By now, we hope you heard the fantastic news: The Westchester Chordsmen are Northern Division Champions! We took Morristown, New Jersey by storm and came home with the gold, guaranteeing our place at the District competition this coming fall! This is hugely exciting news and reflective of the direction in which our chorus is going! We also sent more individual quartets to contest than in previous years. If there was ever a time to join our chorus, now would be it!
Let’s hear from some of our “guys on the risers” about their experiences at contest:
I went into the Division quartet contest as a nervous novice, half thinking “What the heck am I getting myself into?” I came out so glad that I did it. I learned so much and am eager to do it again. Watch out for me next year! My particular experience of the chorus competition performance was great. We worked so hard for so long, piggybacking on all that we learned from working towards the Carnegie Hall performance and the two subsequent shows, that I felt we were better than I’d ever heard us before. I was still surprised, and so happy, that we won. I am more than ready to improve for the Ocean City stage!
—Richard
The contest in Morristown helped us to build on the skill and esprit we developed in conjunction with our performance at Carnegie Hall. We are delighted that we are the “champs”, but we are not letting that go to our heads. We learned that we are good, but we also learned what we have to do better in order to compete with the elite choruses in the Mid-Atlantic district. The competition helps us to hone our craft. It is a pleasure to be part of an organization that is striving for excellence.
—Milt
I sang in a quartet with Scott Colman, Steve Delehanty, and Howard Sponseller. Our gimmick was that in the first song we each sang a particular part wearing a tee shirt that said which part we were singing, and for the next song we all switched parts; and we didsome schtick as we rearranged ourselves, with the last bit taking off our tee shirts to reveal the shirt underneath that said which new part we were each singing. The name of our quartet was, “Since We Can’t Find A Phone Booth.” We got lots of laughs – even the judges were practically falling out of their seats. Now if only we could have incorporated singing well into the act, that would have been the icing on the cupcake. When I listened to the recording the analogy that came to mind was the dog that’s so ugly, it’s cute. But hey, we had fun (and so did the audience)!
—Steve
A veteran barbershopper in the lobby after our performance who said something like: “That’s (our performance) was what we came here to see and hear!” Great review. My favorite part, as I sort of said, was being treated with such respect by the judges during evaluations, treated like a chorus on the edge of becoming “A” –then giving us the input and tools to get there. I wish you had heard the judges!
—Stephen
Capt’n Billy’s Whizbang was singing and having some fun at the Division Contest. It’s been a long, long time since Delehanty or Kruse, Sr. has qualified to sing in the MAD, District Contest. Kruse, Sr. sang in the mid 1970’s with the Three O’Clock Four and Delehanty sang with the zany Notewits about the same time and maybe into the 80’s.
Scott Kruse finished 9th in the District Contest in 2007 with R.S.V.P. Scott Colman will be singing with a quartet in the District Contest for the first time. What and exciting time for all of us.
—Bill
