Rock Bottom headlines Butler County Symphony Orchestra summer concert
The Butler County Symphony Orchestra welcomed local a cappella group Rock Bottom on Friday afternoon, June 30, for the fifth show of its Summer Concert Series.
Visitors to the symphony building were treated to a mix of traditional barbershop standards and decades-old popular music, everything from “God Bless America” to Billy Joel’s “The Longest Time."
Rock Bottom formed in 2002 as the Slippery Rock University Barbershop Quartet, originally comprised of music students at SRU. That quartet later evolved into a quintet, and at least 12 different musicians have been part of the band since its formation.
The group consists of Mike Sypien, Jeff Frankenstein, Austin Wolford, Kit Keiper and Bryan Helsel. All five members of the group are music instructors, and except for Helsel, all attended SRU at some point.
“Everybody’s pretty busy with their music-teaching lives,” said Helsel, who is a music instructor at Youngstown State University. “We’re all music teachers, and this is what we do for fun sometimes.”
Wolford, lead/baritone and the youngest of the five, is young enough to have had one of his four bandmates as his choir director at Knoch High School.
“I actually got into Rock Bottom because Mike Sypien was actually my high school choir director and then invited me to sing with the guys a few years back,” Wolford said. “I’ve been singing with them for going on six years now, and it’s been a lot of fun.”
Apart from his work in Rock Bottom, Helsel has played piano for the Butler County Symphony Orchestra for more than 20 years, which led symphony director Christina Savannah to connect with Rock Bottom to perform a concert for the summer series. According to Helsel, this is not the first time the groups have collaborated.
“We’ve done this several times, so they are just inviting us back,” Helsel said.
The Butler symphony concert is Rock Bottom’s last show before they head to PNC Park to perform the national anthem and the seventh-inning stretch song at the Pittsburgh Pirates’ home game against the Milwaukee Brewers on Sunday, July 2.
"This is the end of our tour,“ Helsel said. ”We sang two concerts at two churches in the past week, then this concert and then Sunday’s Pirates game will end our tour.“
While most people who attended Friday’s concert opted to do so within the symphony’s building on Main Street, others — including Linda Blevins and Natalie Price — listened as the music streamed from outdoor speakers to passersby at nearby Diamond Park.
"I love the relaxation, being outdoors, and also the talent,“ Blevins said. ”It’s extremely good, the symphonies.“
Helsel will return to the BCSO on July 7 to play piano for vocalist Lynea Csefalvay.
