Contest Results
- The good:
My chorus sang very well, improved our scores by 6 percentage points (to 86.4%), and took second (behind last year's international silver medalists). The buzz is that we may medal this year at international, after being together for less than 2 years.
I think one of the things that impressed the audience most was that our "acceptance" song was sung at a level that surpassed our actual contest performance, showing that we're not just a 2-song chorus. - The bad:
Unfortunately, my quartet (Harmony 101) did not do as well. Though we felt pretty good about our friday night set (it was good enough to get to the final 10 saturday night), the judges apparently didn't think we'd improved. We actually scored a little lower than we did at the division contest that qualified us to compete at district.
The sad thing is that we were really happy with our performances, and there's absolutely no doubt that we've improved since April. But, when we saw the scores, we just deflated. None of us were excited to sing for the rest of the (usually long) evening of afterglows and hospitality rooms. We left after fulfilling our basic obligations, and at the car, our lead uttered the scary "I don't feel like singing for a while. I'll give you a call in a few weeks." - The ugly:
After only two days, our lead surprised us by showing up at chorus rehearsal. I thought this was good news, indicating he'd gotten over his funk, but he pulled me aside at the break and said he didn't want to do the quartet anymore. He tried to soften the blow talking about how busy he is, and he wants to contentrate on the chorus, etc. But my intuition tells me he's either already been approached by someone, or is thinking about other opportunities on his own. While I'm a little disappointed in how he handled it (I ended up telling the tenor today, since the lead hadn't yet spoken to him), I wish him the best in the future. He's got great potential, but I think he's deceiving himself about his current skill level, and the amount of work it'll take to get to the international medals.
So, I guess I'm on the market again. If anybody knows of a need for a good barbershop baritone (or lead or tenor for the right group) in Northern California (or Denver!), let me know. 'Tis the season for the "quartet shuffle". And if I can't find an equal level (or better) quartet, maybe I'll just concentrate on my poker game for a few months.