Ringmasters (barbershop quartet) awards and accolades, the most prestigious being the Barbershop Harmony Society International Quartet Championship Gold Medal in Portland, Oregon on July 8, 2012. Their other accomplishments include the Society's International Collegiate Quartet Championship in 2008 and first place at IABS barbershop contest in 2007, and SNOBS gold in 2008. Some members of Ringmasters are also members of zero8, the SNOBS 2008 Champion Chorus led by Doug Harrington of Second Edition. All four members attended Adolf Fredrik's Music School, and Stockholms Musikgymnasium, two high-profile music schools in Stockholm. Ringmasters (barbershop quartet) Ringmasters is a Swedish barbershop quartet affiliated with the Society
Barbershop music Jazz musician Louis Armstrong told of having harmonized on New Orleans street corners as a boy, and NAACP executive secretary James Weldon Johnson "grew up singing barbershop harmony". English "barber's music" was described in the 17th century by Samuel Pepys as amateur instrumental music. The "Encyclopædia Britannica" considers the 19-century origins of the quartet style as "obscure", possibly referring back to barber's music, or dating to when barbershops served as community centers, where men would gather for social and musical activities with barbers traditionally being musicians. Later, white minstrel singers adopted the style, and in the early days of the