Getting to Contest Time

Contest for the Harmonizers is just a week away. And that means that our send off, open house, guest night is just a couple of days away. Yes, Tuesday night the Hunterdon Harmonizers will be having a final get together before going off to Morristown to participate in the Northern Division Barbershop singing and performing contest. Join us at 9:00 (an hour later than our usual rehearsal time) for a free performance by our chorus and some of our quartets. It is free and there are refreshments too!

As always you can find out more by calling 908-806-NOTE or visiting our web site at www.NJHarmonizers.org.

Today we had a final rehearsal before the contest. Vida was there to drill performance. Sandy was there to make sure all were fitted out with the great costumes she has gathered or made for us. And all of the section leaders of our music team were there to run us through final preparation.

And of course Don, with very few small changes, drilled our singing to get it up to what he and our coaches know we can do. Do come out Tuesday to see what we are up to. And with the contest behind us at the end of the month it is a great time for men who always wanted to do a little singing to come out and give it a try.

The video is just three minutes of clips of what we were doing this morning.

Coaching & Dressing for Contest

Just a couple of more times to get together before we go off to the Northern Division singing contest of the Barbershop Harmony Society Mid Atlantic District. Close by this year as we will only be going to Morristown.

This past Tuesday we were coached by Stephanie, Vita worked with the back row, and Sandy continues in the process of getting the guys dressed for their part in the performance.

You can come see the results of all of this work by coming to our open house, guest night, send off that will take place in the back of the church (our usual place to gather) on Tuesday April 26 at 9:00 in the evening. The Harmonizers will gather to make final preparations to entertain you and get their party set up at their usual time of 8:00. The show, featuring their competing quartets and the chorus will perform at 9:00.

Love to see you there.

Improving Our Singing

The goal is to always improve. We measure progress through participating in singing contests. The guys know that if we are to improve as a chorus each singer has the responsibility for his own improvement as part of the group.

Of course the music team takes responsibility to work with each singer that wants to be part of the process. No man who works to be part of the group is left behind.

We obtain coaching for the group, and individual voice coaching for our singers. In the included photos you see Pat, the lead section leader working with his guys. You also see visiting coach Mark working with our director Don and both of them working with the chorus.

Successful Contest Experience

I am pleased to report that the Hunterdon Harmonizers met their expectation participating in the Barbershop contest last week. We achieved our best District contest score in a number of years. We are ranked, based on this contest, among the top 15% of chapters in the District that runs from Washington DC north to include New York City and from Long Island west to Harrisburg in Pennsylvania.

I am proud of our guys with this record. Especially in view of our goals, which do not include a hard focus on contest. We are a fun chapter that is more interested in the fellowship among our members, and taking our time to prepare for and entertain our various audiences.

Now it is time to get ready for our Holiday Show that will take place the first Saturday in December, and our other holiday performances. Call 908-806-NOTE to get further information, or to get tickets at the pre-show reduced price.

A most exciting few days. . . .

Probably the most exciting, and most intense, few days every year in the life of the Barbershop Harmony Society are during the annual International Convention. The 72^nd, held practically in our back yard this year was during the days of June 28^th through July 4^th in Philadelphia. The Hunterdon Harmonizers had about 30 members in attendance.

We have not made it a priority to attempt to qualify to sing in the international chorus contest since we did so in 1997. To do so takes an incredible amount of work and dedication on the part of our singers, to the exclusion of the shows and local performances that we enjoy so much. Every year or so we ask our singers what they consider to be our top goal or goals. Singing in contest usually comes in third or fourth. The year it comes in first we will have to change our priorities.

For those of our singers who are driven to sing on the big stage there are opportunities for them. Four of our members have become members of three different highly competitive chapters, as well as remaining a member of our chapter, and these guys did get to sing in Philadelphia. One sang with the chorus which sang first to test the sound system, two sang with the Big Apple in New York City, and one sang with the Chorus of the Chesapeake from Maryland (he is getting his doctorate degree at Johns Hopkins).

I personally enjoyed the freedom to attend chorus and quartet contests, socialize with friends from all over the country, and attend open rehearsals of some of the great choruses that did compete. Our group from Hunterdon got together for dinner together. We also sat together in several clusters during contests and shows, depending on when ticket orders went in.

The activities of the week started with a college quartet contest. I had to miss that because I could not get there until late during the first day and the college contest was over when I got there. I would like to have heard the group from Cornell that finished in the middle of the very large group. My specific interest was partly because I went to law school at Cornell, and partly because one of the Cornell singers went to Hunterdon Central High School.

My first evening in Philadelphia was spent at the rehearsal of the Westminster Chorus from California. This group of young men, most all of them less than thirty years old, had been the surprise winner three years earlier in Denver. Now they were one of the favorites. I enjoyed watching their display of energy, hearing their quality singing, and everything about their performance during those couple of hours of intense rehearsal. I have also enjoyed several opportunities to talk to their very pleasant members and leaders. They represent all of what barbershop fellowship is about. You may have seen them on the second season of the TV show America's Got Talent in 2007, where they were passed to go to the second round by all three judges, but were eliminated at the first cut of the second round. By the way they won the contest again this year. You can learn more about them at: http://www.westminsterchorus.org/westminsterchorus/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12&Itemid=29

The Hunterdon Harmonizers got together for dinner. We attended much of the quartet contest. We attended all of the chorus contest together. And we sang all over the convention venues with old and with new friends in quartets and small groups.

Most of our guys also got to watch our VP of Membership live up to his pledge that if we added a net ten new members in the year since the Patriots ball game of a year ago he would publicly shave his head. His brother did the honors of actually shaving his head, in public in the Harmony Market Place, while many of our chorus sang our rendition of The Impossible Dream to the assembled crowd. Linda, our prize winning editor of our chapter bulletin took photos that will soon be appearing in our publication In Tune. I include a couple of her pictures here.

The Hunterdon Harmonizers look forward to carrying the inspiration of the performing at the International Convention to our own stage when we perform this coming Thursday at Deer Path Park, next to the YMCA just off of Route 31, as part of the Concert Under the Stars series put on by the Hunterdon Park System. It is a free concert that starts at 7:00 in the evening. Most people bring a picnic supper with their family an hour earlier.

See you there. The weather prediction for this year is for a clear day.