Looking Back on the October 7-8th 2022 M-AD Fall Contest and Convention

 Looking Back on the October 7-8^th 2022 M-AD Fall Contest and Convention

 

It was great for the Harmonizers to sing again at our Mid Atlantic District (MAD) contest and convention after the years without a convention.

 

And it was great to have another Harmonizer quartet win the district quartet championship! FIRST TAKE earned 3178 points (or 88.3 %) to capture the top slot.  The quartet includes Alex Courson, Tony Colosimo, Drew Wheaton, and Andrew Havens. 

 

The Harmonizers did not compete in the chorus contest at Lancaster, PA, but presented a master class from the main stage Saturday before the start of the quartet finals, provided a chorus for the district’s chorus director development class, and appeared as a guest on the Saturday night show wearing their third place medals earned in Charlotte.  

 

Songs for the weekend included “Never Fully Dressed,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and “Circle of Life” for the Saturday night show; plus a couple songs “Sweet and Lovely” and “Heart of My Heart” for the directors training class; and parts of “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” and “Somethings Comin” for the master class.  

 

Handouts for the master class gave an outline for the one-hour session with presenters Tony Colosimo, Terry Reynolds and Joe Cerutti.  There comments including showing the demographics of the chorus, ages and career fields; a significant session on vocal pedagogy; and a transparent report on how we do things to prepare the chorus for performance, to gather feedback, to communicate, and to manage operations. 

 

Many members of the chapter drove up on Saturday and some actually drove home after the show.  Many of us enjoyed the goodies and lunch from the Amish Central Market across the street from the hotel – especially since the chorus was singing right through the dinner hour. Fortunately there was a dressing room for the chorus to use for the evening.

 

One other Harmonizer quartet was set to sing in the contest, but bass Vinny came down with COVID and so BREAKFAST BLEND dropped out at the last minute. The quartet includes Mike Geipel, Scott Beach, Jerry Caudrilli and Vinny Capaccio. 

 

The third place quartet for the weekend, SECRET BEST FRIENDS, included former member Will Daniel Simmons. The fourth place quartet, MADHATTAN, included former member Spencer Wight.

 

Chapter friends, the QUINTONES, were the mic tester quartet on Friday night, and PRATT STREET POWER sang to complete their reign as 2020 M-AD champs.  Their baritone, Ben Hawker, provided the rhythm for our rendition of “Circle of Life.”  Their lead, Ed Schubel, is a former Harmonizer.

 

Another chapter friend, Stephanie Brictson, was named to the M-AD Hall of Honor.  She served as coach and choreographer for the chapter a few years ago. There are 26 Harmonizers in the Hall of Honor. She was the tenor in the fifth place quartet. CHAMPAGNE ALLEY. Harmonizer Rick Taylor is chairman of the Hall of Honor committee.

 

The lead singer in the eighth place quartet, BREAKFAST FOR DINNER, Anna Chelak, was the student chorus director the Harmonizers worked with in the afternoon. She is a from Hells Kitchen, NY. Artistic director Joe Cerutticonducted this training session and the chorus provided the chorus for her to direct.  She had prepared to direct one of our songs which was fun. Leaders of the M-AD thanked the chorus members for helping with this education program.\

 

There \ere members of the Harmonizer family working all weekend at the convention in duties such as events team with Brian Ammerman as one of the new team members;  David Welter as M-AD treasurer, working the lights for the contest; Sheryl Berlin as emcee for the chorus contest; Mike Kelly as videographer; recent Tuesday night Harmonizer guest Kevin Mendez as one of the candidate judges for the week end; past district presidents Alan Wile, Bill Colosimo, Dennis Ritchey and Bob Eckman were in attendance; and Steve White who is the cofounder and president of the Mid-Atlantic District Association of Quartet Champions (MADAQC) organized a successful Sing/Tag with the Champs fundraising activity in the hotel lobby.  Several of our members gave a donation that went to the M-AD’s Youth in Harmony Program and sang a tag or a song including  Dylan Smith, Sam McFarland, Bill Colosimo and Noah Van Gilder.

 

Many members of the Harmonizer family were also on stage during the chorus contest among the 16 choruses even though Alexandria did not compete. Parkside Harmony won the contest and East Coast Sound was second.  Both of these choruses will  be eligible to sing in the International contest in Louisville KY next summer. Sean Devine is one of the directors in Hershey and was joined by Lance Fisher, Chris Yates and Michael Vilcej on stage.  Lance and Josh Myers sang with East Cost Sound on stage.

 

Mike Wallen directed the Richmond Chorus with Mike Geipel, Scott Beach, Jim McConnell and Tom Burkey on the risers. Pookie Dingel was director of the Harrisburg Chorus.  Kris Zinkievich directed the Heart of Maryland Chorus with Tim Buell on the risers. BJ Hillinck, son of our new member, David, is co-director of the Voices of Gotham  (and BJ’s wife Elizabeth, was tenor in BREAKFAST BEFORE DINNER).   And as promised, our friends in Bryn Mawr, PA, sang the “Wee Small Hours of the Morning” arrangement the Harmonizers sang in 1998 for the gold medal. 

 

It was great to join together with fellow barbershoppers from all across the district to sing “Keep the Whole World Singing” as a close to this year’s convention. Next year’s convention will be Sept. 29-30.

 

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 for the great things going on each week during the 74^th year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. - YeEd)