Tegan Wendland/WRKF Donna Robinson and Wendy Waguespack

The Sweet Adelines, an all-women barbershop quartet, are among the groups performing at the event. WRKF's Tegan Wendland had a conversation with members Wendy Waguespack and Donna Robinson about why they sing and what's special about the Adelines.

LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW

WENDLAND: What inspired both of you to get involved with this quartet?

WAGUESPACK: Well, I've always enjoyed singing - it's always been a passion, but one that I never really fulfilled in any real way since I was a young girl and in choir in high school, truthfully. I was very practical-minded in my profession, which is optometry, it was what I pursued and I spent a lot of time studying and just never had a lot of time for something like singing. So once I was an adult here in Baton Rouge and had my practice established and had a little bit of time, I felt like I wanted to look for something else. I was going through a little bit of a hard time in my personal life, my marriage of 19 years was in the process of ending. And I thought it was just a bunch of older ladies and I didn't

think I was old enough but when this all happened in my life I was 50 and I figured "What the heck! I'm old, I guess!" so I went and I was just enthralled immediately.

ROBINSON: Well, like Wendy I've always enjoyed singing and sang when I was in grade school and church choirs and I think I heard Sweet Adelines perform, probably over 25 years ago out in St. Francisville during one of their spring pilgrimages and I told myself then that that was the kind of group I'd like to be in.

WENDLAND: So what would you ladies say is special about this group, and isn't it unusual for a barbershop quartet to be all-female?

WAGUESPACK: Well, barbershop started with men only, but as our director likes to say - "we took over and perfected it!"

WENDLAND: What else do you think you ladies gained from this experience, and working with this group and getting close to these other women.

ROBINSON: Oh, the tremendous support you get - if you've got any type of issues going on, or maybe it's just a hug or a smile of encouragement, but it's there. I particularly enjoy the education that we get. You know, no matter how old we get we need to continue to learn and this is a whole new are to me and I look forward to Tuesdays. My husband tends to be very quiet and he really gets an earful when I get home on Tuesday evenings. So it really brings joy to my life.

WENDLAND: And you, Wendy, said you were going through some transitions when you joined the group originally?...

WAGUESPACK: Oh, it's been wonderful. It's the one area of my life that I can always count on. Like Donna said, you have such a support group - 20+ wonderful women who are willing to listen any time you want to talk. There's nobody in that group that I couldn't go up to and say, "Hey, I want to talk" and they would. It's a very, very supportive group and very caring. Our love of music just somehow brings us together, no matter what our different walks of life are - I find that very interesting. Because we really are a very diverse group of women with very diverse lives and education levels, but we come together as just a real family group and it's wonderful.