Looking Back on the 2019 International Contest and Convention, Salt Lake City

Amazing numbers of current and former members of the Alexandria Chapter were at the 81^st  annual Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS) International Convention and Contest in Salt Lake City, UT, June 30-July 7, 2019. The headquarters hotel was Little America where our chapter has stayed before. This year’s Alexandria crowd was there to compete, work and volunteer, attend meetings, cheer for our friends from our M-AD, meet old friends and hang out with each other. Our chorus did not compete at this contest as they will be going to Europe later this summer.

The Harmo family began arriving on Sunday and Monday since the first contest sessions were on Tuesday again this year.  Several folks were there early for meetings such as Bob Eckman who attending meetings as our district president.  John Santora is BHS treasurer and was at the BHS board meeting.  Other attendees at that meeting included Alan Lamson, past BHS president, along with Keith Jones, John Rettenmeyer, Jack Pitzer, and Dixie Kennett. Chris Buechler attended several meetings of the Contest and Judging Committee and was appointed to a new position as administrator for that committee.

One current member sang in a quartet in the quarter final round of the quartet contest: Rasmus Krigstrum with RAWSUNDAH quartet. He arranged our 2018 uptune. Several former members sang in that round too: Sean Devine in THROWBACK, Ed Schubel in PRATT STREET POWER, and Dave Ellis in THE HEMIDEMISEMIQUAVER 4.

The final results saw SIGNATURE taking the gold at 93.8.  This Sunshine District quartet has been close to our chapter having been with us to spread word to schools in the DC Metro area about our Youth Harmony Festival. The quartet earned the top score in all three rounds of the contest including having earned a 95.6 on “Danced with My Father Again” in the first round.

THROWBACK took second at 93.0 percentage. QUORUM took third place at 92.3. ROOFTOP RECORDS took fourth at 90.7. And a new quartet on the scene, from our M-AD and the NYC area, MIDTOWN, captured fifth with 90.1.   They won the International DEALER’S CHOICE Award as recognition for a first-time quartet in the contest.

M-AD had seven representatives in the contest.  The two other quartets in the top ten with MIDTOWN were PRATT STREET POWER that took eighth and ‘ROUND MIDNIGHT that took ninth. M-AD quartets in the semi final round were STUDIO 4 that took 13^th and GIMME FOUR that placed 14^th. PRIME TIME placed 25^th. FORECAST placed 52^nd.  Rasmus’s quartet placed 16^th.

There were several Harmonizers on the official judging panel this year for both the quartet and chorus contests – Joe Cerutti, Tony Colosimo, Chris Buechler, and former members Jay Butterfield and Richard Lewellen.

The Westminster Chorus from CA won the chorus contest with a record high score of 97.9 percentage singing a song from The Greatest Showman. They sang with 100 men on the risers. Second place was captured by Ambassadors of Harmony and Jay Sorenson sang with them having moved there not long ago.  Jay had a featured role as Hardy in Laurel and Hardy so Jay was center stage several times in a “Chaplin Medley” arranged by our friend David Wright. The Ambassadors had 125 singers on the risers.

Rasmus directed Zero 8 Chorus from Sweden and they placed third. Central Standard chorus from the Kansas City area placed fourth. Our friends from Toronto Northern Lights placed fifth with former member Lou Bergner on the risers.

TJ Donahue and Kevin Kaiser sang with the Denver Sound of the Rockies chorus that placed sixth. Paul Wietlesbach sang with Nashville that placed seventh. Our coach Cy Wood sang with Southern Gateway who took tenth. Jack Stevens sang with The Marcsmen from Texas who took 11^th.  Kenny Potter directed the Northwest Sound chorus from WA and they placed 12^th. Spencer Wight sang with the only M-AD chorus, Voices of Gotham, who placed 16^th.  Bill Conway sang with Palmetto, SC, Vocal Project, who placed 25^th, and Doug White sang with the Pathfinder, NE, chorus who placed 26^th.

Salt Lake City offered some interesting aspects for the contest – the quarterfinals was held in the famous Tabernacle and the rest of the contest was held at the LDS conference center that reportedly holds 20,000.  There is a free above-ground train called TRAX that we could ride from all the major convention hotels to Temple Square for those two venues.

There was a Next Generation Youth quartet contest on Wednesday afternoon.  Joe Cerutti manages that event and was the emcee for the 20 quartet contest.  One of our arrangers, Steve Tramack, was a judge for this event.

Several of our members taught a Harmony University class during the week including Terry Reynolds, Alan Lamson,  and Cy Wood.  

The Saturday nite Spectacular Show featured examples of how barbershop singing is a “family” community for all singers.  Rick Taylor set the tone with a witness as how his Dad had brought him to a chapter meeting as a young boy and that started this life in the hobby. Volunteer singers from all over the world formed a group called “The Everyone in Harmony Chorus” to kick off the show’s music.  Cy Wood sang in it as did BHS CEO Marty Monson.  Cy also sang bass in a mixed quartet called HALF AND HALF on that show that preceded the quartet finals contest. 

There were several from the  Harmonizers family who we saw during the week and are not mentioned earlier in this article (here’s hoping we got everyone’s name!).    The list includes Darryl Flinn, Tom Gannon, Ross Johnson, Dan Cook, Bruce Minnick, Ray Johnson, Father Joe Witmer, Jay Carter. Ken Rub, Craig Kujawa, Sam McFarland, Bob Hirsh, and Glenn Williamson.

Thanks to Dixie Kennett and Keith Jones, for contributing additional info for this report and for Dixie’s work on our Harmo convention handbook.

Next year’s convention will be in Los Angeles June 28-July 5, 2020.

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 during the70^th year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd.)