Yes, this is a trailer for the upcoming International Youth Chorus Contest which will be held in Vegas on Saturday. Like last year, I will be competing with 52Eighty. The difference? 52Eighty is the current International Youth Chorus Champions...So I'm technically coming in as a past International champion.
Last year (exactly one year ago to be precise) 52Eighty won the International Youth Chorus Contest in Tampa Florida, one of the most memorable moments in my Barbershop resume. Not only did we win the crown, but we won with the highest scoring average in the history of the contest, 83.5% , which would have put us in 12th place at the regular, big boy, international chorus contest held last July in Philadelphia. Below is the video from that contest in Tampa. I'm in the front row, all the way to your left.
To qualify to be a youth chorus, no one can sing on stage that is older than 30. I won with 52Eighty at age 28, and now I'm returning with the chorus as a 29 year old, and the oldest member at that. It's been quite a different experience for me this year in comparison from last year. Darin Drown (Baritone of the 2010 International Quartet Champions, Storm Front) has taken over directing responsibilities where last year Chris Vaughn (Lead of the 2004 International Quartet Champions, Gotcha!) and Matt Swann (Baritone of the 2003 Collegiate International Quartet Champions, Heat) led us into the gold medal winning performance in Tampa.
The chorus, even though we hang onto the same name, is virtually a new chorus containing mainly high schoolers and a hand full of college age kids. Only seven people, me included, from the gold medal winning chorus from Tampa have returned to walk out on the International stage again. It's been interesting since most of the kids are new to Barbershop and truly have no idea what it's about. I was asked to be a section leader by Darin and have really been a much more integral part of the chorus in leadership.
The funny part is...we are no where NEAR ready to compete on stage. But to be honest, I'm not sure I really care. Darin is using the chorus this year to simply get his high school choir kids baptized in Barbershop the best way he knows how. And the returning 52Eighty guys from last year are taking the same mentality to this as well. We are all doing what we can to be as good as we can be, but the effort that's being put into this year's chorus doesn't even compare to how it was last year. I'm going into this contest with no expectations and simply to have fun.
It'll be great fun because I'm singing tenor in a trio for our third contest song. A great arrangement of Nearer My God To Thee where the chorus sings harmony parts in the background, a soloist takes the melody line, and somewhere in the middle the trio comes out and really accelerates the energy of the song. The trio section will last only for a short while, but it'll still be fun none the less. Look at earlier posts from the Sound of the Rockies Christmas show to hear what our arrangement of Nearer My God To Thee sounds like.
I'm super excited and ready to see old friends and make new ones. What would make this experience even better you ask? Go to the Youth Chorus Webcast page and pay $15 to cheer on 52Eighty! You'll get to hear all of the choruses at that price too. And believe me, with 19 choruses competing this year, many of which are returning from last year, the contest is going to be pretty exciting. I wonder if the winning chorus will beat our score from last year?
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