Looking Back on the April 6-7  M-AD International Prelims Contest Weekend

Several Harmonizers had a busy weekend in Reading PA, at the M-AD International Prelims Quartet contest where quartets can try to qualify to compete at the contest this summer in Orlando.  Plus this weekend was a combined event for a Northern Division contest, a senior quartet championship contest, a youth adjudication event, and a mixed quartet contest.

CAPITAL CITY CLOSE HARMONY CLUB with Mario Sengco, Jordan Haedtler, Chuck Hunter, Ken White sang in the quartet finals on Saturday nite and placed 8^th in the prelims contest. Great to have them representing our chapter.

VOICES IN MY HEAD with Tim Buell placed 26^th in the quartet contest.

SILVER ALERT with Rick Savage, Mike Edison, Will Cox, Steve Murane competed for the district senior quartet championship which they won!!!!  Congrats.  They also placed 16^th in the quartet contest. For our readers who understand the system, our guys are also in the running to possibly represent our district at the 2019 Senior International Senior Quartet Contest at the midwinter convention  in Nashville. 

The quartets going to Orlando from our district will be GIMME FOUR, STUDIO 4, ROUTE 1, and FORECAST.

BLIND WIVES competed as a mixed quartet in Reading with Tony and Elizabeth Colosimo and Andrew and Heather Havens, They were a crowd favorite, captured first place with a score of 80.2 in the mixed quartet contest and appeared on the Saturday nite show.

SRIRACHA with Pookie Dingle placed 6^th in the Northern Division contest.  There was also a Northern division chorus contest and our friends from Hell’s Kitchen won that event which means they will compete at the fall district contest along with East Coast Sound, Long Island Sound, The Dapper Dans of Harmony, and Country Gentlemen choruses from this division.

There were a number of former Harmonizers in quartets and a long list of members working at the contest, helping with District administration, or there to cheer and support quartets and the many youth groups who sang in a youth adjudication event on Saturday afternoon.

Harmonizers were working all weekend to make the event run smoothly.  Mike Wallen was emcee for the second half of the large quartet contest Friday nite which combined the 37 quartets for the prelims, division, senior and mixed.  The contest had to start at 2:27 pm on Friday.

Holly Kellar, chief marketing officer on the staff at the BHS office in Nashville, was emcee for the division chorus contest.  She met with district leaders during the weekend too. The mic testing chorus was formed from the membership of the district honor chapter – DELASUSQUEHUDMAC.  Seven of our guys sang in that group which Tony directed – Sam McFarland, Bob Wachter, Jack Pitzer, Bob Eckman, Carl Kauffmann, and Dennis Ritchey.  Mike Kelly is president of DELA.

The large contest was work for contest administrator Chris Buechler. The youth adjudication had 18 entries. The judges for this event included John Santora as contest administrator and Tony Colosimo as singing judge.

A new aspect of this weekend’s event was the formation of a team by the district leadership to host the event, versus a host chapter.  Matt Doniger and Ian Poulin were part of that team. Mike Kelly was in charge of photography and videography.

Dennis Ritchey was emcee for the Saturday nite show featuring all the winning groups and the announcement of which quartets would go to Orlando. He is also M-AD president.  He has two other Harmonizers as fellow officers – Bob Eckman as executive vice president and Dave Welter as treasurer. They conducted the House of Delegates meeting on Sunday morning too.

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