Young Singers in Harmony (YSIH) New Zealand was formed by Les Nation in the early 1990’s as a non-profit organisation with the goal of encouraging and educating young people in barbershop a cappella singing.   It is now a registered charitable trust overseen by a board of trustees and supported by a national management team.

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YSIH has grown to be one of the most successful a cappella competitions in the world. We aim to provide students with opportunities to achieve musical excellence and personal growth through performance, competition and workshops.  Our programme is active in secondary schools across the country in the form of choruses and quartets, which can take part in any of our three contest categories: Upper Voices, Lower Voices and Mixed Voices.

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Hundreds of students  compete at a regional level each year, with the top choruses and quartets qualifying to compete in the national chorus and quartet finals at the annual national convention.

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​Young Singers in Harmony is affiliated with the the Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS), a worldwide barbershop organisation and with Sweet Adelines International, a worldwide women’s barbershop organisation.  Both of these organisations hold international competitions for youth quartets - the Youth Barbershop Quartet Contest (YBQC) from BHS and the Rising Star Quartet Contest from Sweet Adelines.  These are fantastic opportunities for up and coming young quartets from New Zealand, and NZ has seen great success in these competitions, including 2012 Rising Star champions The Fource and the 2006 International Collegiate Quartet and 2014 International Quartet Champions, Musical Island Boys.