Spreading Joy and Harmony Since 1966

Mad Hatter Barbershop Chorus

Join Us!

Our song. The Mad Hatters close every Tuesday-night rehearsal by linking arms and performing the Barbershop Harmony Society's official theme, "Keep the Whole World Singing." (Hear it.) Each week, a different member directs the song.

What it Takes to Be a Mad Hatter

Membership in our chorus is open to all men of good character who are 16 or older. You don’t have to read music (some of our best singers don’t), but you do need to sing on pitch and be willing to polish your skills. Dues are about $10 a month and cover sheet music, uniforms, and most other expenses.

Visitors are always welcome at our rehearsals, 7:30 to 10 p.m. each Tuesday at the Danbury Church of Christ,* 90 Clapboard Ridge Road, Danbury, CT. Map. You can sing along or just sit and listen. We won’t press you to join. We enjoy company, and we sing better when we have an audience.

For more information, contact any of our members or our president, (phone 845-225-4919).

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*Although we meet in a church, we are not a religious organization.

Mad Hatter Lore

Our name. The Mad Hatters take their name from their signature city: Danbury, Connecticut, once the leading hat manufactory in the world. Today Danbury's economy is highly diversified, but the hat theme survives in a myriad of logos, slogans, names of sports teams, taverns, restaurants, and other institutions frequented by its 80,000 inhabitants. We are located 60 miles north of midtown Manhattan.

Our logo. We used to have a dandy logo featuring a cartoon of the famous Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland, but the Walt Disney Company got upset and we had to bump the little guy off. Perhaps out of spite, President Bob Bradley likes to joke that some of the songs we sing (particularly "Over the Rainbow") "really ought to be Disney songs." These jokes are wearing thin, however, and some of us are trying to figure out how to tell Bob to stop deploying them in his emcee patter at singouts. Our present logo (at top-left on all of these webpages) was conceived by Mad Hatter baritone and PR geek Terry Dunkle, who used to be a magazine editor and runs a weight-loss-software company (even though he weighs 235), but the actual work was done by Brandon Fitzpatrick, a designer in Terry's company who doesn't sing and (we suspect) hates barbershop music.

We know this isn't standard public-relations fare, but we're trying to tell the truth here.

                                    —Terry Dunkle