The 2018 BHA National Barbershop Convention website 
(https://www.barbershopconvention.com.au/) is now open and ready to accept registrations. This Convention is being held for the first time in Adelaide. Most activities will be held at the famous 152 year old National Heritage listed Adelaide Town Hall, 128 King William Street, Adelaide. Check out the venue here: http://www.adelaidetownhall.com.au/

The Convention will run from Wednesday 12 September 2018 through to Sunday lunchtime 16 September 2018, followed by our primary annual educational event for all members, Harmony Academy, from Sunday 16 to September through to lunch time on Wednesday 19 September.

Registration Cost details:
Early Bird (by 30 June 2018)
$380 full delegate
$320 non-competing delegate (accompanied by a full delegate)
$320 Youth
$260 Student (Full time student <25 years not in full time work).

Full Rate (after 30 June 2018)
$440 full delegate
$380 non-competing delegate (accompanied by a full delegate)
$380 Youth
$320 Student (Full time student <25 years not in full time work)
 
Renowned as the “City of Churches” for at least the last 150 years, Adelaide is now celebrated for many other reasons, but none more so than its creative culture. Music is a core component of Adelaide’s cultural identity and in 2015 the city was recognised as Australia’s first and only "City of Music" by the UNESCO Creative Cities Network.

The main Convention events in Adelaide will be followed by Harmony Academy which will be held at the Adare Camp and Caravan Park, 20 Wattle Drive, McCracken (Victor Harbour) from Sunday afternoon 16 September 2018 to Wednesday 19 September 2018. This will offer a unique opportunity to receive singing and music tuition from a faculty of outstanding Barbershop educators in a beautiful harbour side setting.

Access to registrations via the Convention website for the Harmony Academy will soon be available.  
Australian Barbershop is now entering its busy regional contest season. These regional contests are held as qualifying contests for all quartets competing in the National Contest which forms a major part of the Convention in September.

There will be Regional contests held in Sunshine, Central, Victorian, Eastern and Western Regions. I would like to extend a big vote of thanks to our judges and contest administrators, the regional chairmen and their committees, as well as our Chairman of Judges, Alex Morris, for making these contests possible.

Best wishes to all of those competing in the upcoming contests! Of course, not everyone will receive a medal, but I hope you will all enjoy the experience and achieve the goals you have set for yourselves. Looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible at the Convention in September!

Richard Wadick - BHA VP Events

Greetings!

I hope you are all enjoying the activities involved with this year’s round of regional contests and conventions! It’s great to see so many of you appearing on social media as you post fun items about your choruses and quartets, and we all really enjoy the feeling of camaraderie we experience knowing that we are all going through the same butterflies, celebrating the same experiences and sharing the joy of singing with others. 

Remember to tag BHA when you post, using @BarbershopAus or #BHA2018.

Adelaide Convention

It’s also great to see that the regional round of contests coincides with our launch of this year’s BHA Convention Website – www.barbershopconvention.com.au.

This year sees us visiting the City of Adelaide for the first time. Our contest events will be held in the beautiful Adelaide Town Hall from Wednesday 12 September 2018 to Sunday 16 September 2018. This will be followed immediately by our newly revamped Harmony Academy offer a unique opportunity to receive singing and music tuition from a faculty of outstanding Barbershop educators in a beautiful harbourside setting from Sunday 16 September 2018 to Wednesday 19 September 2018.

Renowned as the "City of Churches" for over 150 years, Adelaide is now celebrated for many other reasons, but none more so than its creative culture. Music is a core component of Adelaide's cultural identity, and I am sure the local coordination team will have some great experiences in store for all of us!

One of the experiences we are very excited about is getting the chance to hear our special guests, the Barbershop Harmony Society's International Quartet Champions, Instant Classic as our headline quartet, and as educators at the Harmony Academy that follows.

Another fantastic experience will be our Welcome Gala on Thursday evening, which will be held at the world-renowned Adelaide Oval. As one of South Australia’s most impressive venues – boasting picturesque views of the hallowed turf, the city, St Peter’s Cathedral and more – it provides a unique setting to welcome all of our delegates to Adelaide.

Early Bird registrations close on 30 June 2018, so make sure you register now to take advantage of our special discounts.

Regional News

As I mentioned in my last article, I am calling on all of you to help the BHA team maintain a fun environment for you to enjoy your singing.

One of the first things we are doing is to engage more effectively with our Regional Chairmen in each state and territory throughout Australia.

It occurs to me that for those of you who may be newer to the organisation, you might not know what a Regional Chairman is. Some others of you, even those who have been members for many years, might also be unaware of this group of people who work locally in major population centres around the country to assist the National Council with some of our local events, and to represent the membership in their location.

BHA has six geographically-based Regions:

• Western Region (Western Australia)

• Central Region (South Australia and Northern Territory)

• Sunshine Region (Queensland and parts of northern NSW)

• Eastern Region (New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory

• Victorian Region (Victoria)

• Tasmanian Region (Tasmania and Australian Antarctic Territory)

Each Region has a Regional Management Team, made of up representatives of each club or chorus in that area. These representatives nominate the Regional Chairman to help guide their region’s local activities, and act on behalf of the individual singers and clubs in their areas.

These dedicated guys take a hands-on responsibility for the regional management team and is responsible for carrying the Association’s programs and policies to the choruses and members through his ability to have localized, hands-on contact.

So, it seems a natural progression for the BHA Council to build a strong relationship with these Regional Chairman, in order that we might have a better connection with our members.

Whilst we strive to make decisions that we believe will be in the best interests of all of our members, it makes our job easier if we are able to make more fully-informed decisions that take into account local or region-specific issues and sentiments that may impact our members differently in different areas.

So, I encourage all of you to reach out to your Regional Chairman. He may learn something from you; you may learn something from him; but either way, we hope that we can learn something from all of you as we continue to guide BHA’s future direction and build the organisation into the future.

Contact your Regional Chairmen, me, or any member of Council, any time you want to give us your feedback, tell us your ideas, share your successes, make suggestions, or just have a chat!

Contact details are on our website https://www.barbershop.org.au/Contact

We're thrilled to have secured the Barbershop Harmony Society's 2015 International Quartet Champions, Instant Classic as the headline quartet in the Adelaide Convention and as educators at the Harmony Academy that follows.

Instant Classic is comprised of Kohl (baritone), Kyle (bass), Theo (lead) and David (tenor).  They are four good friends with a passion for barbershop harmony, a cappella music, and youth outreach.  They perform a variety of music from several decades and styles, including vocal jazz, musical theater, pop, and even R&B!

The quartet began singing together in college and first competed in the Barbershop Harmony Society International Collegiate Quartet Competition in 2009. The group has since become the 2011 Cardinal District Quartet Champions, the 2012 International Collegiate Quartet Silver Medalists, the 2012, 2014, & 2015 Cardinal District Quartet of the Year, and then went on to become the 2015 International Quartet Champions.

Check out their website here:  www.instantclassicquartet.com

As we move closer to the convention, BHA is pleased to announce that we will be having two separate workshops at the convention. One schools workshop on the Wednesday, and a youth workshop on the Friday. Our guest clinicians, along with workshop materials will be announced closer to the date. Once again we will be running our successful Teacher's scholarship for educators to attend the 2018 Harmony Academy, so if you know a secondary music educator who would jump at the chance for some international standard training and development, get them to send an email to Youth@barbershop.org.au

I'd also like to wish all youth quartets and choruses the very best of luck as we roll into our regional contest season!

Yours in Harmony,

Kieran O'Dea - VP, Youth Development.

In the last In Harmony Newsletter, Derek Cosburn provided a timely reminder that recognition is a key component of expressing our gratitude to those members of our barbershop community who contribute so much in keeping our clubs, regions and national association thriving. The introduction of the inaugural BHA medal in 2017 was the first time that a member could be nominated by their peers and considered for a national award that recognised their contribution.

In 2018, the BHA Medal will continue, and in addition we wish to enhance the focus on Club Member of the Year.    Many clubs run an annual acknowledgement of those who contribute and often the timing of that process does not align with the National Convention and the opportunity to acknowledge that contribution beyond the borders of the club.

For this reason we are seeking feedback on how the National Council can better facilitate this process and will be discussing opportunities to do this with each region.

In the meantime, start thinking about your BHA Medal nominees ready for the call in late May!

Yours in Harmony,

Paul Adams
VP – Membership BHA

On the 11th of April we celebrated Barbershop Quartet Day! This date commemorates the birth of the organised barbershop movement on the 11th of April, 1938, when 26 men gathered together at the invitation of Rupert Hall, the “Royal Keeper of the Minor Keys,” and O.C. Cash, “Third Assistant Temporary Vice Chairman” for a songfest. Subsequent gatherings snowballed, leading to the founding of the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America, now known as the Barbershop Harmony Society.

BHA celebrated Barbershop Quartet Day by sharing videos of quartet performances from our recent National Convention in Sydney (which you can find on our YouTube page).

How did you celebrate? Please share with us by emailing me at marketing@barbershop.org.au or by posting to our Facebook page.

Daniel Beckitt - VP Marketing & Development

Quartets need to re-register on an annual basis and in time for the regional contests.

Unfortunately, many quartets leave it  till the last minute, just in time for the close of regional contest entries.

This creates a lot of last minute work in late March early April for our executive officer, Jeannie, and our contest administrators, Linda, Aaron and John.

What do you think?

With the new membership year, perhaps a closing date of the end of February for quartets who wish to enter the regional contests.

Would this work for your quartet?

Are there any exceptions we should cater for?

How could we cater for exceptions?

Please forward your comments to secretary@barbershop.org.au


Trevor Rootes - BHA Secretary

The last major survey of member’s views was carried out in 2005.   Since that time we have seen many changes in the Australian and International Harmony landscape requiring responses by our clubs, regions and association to ensure the ongoing viability of the Barbershop community.    Drawing on the latest research by Barbershop Harmony Society, a major survey has been designed to explore the views of our members, clubs and regions and inform the priorities and strategies for Barbershop within Australia.  

The survey will be facilitated through the Survey Monkey platform and will be launched in June 2018.   The survey will be open for 6 weeks and we anticipate having the first pass of analysis ready for presentation at the Adelaide Convention membership forum.    Watch out for it and ensure you take the opportunity to have your say.

Yours in Harmony,

Paul Adams
VP – Membership BHA

MEMBERSHIP YEAR

Barbershop singing has been featured in the rock musical We Will Rock You. Staged at His Majesty’s Theatre in Perth with a semi-professional cast, a number of members of Vocal Evolution were involved. 
The show starred well known Australian performer Normie Rowe, and also Chris and Courtney Murphy (of Australian Idol fame).

The producer and director of the $500,000 show was Trevor Patient, a Vocal Evolution member, who has helped VE stage a number of innovative performances, including last year’s Funhouse at the Perth Fringe World Festival.

We Will Rock You is based on the music of Queen, with script by Ben Elton, and it has played to hundreds of thousands of people around the world. The Perth season played to over 8,000 in ten performances over three weeks.

Trevor was determined to use barbershop singers for the A Cappella introductions to the songs, Fat Bottomed Girls and Bohemian Rhapsody in the show. The audiences have gone absolutely wild over the skill of our barbershop singers, and the cast, who are widely experienced musical theatre performers have also been blown away (including Normie).

The show featured a 40-voice choir which was directed and rehearsed by past BHA President (and current Music Judge) Ian Mulholland, and included VE members, Mike Dagless, Phil Williamson and Rob Murray. Ian also acted as vocal coach for the whole cast (including principals). In addition, the “Bohemians” who have a major part in the show included Andrew Milner, Ash Schofield (BHA Performance Judge), Bill Nicol and current BHA President (and Performance Judge) Dan Millgate.

Each night, in their Bohemian costumes, Andrew, Ash, Bill and Dan sing the a cappella intros, except on the nights where Ash played the lead role of Kashoggi (which he understudied), and Ian swung in to cover him.

The boys have met Ben Elton, and also the cast received a special video from Brian May (member of Queen) wishing them luck for the season. An extra special outcome has been the posting of Andrew, Ash, Ian and Dan singing the a capella intro to Bohemian Rhapsody on Queen’s WWRY website. World notoriety for Australian barbershop! Check it out at http://www.queenonline.com/news/new-we-will-rock-you-website.

Further to our package of initiatives to upgrade our marketing and recruitment programme, the Melbournaires Events and Marketing Group has finalised the design for a new club emblem as shown above. Based on the emblem that was used for the 2016 national convention in Melbourne, it will replace the many variations of the "spire" currently in use. As a more modern and meaningful design, it is hoped it will quickly be recognised as synonymous to the Melbournaires Harmony Chorus, its associated choruses and quartets.

We have also been working with social media as a means to interest a wider audience from which to recruit. Set up by our knowledgable and hard working Charles Dougall, it employs Google MeetUp, (similar to Facebook but far more secure). The idea is to gain expressions of interest and send out invitations to rehearsals and/or events. The system is run by Andrew Wright, one of our few tenors, so we will wait expectantly on a high success rate.

Finally, we are not only spreading the love of barbershop singing locally or within Victoria. Our master collector of barbershop recordings Roger Archman, has been presenting his Barbershop Show on local radio for more than 12 years. Radio 98.1 FM is now streaming live, which means anyone in Australia can pick it up on the first Monday of every month at 1.10pm after the news. It works so well that Rogers' son listens in from Bath in the UK. Rogers' radio gig began when he asked them to publicise a Melbournaires show, and he has been doing it ever since. Having just been introduced to his third host presenter in that time, he is what you might call an old hand at the job, but still loves doing it, and does a wonderful job for the Melbournaires. If barbershoppers in Australia want to receive the play list before the show, all they need to do is become a Friend of the Chorus, (name, e-mail address and phone number), and he will send them the play list each month. Any new chorus or quartet CD will be gratefully received, and will be played on the show.

We look forward to exchanging promotional ideas with other choruses in the interest of keeping barbershop exposed to the masses.

Terry Phillips

Sixteen members of The Adelaide Allsorts Harmony Chorus competed at the first Barbershop World Mixed Chorus Competition hosted by Barbershop in Germany! (BinG!) in Munich over the weekend of 6^th – 8^th April 2018. The World Mixed Chorus Competition was run in parallel with the German Barbershop Musikfestival 2018. The venue was the outstanding Philharmonie Hall at ‘The Gasteig’, Munich. There were seven mixed choruses from Germany, UK, Ireland, Canada, Sweden and, of course, the Allsorts from Australia. Everyone we spoke to could not believe that we had travelled so far to compete, but were very appreciative that we did. The reception we received from the audience upon being introduced was rapturous, so much so that I had tingles in my neck and other members of the chorus were also moved.
We scored 63.5 average over our two competition songs. While this fell well short of some other competitors, we were not last (we finished sixth). We were happy that we delivered on stage exactly what we had rehearsed.

Sharing the stage with the likes of The Roninge Show Chorus, Heavy Medal and The Newfangled Four among others during the Matinee Show on the Sunday was also a highlight of our trip. After being introduced during this show, mention was made that it was the birthday of one of our members and so the audience sang Happy Birthday to her, which moved her to tears, thus taking out our entire tenor section!

Overall, this was a well worthwhile adventure. The barbershop community as always was welcoming and supportive and I am sure we will have many happy memories of this experience for a long time to come.
Regards,

David Perry - President

Wa’s Happnin’ in da Hills?

Welcoming the new guys to the risers for the Finale

All the preparation for our “A Cappella for Fellas” harmony singing course has fallen into place since the new year. We have been working hard producing corflute bill boards and then installing them into highly visible positions through out the Hills District. Our thanks to the Canberra Chordsmen for some good tips and great ideas which inspired us in our plan to keep the Hills “alive with music”.

A dozen guys registered through the website for the first week and we called them and offered our warmest welcome.  Two more arrived on the second night but a couple didn’t and then there was Easter.  Can’t tell you the exact statistics at this stage but everyone is having a good time and singing up a storm with a couple of new arrangements from our MD, Peter Donald.  The program culminated in a concert on the 19th of April which was attended by around sixty family and friends with seven of our new recruits joining us on the risers for the final three numbers. Six of these new guys have indicated they are keen to join the Chorus so a good result   
 
We had a great Bunnings Barbecue in the mix as well.  A stream of customers all day and we were so busy there was hardly time to sing together.  We will have to arrange things better for the next one.  The day added about $1,800 to our savings fund for a set of new, more manageable risers.  This gave us enough for the deposit so they are now ordered and we have about four months to accumulate the balance.

So, come November and if everything goes to plan, there should be a set of six secondhand three-step Wenger risers up for sale, complete with their own trailer. Check out our advert in the Trading Post if you might be interested. https://www.tradingpost.com.au/GM/Choral-Risers/Castle-Hill/NSW/AdNumber=2YL4J9
 
March has been a great year for anniversary celebrations.  This month Ron Hovorka, Rob Pryde, Rob Wansborough, David Farley and John Gerber all celebrate more than 20 years singing with Hills Harmony.  Our heartiest congratulations to them and the members of Hills Harmony thank them for their support. They must be enjoying themselves.
 
Paul Meller
VP Marketting

“Spot the camera” was the call as we came off  from our final afternoon rehearsal for the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony. - a little more on that later.

This week saw the Blenders participate in the biggest event in our 30 year history - the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games. Huge congratulations go to our team which started negotiations with the Closing Ceremony Team many months ago. Without them we would not have been part of this event. To get a behind the scenes look at the organisation, rehearsing and feeding a cast of 1500 people was an experience to say the least. At rehearsals there was many an hour of down time, but we managed to put the time to good use as we entertained, taught tags and supported other cast members. The small section rehearsals that we started out with months ago morphed into the huge production shown on the night.

High Fives

Umbrella Cam!

Originally our spot was just 55 seconds, a small part in a very big cast. But then to be invited back to sing with headliner Archie Roach and other performers such as Anthony Cellea, The Veronicas, Guy Sebastian, Katie Noonan and Kate Ceberano and the other members of the ‘star cast’ in the finale was was a huge honour and one which none of us will ever forget.

“Spot the camera” (spider cam) became a problem for the night performance when the camera became camouflaged in the night sky but we rose to the occasion and managed to get our bearings and cries of “where was the camera, I couldn’t see the camera”, became the talk as we walked off, but  we all agreed most of us managed to get our bearings and find it. After a very long week we all traipsed home by whatever means we could with sore feet, tired and exhausted but all the better for a fantastic experience.

Waiting! Waiting!

With Yothu Yindi

A few weeks earlier The Blenders entertained at the Gold Coast Rotary Convention and performed at the opening of the new outdoor stage at the Gold Coast Home of the Arts (HOTA). A fantastic new venue for the Gold Coast.

The same week as closing ceremony rehearsals The Blenders also sang as part of the Bleach Festival and the next day helped celebrate Centenary of Southport which was followed by a full dress rehearsal for the closing ceremony on the same day - a very long day.

We are now switching into ANZAC day mode, preparing for Regionals, singGC (June) and Voices In Paradise (July) - a busy time for us ahead.

Ian Mackey
Secretary
The Blenders

Miner Chords on Fun Day Future

What a year it has started out.  The Chorus has grown in numbers and some nice sounds are developing among what is relatively a neophyte group as a lot of our people are still new.   But there is more…..

April 29 Fun day with the Judges at Ipswich
 The Judges from the Saturday Regionals will be in Ipswich Old Court house to help Miner Chords members and other Barbershoppers and singers to sing better.  The 3 judges will be there.  We are inviting members from other Choruses to share in the experience. 
We plan to start on Sunday at 9.30 and go through to about 2.00pm
A cold lunch will be available as well as tea and coffee.
Cost is $10 for lunch, etc. 
Interested??       Please contact David on 0407831326 to book a spot.
Ipswich Old Court house is on the corner of East and Roderick Sts Ipswich.  Parking available on the opposite corner.
I would like to acknowledge the support from Trevor and Shane from BHA for their support in providing this opportunity.

And some more good news….
Our Chorus recently had a guest MD of Kelly Shepard of the medal winning USA quartet “Metropolis” for several weeks. Kelly and his family are resident in Brisbane.
If you want to see how fun quartet singing can be check out YouTube  Kelly Shepard and Metropolis.  You’ll love it!!

Keep-on-singing,

David Green