Looking Back on the May 26-27^th Southern Division Contest

The Alexandria chapter was busy all weekend at the Reston Hyatt as participants and leaders for the 2017 Southern Division Contest as part of the Mid Atlantic District. 

Friday nite the quartet contest started at 5 pm and our seven quartets represented us well. 

First place was won by CAPITAL CITY CLOSE HARMONY CLUB with Mario Sengco; Jordan Haedtler, Chuck Hunter, Ken White.

The first place senior quartet and fifth place overall was SILVER ALERT with Rick Savage, Mike Edison, Will Cox, Steve Murane.

Sixth place quartet was NATURAL SEGUE with Scipio Garling, Noah Van Gilder, Jeff Burkey, Terry Reynolds.

Seventh place was YOUTH RECLAMATION PROJECT with Mike Wallen, Roger Tarpey, Hardman Jones, Vic Owen Jr. Seventeenth place was MISFIRE with Jay Sorenson, Brian Ammerman, Litic Murali, Matt Doniger. Eighteenth place was OLD TOWN SOUND with Carl Kauffmann, Randall Eliason, Bob Mattes, Dave Welter. Twentieth place was FOUR IN THE MORNING with Mike Geipel, Ron Nichols, Gene Thompson, Emmitt Totty.

Emcee for that event was our own Shawn Tallant and three Harmonizers were on the judging panel for the quartet contest – Chris Buechler, Alan Lamson and Tony Colosimo. Mic tester quartet was SERENDIPITY, the recently crowned mixed quartet champs in M-AD with Sheryl Berlin, Anne Bureau, Bill Colosimo and Ig Jakovac.

The chorus contest was Saturday morning in the Hyatt ballroom at 10:30 am. With eleven chorus entries, Alexandria sang fifth.  Mic tester for the chorus contest was our friends in the Mount Vernon VA Harmony Heritage Singers.

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The Alexandria 73-man chorus placed first with an 87.8 score. We sang “Summertime” and “I’ll Be Seeing You” from our repertoire. We wore black suits and the thin ties. This was the first contest performance for several guys – Johan Westberg, Rob Barnovsky, Jerry Foil, and Mickey Robertson.

We began the day with warm ups at 9 am with director Joe Cerutti, who also congratulated all of our quartets for their work in representing the chapter.  Most of us arrived in our uniforms for the day. \

District executive vice president Bob Eckman was emcee for the chorus contest and Chris and Alan were on the panel. After the contest ended, folks took a break for lunch in the Reston TownCenter area or rested or went home to come back for the jamboree appearance Saturday nite.

There was an informal chorus rehearsal on our new songs to take to Harmony University and the “Chicago” medley. Joe had the 40 or so guys form a circle for this session For the jamboree we sang one of our new spiritual songs, “There Will Be a City” and “All You Need Is Love” which included a fun audience sing-along.

The jamboree included quartets who will be going to International this summer, top placers in the quartet and chorus contest from the weekend. Harmonizer Rick Taylor spoke during the weekend to encourage more folks to join and support Harmony Foundation. District president Dennis Ritchey was working all weekend to help make things run smoothly and was emcee for the jamboree.

As is often  the case at contests, our guys participated with several other choruses too. 

The mic tester chours, Harmony Heritage Singers, is directed by Drew Fuller with Mike Everard, Jim Kirkland, Lou Manfre, Bruce Minnick, Howard Nestlerode and Bob Wachter singing on the risers. The DC Singing Capital Chorus was directed by Bill Colosimo and Al Hanenbaum sang with them. Mike Wallen directed the Richmond chorus and Mike Geipel sang with them. Also Drew Fuller, Sam McFarland, Art Medici and Bruce Minnick sang with Fairfax.

We wrapped up the weekend with “Keep The Whole World Singing” directed by Joe with our chorus on the stage.

President Randall Eliason hosted an impromptu Harmo room in the hotel both Friday and Saturday nites. Fun for all.

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 during the 69^th year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd