October saw the culmination and delivery of many months of hard work producing our annual concert.  This year was quite a special concert, featuring an alien called “No-Tone” who visited a River City Clippers rehearsal on a quest to discover what music was all about. 

A huge highlight of the show, besides the Clipper’s singing, was an amazing video to start the concert created by one of our talented members, Andi, which we highly recommend BHA members take the time to watch this masterpiece (https://youtu.be/xUt0P_F45-I).

We also welcomed a newly-formed female barbershop chorus as our guest performers, “Blue Sky Harmony”, who wowed our audience with their exceptional talent.  We also put together a home-grown Clipper’s octet just for the concert called, “Just Ate”.

In November we were extremely fortunate to host internationally renowned singing coach and Musical Director of the “Central Standard” Chorus, Rob Mance, for an evening of coaching. Rob taught us many new ideas and opened our eyes to techniques for better alignment, vocal production and singing better together as a chorus.

We’ve enjoyed several Christmas Carol events this December, performing at Westfield Carindale and an upcoming performance at Bunnings in Newstead. Each and every December the Clippers also spread some Christmas barbershop joy to the patients and staff of the Mater Hospital in South Brisbane, visiting the maternity wards - singing well-known Christmas songs of joyful births and the thrill of new life; as well as visiting the adults’ hospital to provide comfort to patients who need a ray of sunshine.  It is an uplifting experience for our singers as well those who’s faces light up with the sound of our harmonies.


Lastly, we had two chorus members retire this December, Laurel Connolly, who served in the Auxiliary Team for over 12 years performing a number of duties to assist the chorus and Merv Harcourt, who’s been singing lead in the Clippers for 16 years and also a list of other duties as long as your arm.  We thank Laurel and Merv for their service and wish them well for the future.

We look forward to a successful year ahead and wish the same to our fellow barbershop choruses and quartets.