Peter Kadyk

The concept of a men's group singing Leonard Cohen songs came from Peter Kadyk, a multimedia artist who passed away in 2001. Kadyk, whom friends describe as a "visionary" artist, never got around to realizing his Cohen choir. But after his death, his wife, Anah, asked his brother Patrick and director Daryl Henline to organize the group as a tribute for an event in June 2003. Originally conceived as a one-time performance, comprised of 8 or 9 guys singing just 2 or 3 songs, the choir immediately gained a momentum and continued well past everyone's expectations. After that first show, an employee of City Lights Bookstore asked the Beards to play an in-store event. Word of mouth spread fast, and the chorus quickly went from a one-time experiment to a practicing group within a few months. In the beginning, the members of the choir had all been friends with Peter Kadyk. But eventually newcomers were drawn to the Leonard Cohen project and the Beards became a bona fide singing group in its own right.