Alliance was in Perth to judge the AAMBS Western Region Quartet Contest and to perform in the showcase concert this past weekend (8-9 May 2010).

The weekend began with us having a few hours rehearsal on Thursday and Friday nights. After the national contest in September last year, Alliance have been excited to start working on some new repertoire, leading to recording a second CD later this year.

Paul Roussell was scheduled to be the Music Category judge but had to withdraw at the last minute. Alliance tenor and AAMBS Chairman of Judges Ian Mulholland was available to step in, joining Richard (Presentation Category) and Dan (Singing Category). Alliance’s lead, Adrian (also a Presentation judge) participated as a competitor with “Guys & Dolls”, a mixed quartet, singing baritone.

We were impressed by the high standard and special mention must go to iCappella (Ladies Open Champion Quartet) for their stunning performance of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”; Petit Fours (Ladies Youth Champion Quartet); and Nexus (Men’s Open Champion Quartet). The boys from Nexus caused quite a stir by revealing a new quartet line-up with Alex switching to tenor, Ash to lead, Gordon to baritone and Ali remaining as solid as ever on bass. Everyone agreed that the re-voicing has taken them to a new level. Good job boys.

The Saturday evening show saw Vocal Evolution and Alliance join the medal winners from the contest plus hosts West Coast Chordsmen and visiting barbershoppers from South Australia – a true Western Region event! An excellent audience of around 400 filled the venue in Perth’s CBD. Alliance was very well received, singing “Good Luck Charm”, “What Kind of Fool Am I”, and “Love/Eyes Medley”. As always it was a thrill and a pleasure to perform as the current AAMBS champion quartet in front of a knowledgeable and warm audience. We were really touched by the thanks and gifts from Pender Pedler, President of the Westcoast Chordsmen, for appearing in the show.

We finished off the weekend with more rehearsal on the Sunday including recording ourselves to track our progress.

Alliance is now looking forward to shows and workshops in Hobart on May 29/30 and the Gold Coast on June 19 before linking up with long time coach and friend, Eddie Martinez from the USA, in Perth later in June.

The weekend began with a light rehearsal for the three mini-choruses on the Friday night and was followed by a big day of workshops and further chorus rehearsals before a concert extraveganza on the Saturday night.  As always, it was great to catch with all our friends from Eastern Region. A huge thanks to Doug Moody for the countless hours of organising; a great time was had by all.

Alliance next comes together for a performace and rehearsal weekend in Perth over the ANZAC day weekend.

This event really is the “big one” for us as it represents the highest award in Australia for a barbershop quartet. We were especially pleased to record a personal best 78.6 point average over the three judging categories from the four songs we performed.

Credit also to the silver medalist quartet Happy Hour from the Gold Coast and 3 Men & A Tenor from Perth who were awarded the bronze. We should also mention Nexus, also from Perth, who came in fourth very close behind 3 Men & A Tenor. Both of these quartets sing with us in the Vocal Evolution chorus and we are very proud of these extremely talented young quartets.

Speaking of Vocal Evolution, they won the National Chorus Contest at the convention which was also a huge thrill for all involved.

Another big highlight was seeing our Tenor Ian Mulholland being installed as a life member of AAMBS. Ian has brought his experience to quite a few roles within the organisation over the last 20 years and is a deserved recipient of this prestigious award.

Congratulations also go to our baritone Richard Reeve who has qualified as a Presentation category judge within the Australasian Guild of Judges at the judging school held earlier in the week. Ian, Adrian and Dan who are already judges also requalified in the Music, Singing and Presentation categories repectively.

We had an amazing time in the USA, representing Australia at the International Quartet Contest.

Although Anaheim, a south-eastern district of Los Angeles near Disneyland was our destination, we first flew to Denver to meet up with long time friend and coach Eddie Martinez for a few days of final coaching and preparation. Eddie had also arranged for us to sing on the Sound of the Rockies (4th placed International chorus) show. What a thrill that was, and what a thrill to walk into the dressing room to meet the guys from Storm Front (3rd placed International quartet) being coached by two of the stars of barbershop, Rick la Rosa and Chad Guyton.

We spent three wonderful days in the Rocky Mountains with Eddie, staying in a cabin, eating, sleeping and singing barbershop all day. What a treat! That final coaching put the final polish on our performance and we can’t thank Eddie enough for giving up some of his vacation time to spend with us.

Then we flew to LA and into the excitement that is an International Convention. Our first foray into Harmony Marketplace resulted in us singing a song for Mike Slamka (Lead of Crossroads the 2009 International quartet champions), and meeting lots of old friends. After pushing our credit cards to the limit stocking up on t-shirts and all the latest recordings of the top groups, we ventured into the hotel lobby for an evening of singing tags and catching up with people.

Our first official performance was to sing “Advance Australia Fair” at the start of the competition sessions at 11am on Wednesday 1 July. That went well and gave us a good feel for the stage and sound setup.

Our competition time was 9pm on Wednesday evening, so we were able to watch the first session of quartet competition, where we realised (as if we didn’t know already) that the competition was going to be pretty fierce. We were very pleased with our performance in the contest. It was great to receive numerous “shout-outs” during the webcast interview, and we want to thank everyone who watched. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. We performed as well as we had hoped, and scored 75.7%, just 0.3% below our target of 76%. That’s the highest score ever by an AAMBS quartet at International, so we are justifiably proud of that!

Our other official performance was at the World Harmony Jamboree dinner show on Thursday. That went well too, and there were many acts from around the world, which was a smorgasbord of talent for the audience. We gave the audience some Aussie flavour with “I Am Australian” and our medley of “Waltzing Matilda” and “I Still Call Australia Home”.

Highlights of the Convention would have to be Crossroads quartet performance of Lucky Old Sun, which ended up with everyone crying and screaming for more, and the performances of the Vocal Majority and the Ambassadors of Harmony in the chorus contest. The VM broke the world record for the highest score ever in an International chorus contest, only for it to be broken an hour later by the Ambassadors. What a thrill! Their performance brought the house down, and it was so exciting to be there and part of that historic event.

After a full 4 days (and nights) of International Convention activities, we were absolutely spent, but wonderfully glad that we had had the opportunity to be part of it all. Other events included the AIC show, the Harmony Foundation Show and the Collegiate quartet contest.

Affiliates did extremely well this year, with a quartet from Sweden (Ringmasters) winning a 4th place medal, and the Musical Island Boys from New Zealand finishing 10th. It’s the first time EVER that an affiliate has finished in the top 10 (and there were two this year), and the first time EVER an affiliate group has won an International medal in open competition. The youth choruses from Sweden (7th) and New Zealand (10th), also did extremely well.

There are so many people to thank for making it possible for Alliance to go to International. We hope we don’t miss anyone out! First of all, AAMBS, who nominated us and gave us a $4,000 subsidy. Then there was our chapter, Vocal Evolution, who supported us with a number of fundraising events. Thanks to all of the acts who performed on our fund-raising concert in April, Nexus, BlackJaQ, VE, Johnny Young Talent School, Ambrosia String Quartet, and MC Mike Donnelly. Our wonderful friends from Hills Harmony, who have supported us over the years and put on a fund-raising concert for us in Sydney. Our families who have always allowed us the time to devote to perfecting our barbershop skills. All of our supporters from the Men In Harmony and West Coast Chordsmen choruses in Perth, and to all members of Western Region. To the Eastern Region for inviting us to be part of your weekend workshop in February, another great opportunity for us to hone and share our skills with fellow barbershoppers.

If you ever get a chance to go to an International Convention, even just as a spectator, we suggest you grab it with both hands. You will never regret it.

We rehearsed after breakfast and then headed out to get our phones hooked up. Took way longer than we wanted or expected. The guy behind the counter requested a photo with Richard because he thought our Bari looked like Brett Favre, Green Bay Packers legend.

Onto the show after a very late lunch where we were met by George, member of International quartet gold medalists Classic Collection, who welcomed us and showed us around.

Out back were Stormfront rehearsing and sounding awesome. We were sharing a changing room with McPhly, a young quartet who were coming into the upcoming contest ranked 11. They also were sounding amazing. We were feeling very privileged to be sharing the stage withese guys and very grateful to have the opportunity for a hit- out like this before Anaheim.

Backstage everyone was incredibly friendly and really made us feel welcome.

The lineup for the show was:

• Sound of the Rockies
• McPhly
• Alliance
• Storm Front
• INTERMISSION
• McPhly
• Storm Front
• Alliance
• Sound of the Rockies

It was a full house and the crowd was incredible. Very vocal and very supportive. We did a decent job of our songs and the crowd seemed to especially like our Aussie set. Our first performance in front of a US crowd done. What an experience!

We headed to the afterglow after the show at a local restaurant. We got to mix and mingle with the guys and have a meal and share some laughs and songs.

We were driving to Estes Park to meet up with our coach Eddie Martinez that night so didn’t stay too long. We arrived at the cabin about 2am and finally got bed at about 4am after catching up With Eddie.

Our congratulations also go out to our Vocal Evolution chorus buddies in the quartets Nexus and 3 Men and a Tenor who placed second and third respectively in the Open Quartet contest. Vocal Evolution quartets also won the Schools (Fridge Magnets), Youth (3 Men and a Tenor) and Seniors divisions (Back To Bassics) – a clean sweep!

We were invited over by the AAMBS Eastern Region to be the feature quartet and educators for their Quartet Workshop weekend. While we were there we did a special performance at a luncheon hosted by the Australian American Association and the American Embassy. We were interviewed on the radio by ABC Canberra and later on the Friday sang for a group of international military attaches at a Aussie BBQ-themed dinner.

You can listen to some of our radio performance here. We are also featured on the front page of the US Embassy in Canberra at the moment.]

Alliance now have a Facebook group you may like to check out. We have just posted a couple of videos there that we don’t have on this site just yet.

Click here to get to the Facebook page.