Thursday, March 10, 2011

Looking Back on the March 8th Chapter Meeting

This was another evening packed full of good singing, hard work and important chapter business.

First off we welcomed the Special Forces guys who were in to sing and prepare to go to Kansas City with us – Bob Wilson, Bill Colosimo and Mike Wallen.

Then there were several major announcements about huge and important gigs the chorus has coming up this spring.

First – the producers of the Cherry Blossom Parade TV appearance decided they didn’t want “Stars and Stripes” but liked the idea of “New York, New York” shortened like we did it for America’s Got Talent contest. That was a major change and Director Joe asked them to give us a week to get it ready and recorded. Sooooo – singers need to review, and the many new members with us now can take a look too. (YeEd heard someone offer to put “NY NY” up on the website.)

Second – the Carnegie Hall Show will not be on chorus risers, but choral lifts that are very wide. So we will change songs to include “Music of the Night” – another song for guys to dig out and prepare for next week. Greg Tepe is producer for this show and was in NYC to confirm plans for the show.

NOTE TO ALL RISER SINGERS: Please help make sure – if you are next to a guest on the risers - that the guest finds the music in the guest book or maybe share your copy for the evening. Here is another tip – help them know the words to warm up exercises and help them find a good spot with some guys singing the same part as they are (note the color dots on their name tags).

Joe announced that we will be doing “That’s Amore” for the Harmony College East show in June too. And gave some hints as to the chorus members’ duties during the class we will conducting to share with other chapters in our district. It is on June 18th, tho we are all invited to attend the entire weekend. Watch for details and make some plans.

After vocal warm ups, Director Joe Cerutti took the helm and launched a hard working evening with coach Brandon Guyton. Brandon has helped us a couple times before, but again we have a lot of new barbershoppers who didn’t know of his success as a two-time gold medal quartet singer. Our coach concentrated on great improvements for singing and made a huge difference in a matter of minutes. One quote, “Discipline is a technique.” He was talking about the discipline to apply lessons and ideas grasped during the session.

After the first half of the vocal coaching session, operations vp, Mark Klostermeyer, conducted the weekly chapter meeting. There was a fun promotion for the Pride Of Baltimore show by a couple of their members who are part of our chapter FRIENDS group too.

The FRIENDS group had a planning meeting tonite and a large crowd of those who support our chapter were present.

The POB show is April 2 at 7:30 pm with MAXX FACTOR and ‘ROUND MIDNIGHT as guest quartets. Show is at Kraushaar Auditorium, Goucher College, in Townson. Watch for the flyers at the meeting, or see Mike Kelly or Phil Ashford for tickets. Joe recommended the show to all of the Harmonizers and reminded us how much support the POB chorus has given us. YeEd hears the show is gonna be really fun – and we will be surprised as the antics of their director!

This was the last nite to get in your form to Ken White for the Cherry Blossom event.

And you can also turn in your paperwork as a result of having studied the BHS video regarding working with youth—they go to Brad Jones.

Membership vp, Phil Ashford, had another good size group of singers to introduce to us. Several applicants and first timers. YeEd saw some of the applicants lined up to audition after chapter meeting too!

The first look at the flyer for our big East Coast Barbershop Harmony Show was out for all to get onto the calendar. Show is June 26th at George Mason Center for the Arts where we had the show with Westminster last summer. Everyone needs to get this on the calendar at home so family and friends can get tickets too.

Quartet promotion chairman, Eric Wallen, reminded everyone about this weekend’s International Quartet Prelims contest in which foursomes vie for the right to go to the Intl contest in Kansas City. We have a couple quartets singing in Harrisburg. The contest is at the Hilton Friday evening.

Mike Wallen is singing in DOCKSIDE HARMONY (YeEd thinks that is the name of the quartet, sorry Mike.)

And DE CAPO with Ryan Griffith, Tony Colosimo, Joe Sawyer and Wayne Adams will compete. We hope we can also cheer for them in Kansas City.

After a very brief break (hardly time to get a coffee and take a break and get back into the room), it was back to work on the risers.

Marketing vp, Steve Lingo, asked guys to vote online for the Harmonizers as “the top singing group in the DC area”.

The chapter board met during the break and a formal announcement will be made regarding their decision about plans for the China trip and 2012. Everyone should watch for details, as the deposits will need to be turned in soon.

Music vp, Terry Reynolds, reminded all about the offsite all-four-voice-part-sectionals is coming in soon. It will be at the Fairfax Unitarian Congregation Church.

After these important announcements, Joe was ready to get back to work with Brandon on the contest package. Joe did announce the good news that the chapter has signed CROSSROADS, Brandon’s most recent gold medal quartet, to appear on our fall show.

The contest song work took us right up until 10 pm and the guys came rushing off the risers to get things put away.

Until next time – editorjack!

(This message is prepared for your review if you were there, for your information if you had to miss, and as a historical record of the great things going on each week at an Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter meeting. —Ye Ed.)