medics, where quartets from the choir go to the hospital to perform for patients, so they decided to make Akron Children’s Mahoning Valley in Boardman the beneficiary. It will receive all proceeds from the voluntary offering collected at Sunday’s performance.

Bozek and Kranyak won’t be the only locals performing. Several other former Stephen Foster Chorus members – John Cotton, Roy George, Paul Hogan, Dave Clegg, Jack Martin and Art Thomas – will sing with Derbytown on Sunday.

The program will include a mix of religious songs and Christmas favorites, from “Go Tell It on the Mountain” to “Jingle Bell Rock.”

Sunday’s concert is a one-off, but Bozek isn’t ruling out the possibility that it could become an annual holiday event like the Stephen Foster Chorus Christmas concert was.

“A lot of our audience is primarily the older generation,” he said. “They still appreciate and have missed this sound. If people still want to hear it, we hope that our presence on Sunday and the interest it can generate will turn into something we can look forward to doing more often.”