Today we’d like to introduce you to Dominick Finetti.
Dominick, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Space City Sound is an all-voices, non-profit a cappella chorus committed to musical excellence in the Houston area. Space City Sound performs throughout the year, in contests, collaborations with other art organizations, and in concert. A volunteer chorus, our members come from all backgrounds and all walks of life.
Founded in 2015, we’ve spent the last 11 years growing in both size and skill level. We’ve been lucky enough to win our share of awards locally and regionally, as well as qualify for the Barbershop Harmony Society’s International Chorus Contest a total of 5 different times. Most-recently, we ranked 10th in the world in 2024.
Outside of our annual performances and weekly rehearsals, we do what we can to support the Houston community by sharing our music at other local events and volunteering with or her organizations make an impact, like Pines Presbyterian Church (out rehearsal venue) and the Houston Food Bank.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Definitely not.
When we started in 2015, we truly didn’t know what we were doing. None of us has started a musical organization like this before and while there were some resources online, at the end of the day, we had to throw things at the wall see what wood stick.
In the early years, we were much smaller and we would often have rehearsals where we were lucky if 12 people showed up. This is a pretty vastly different experience than our current size, which has us filling the risers with upwards of 50 people. You can also imagine how much a non-profit of our size struggled financially at the time.
Keeping our members engaged was hard enough through 2019, but you can imagine how much tougher that became in 2020 when the world experienced the pandemic. In person rehearsals first became periodic zoom calls, then eventually distanced and masked singing outside in parking lots. Like many arr’s organizations back then, there were definitely days where we weren’t sure if we were going to survive.
All being said, when the world finally opened up again, the organization continued on and did what we could to get back on our feet. In early 2023, we ended up going through some pretty big leadership changes, including bringing on our current Music Director, Patrick McAlexander. We spent the next year learning and growing together, ultimately leading to what many consider to be our most successful year in our history, 2024.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
We specialize in four part, a cappella music, predominantly in the Barbershop style. This is Music where arrangements are broken down into four distinct parts: Tenor, the highest part), Lead (the part most-often singing the melody), Bass (the bass line that gives the song it’s harmonic structure), and Baritone (a wacky part that exists simply to fill in chords where necessary).
In addition to Barbershop music, we also feature an expanded repertoire that includes;Jazz, pop/rock, sacred, and more.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
For me personally, as much as I love performing our music, what matters most to me is how our organization brings us together. Our membership is truly diverse. – we have people of all backgrounds, ages, identities, and experience levels, We each contribute unique skills, interests, and opinions to the room. That’s what makes Space City Sound different than any other arts organization on the planet. It’s why we lovingly call ourselves the nickname, “weirdos.”
Contact Info:
- Website: https://spacecitysound.org
- Instagram: www.spacecitysound.org
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spacecitysound
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/space-city-sound/
- Twitter: https://www.x.com/scs_chorus
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@spacecitysound?si=e4AO6t0YjZJLtnYy
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@spacecitysound
