Looking Back on the October 4-5^th Fall M-AD Contest and Convention

This year’s fall M-AD contest and convention was in Reading, PA, at the Santander Performing Arts Center the weekend of Oct.4 and 5.

The quartet contest started at 5:27 pm.  There were seven quartets from our chapter in the line-up this year. The quartet contest was actually two contests conducted simultaneously – a senior quartet contest, and a contest to select a district quartet champ.

Competing only in the senior quartet contest, SILVER ALERT with Rick Savage, Mike Edison, Will Cox, Steve Murane ranked 3rd in the senior contest.

Competing  in the district quartet championship contest, VOICES IN MY HEAD with Cavan Potee, Tim Buell, Joe Chjilcoat, Alex Burval, placed 23^rd in that contest.

Competing in the district quartet championship contest, BREAKFAST BLEND with Mike Geipel, Scott Beach, Jerry Candrilli, Vinny Capaccio, placed 19^th in that contest.

Competing in both the senior quartet contest and the district quartet championship contest, QUIRKS OF ART with Bob Wilson, Roger Tarpey, Harman Jones, Mike Wallen, placed fifth in the senior contest and 14^th in the overall contest.

Competing  in the overall district quartet championship contest, MISS OTIS REGRETS with Mario Sengco, Jordan Haedtler, Chris Leyen, Ken Rub, placed 11^th and were the mic testers for the Saturday nite finals.

Competing  in the district quartet championship contest, TAYLOR MADE with Rick Taylor, Tom Halley, Douglas Beach, Steve Kirsch, placed 3^rd in that contest. 

Competing in both the senior quartet contest and the district quartet championship contest, PERSUASION with Gary Brohawn, Jon Cluries, Bob Keys, Mike Kelly, placed 1^st in the senior contest and 7^th in the overall contest.

PRATT STREET POWER won the overall contest and came out on top in both the preliminary and finals rounds. The fifth place quartet was the QUINN-TONES – young men from an elementary school in NJ who will appear with the chapter on our holiday show. 

There were twenty choruses in the competition on Saturday morning.  The Harmonizers did not compete since the chapter will be attending Harmony University next summer. However several members sang with other choruses on Saturday. Rick Taylor and Sam McFarland sang with Dundalk. Mike Fasano sang with Queen Anne’s County. Mike Geipel, Scott Beach, Craig Odell, Bob Wilson and Jim McConnell sang with Richmond, along with Mike Wallen, their director. John Santora and Tim Buell sang with Patapsco Valley.

Hershey won the chorus contest with 92% and will go to the International contest in Los Angeles next summer. The second place chorus was Hell’s Kitchen NY, earning 86.1%, and East Coast Sound was third at 81.2%. 

Several other Harmonizers were in Reading for the event including Jack Pitzer, Alan Wile who coordinates the M-AD endowment fund, Bill Colosimo, and Steve White  who organized the past district quartet champs salute to this year’s quartet winner on Saturday nite. Other Harmonizer family working for the weekend event included Mike and Kristin Kelly, Mike Fasano, Scott Beach and Matt Doniger all on the district events team. 

Bob Eckman, who is president of the M-AD, was in charge this year and helped back stage and host various meetings.  Past president Dennis Ritchey was emcee for the quartet finals session. Dennis was also inducted into the M-AD Hall of Honor this year.  Great to have one more of our men on that roster!

Dave Welter is treasurer for the M-AD board. 

The convention program include this thank you message to the chapter from the district: “The M-AD events team would like to thank the Alexandria Harmonizers for their support for providing the stage risers and ready room risers for the 2019 conventions.”

The program also listed Society members who have earned their 50-year pin in 2019 which included Jack Cameron and Don Johnson. 

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 70^th year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd