Looking Back on the Show on Mar 15^th , Prelims Weekend and Mar 18^th Chapter Meeting

Producer Greg Tepe thanked the 45 singers who performed Sat. night Match 15^th at the ASPA dinner at the Mayflower Hotel. The organizers were pleased beyond their expectations.
Assistant director Terry Reynolds was show director and announced for us. Ten guys stayed until 9pm to sing “God Bless America.” For most of the performance we served as background music, but people were listening and enjoying the singing. And perhaps we'll get additional paid performances from this appearance.

Also during the weekend, nine quartets with Harmonizers singing in them were competing in the M-AD spring International prelims quartet contest at the Reston Hyatt to earn the right to sing in Vegas in July. 

 Four of them qualified to compete in July and ranked first, second, third and fourth!

 

DA CAPO with Ryan Griffith, Tony Colosimo, Joe Sawyer, Wayne Adams

BSQ - Rob Seay, Kevin King, Rick Taylor, Al Mazzoni

MAYHEM - Matt Fellows, Pookie Dingle, Mike Pinto, Ken White

LAST MEN STANDING - TJ Barranger, Drew Feyrer, Ed Bell II, Mike Kelly

 

Our other quartets were

ACME CHORD COMPANY - Dan O'Brien, Chris Susalka, Paul Grimes, Eric Wallen in fifth

FORECAST - Mike Fitch, Ian Galvin, Travis Murray, Dan Cook in sixth

THE MONORAIL FOUR - Kellen Hertz, Phil Ferguson, Bobby Seay VI, Andrew Havens in seventh

YOUTH RECLAMATION PROJECT - Mike Wallen, Roger Tarpey, Hardman Jones, Vic Owen, Jr. in eighth

OLD TOWN SOUND - Alan Kousen, Clyde Crusenberry, Bob Mattes, Dave Welter coming in as second place seniors quartet.

 

As usual there were lots of Harmonizers around for the contest weekend:  over 20 guys there to cheer on our quartets over the weekend; Sam McFarland and Harold Weinberger who are dual members with Fairfax helped host the weekend; Sean Devine was on hand to promote support of the Harmony Foundation; Chuck Harner and Alan Wile hosted a reception for Presidents’ Council members with help from several Harmonizers;  Bill Colosimo was emcee for the finals session as district president and Gary Plaag helped run the contest as district vp for contest and judging in addition to other M-AD leaders from our chapter Kauffmann, Ritchey, Kelly, Eckman, and Keith Jones. 

 

Next year’s prelims will be in Harrisburg, PA, March 13-15 and for the first time will include mixed harmony sessions for men and women to sing together.

The Tuesday nite meeting on Mar. 18^th was BUSY!  Lots of work in preparation for the A CA  CHALENGE on Sat. nite March 22^nd at Lincoln Theater on U Street NW.  Skip Coburn helped get the DC Mayor to issue a proclamation for the event! He also helped arrange for a social hour pre-show especially for family members who had to come early with their singers; and then too an afterglow to follow the show.

On Tuesday there was a lot of work in the hall at 6pm for stage presence drills.  Associate director Tony Colosimo did the warm ups when the chorus assembled on the risers at 7 to the music of Vocal Majority singing “Deep River.” Then director Joe Cerutti went right to work on the songs for the A CA CHALLENGE. 

The chapter meeting was conducted by operations vp Bob Blair.  He announced his intentions to start issuing the “Ooops I Forgot My Nametag” badge to be issued to guilty guys next week!  (It is huge and should motivate us to wear our regular tag.)

The FRIENDS IN HARMONY members were at work on checking and repairing scarves and front row vests as needed, including fitting some new front row guys with their uniform parts for the “Anything Goes” routine.

Bob Griesemer is coordinator for Harmo Truck drivers and invited any interested guys to see him as we need some new drivers this year.

Ken Rub thanked the chorus for selling more tickets for the Challenge show, but assured all that there will be tickets at the door. Marketing vp Noah Van Gilder asked for helpers to staff an information table at the show.

Shows vp Nick Leiserson thanked again those who did the show on Mar. 15^th including a shout out to Bruce Lauther for helping line up this paying gig.

 Terry Reynolds filled in for music and performance vp Steve White and reported that we will be adding “Music of the Night” for the June 21^st show and will sing it with the Ambassadors of Harmony.

In his role as president, Terry thanked again all those working on the shows on our schedule and paid tribute to the quartets mentioned above.  He was proud to suggest that having some many of our members going to the International quartet contest proves we keep the “Q” in SPEBSQSA – another reason why It is Great to Be a Harmonizer!

Secretary Chris Buechler presented membership renewal cards to Sam McFarland for 27 years and to Alan Lamson for 34 years.

Membership vp Jeremy Richardson and Rich Hewitt welcomed Michael Bobrowski who was a first-time guest this week. Jeremy also reminded all about the Open Auditions event on April 9^th  at Durant.

After coffee break, it was back to work on new music for shows this year and for our shows in France in June.  Our a cappella group, TBD, sang for us. (There are some new guys in the group but YeEd failed to write down the names.  So stay tuned.)

Most of the rest of the evening was spent on “World Peace” with soloists, quartets and chorus. We will sing it and “Glen Miller” for the first time at the A CA CHALLENGE.

Peter Hubbard filled in for Ken Fess and Mick Stamps regarding payments for the Normandy trip. He was busy since many of us had a payment to make.

The meeting closed with the reminder that David Wright will be at the April 1^st chapter meeting to work with the chorus.  David is associate director for the Ambassadors, a prolific arranger for the BHS (we sing several of his pieces like “Stars and Stripes,” and is a frequent coach for our chorus.  Welcome back David!

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 66^th year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd.)