Looking Back on the 6^th Harmo Youth Harmony Festival 2014

The Harmonizers held its sixth all-day Youth Harmony Festival Saturday April 5^th at Durant Center.  There were 24 boys and 29 girls participating. There were five music educators involved for the day too. The chapter sponsored the event with additional support from Barbershop Harmony Society, our friends at the George Washington Masonic National Memorial, and Sweet Adelines International.

 

Brad Jones was coordinator of this year’s successful event and offered this thank you note: “thanks to everyone who helped make the weekend such a success. The kids had a great time and many have already said they can't wait until next year. Thanks to all who brought snacks and desserts for the Festival. One of the greatest compliments we receive on comment forms is for the food we provide during the day and you all contribute to that success.

 

”Thanks also to our faculty - Joe Cerutti, Tony Colosimo, Erin Cook, Carlos Barillo who conducted the workshops for the youth.  Helping them with training, tag singing and encouragement were GIMME FOUR quartet from NJ and SHADES OF JADE Sweet Adeline quartet. The students soaked up the information these folks provided and Carlos' approach to putting moves and meaning to the songs opened up a lot of performance concepts the students had not seen before.

 

“Our volunteers from the Harmonizers and FRIENDS IN HARMONY were amazing from setup on Friday night through the cleanup at the end of the day. I'm sure I've missing some folks who pitched in when I was in other areas of the building but just a stab at those who helped includes - Sandy and Mick Stamps, Jack and Pat Pitzer, Chris Buechler, Dixie Kennett, Ken Fess, Ellen Dellert, Chuck Harner, Christine and Todd Ryktarsyk, Bob and Sandy Ulibarri, Alan Wile, Bob Wachter, Carl Kauffman, Keith Jones, Bridgette Cerutti, Catherine Colosimo, Dean Rust, Bob Rhome, Steve Murane, Austin Cotton, Ben Roberts, Tom Berky, Michael Gilmore, TJ Donahue, Peelee Clark, Terry Reynolds, Kris Zinkievich and many others who pitched in during the setup and cleanup.

 

“A special thanks to TBD, our a cappella group, and the 60 chorus members who performed on the evening show and helped show the students that singing is for life beyond school!  The chorus sang four songs including their debut of “Bring Him Home” with Tony doing the solo.

 

“A couple of our members sang with the youth boys’ chorus – Tommy Garner and Ben Roberts.  New member Peelee Clark operated the sound board for the show.”

 

A girl’s youth quartet sang on the show as did the boys’ chorus and girls’ chorus. The finale was a combined chorus of the boys and girls. Many parents and family members attended as did Harmonizer family members and friends. 

 

And as president Terry Reynolds always says...all the above is one more reason "It's great to be a Harmonizer!"

Each student was given a Youth Festival burnt-orange t-shirt with the great logo (design by Scipio Garling). Brad has a few adult size shirts left as follows: small - 1, medium -5, large - 5, and XL - 2. He will have them at rehearsal on Tuesday and they are available for $10 each.

 

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 with the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd.)