Barbershopping: International Contest, Salt Lake City 2005

On July 5 through 10 of 2005, I had the privilege of attending and participating in the International Barbershop Competition, which was held in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was one of the most rewarding, enriching experiences of my life. Even better, it's probably just the first of many such experiences.

In January of 2005, I decided to attend the competition with Jim Boatright, president of the Valparaiso Masters of Harmony, the chorus I was singing with in Indiana. We had planned to fly out there and attend together. That was, of course, well before I left The Braun Corporation, well before I took a new job with DriveTime in Phoenix, well before I was invited to sing in the competition with the Spirit of Phoenix.

Here's a chronology of the events of the week...

Tuesday, July 5

Jim and I had originally planned to fly to SLC from Chicago, which is only about an hour from Kouts, Indiana, where he lives. By the time of the contest I had been in Phoenix for about two months, but I was back in Indiana over the weekend of the 4th of July to spend the time with my family. The night of the 4th, I said goodbye to Melanie and the kids and went back to Jim's house. We got up early on the morning of 5th to drive to Chicago's Midway airport. Instead of flying straight to Salt Lake, though, we flew to Phoenix.

The thing is, Jim had always wanted to see the Grand Canyon. He had lamented the fact that he would be so close, but wouldn't be able to see it. I proposed that we fly to Phoenix and then drive to Utah, doing a little sightseeing on the way. It didn't take much convincing to get Jim to go along with this idea.

After an uneventful flight, we were picked up at the airport by yet another Jim (more on this later), my brother. We dropped him back at work, and after a few brief detours in town, headed north.

Personally, I find the desert scenery beautiful, even in the middle of summer. Some of the landscape had been scorched by recent wildfires, but there was still plenty to look at. But Jim had no idea what was yet to come. We headed up hill, then down into the Verde Valley, then back uphill until we came to the exit for Sedona.

I have a soft spot for Sedona, even though it's become a haven for artsy-fartsy, New Age freakazoid weirdos. My grandparents lived in Sedona when I was growing up, and we spent lots of time there as a family. Jim's jaw dropped when we first saw the red rock cliffs well outside of town, and I don't think it ratcheted back up for at least an hour.

We continued past Sedona and up through the Oak Creek Canyon, which—for my money—is probably one of the prettiest places in the world. Melanie and I spent part of our honeymoon there. We drove through Oak Creek, stopping several times to take pictures and just take in the scenery, then headed up through Flagstaff, over the foothills of the San Francisco Peaks, to the Grand Canyon.

There's nothing that can prepare you for Grand Canyon. I hadn't seen it in over 10 years, but even if you just saw it yesterday, you can't help but have an emotional response. Jim and I stopped at the first overlook, and went out to the edge. For a while we just stood there, with tears in our eyes, marvelling at the beauty. We took pictures, of course, and watched the smoke rising in plumes from the controlled burns across on the North Rim.

We left the canyon and burned north, now making time rather than sightseeing. Once we got to page, it was pretty well dark. We drove on into the night, finally stopping at a motel in Beaver, Utah, at about 11:00 p.m.

Wednesday, July 6

We were up early, Wednesday morning, ready to get going. It took us a couple of hours to get to Salt Lake, and then some more time to get downtown and find the headquarters hotel. We registered, then rushed over to the Conference center to watch the opening ceremonies, already in progress.

After altogether too much talking, the first round of quartet quarterfinals began. I got to watch about an hour and a half of performances, after which I made a run to the airport to pick up some of "my boys." By the time we got back to the conference center, we had a few minutes to watch some more quartets, and then it was over to the Raddison for rehearsal.

The rehearsal was intense and frustrating. We felt like we were already pretty well prepared to get on stage and sing, but we soldiered through and did some more spit and polish. After rehearsal, we grabbed some dinner and then ran back over to the Conference Center to for the second round of quarterfinals.

Once again, I only got to watch about an hour's worth of quartets. (This wasn't necessarily a terrible thing, since some of the quartets clearly didn't belong on the International stage.) We got to see Dazzle, our hometown quartet, and they put on a slightly disappointing performance. A few quartets later, I had to make another airport run. Jim Case, the lead of our just-forming quartet, went with me to help.

This airport trip was to pick up "Larry the Bari," a chorus member who stands behind me on the risers, who happens to be blind. He had asked if someone could collect him from the airport, since he "really didn't want to rent a car." Turned out his plane had been delayed more than an hour, so in waiting for him, we missed the rest of the quarterfinals. That was okay, though, because it gave Jim and me some down time to get to know each other better.

Thursday, July 7

Thursday morning, the jitters began. We had to be at the rehearsal space early to get started with the warmup process. We did a "slow start" warmup, taking care not to overexert ourselves. Eventually, we moved on to starts and stops, and exercises intended to foster expression and emotional performance.

After a "sumptuous" breakfast brunch, we got into makeup and changed into our tuxes. We had some down time, so our quartet did a little light singing, tuning up our voices even further. Eventually, the buses came to take us to the conference center, and we entered the performance queue.

This was the worst part of the day—the waiting. First we waited in the Conference Center foyer, then we posed for a chorus photo. Then we waited some more in the foyer. Then we waited in the lobby of one of the other performance halls, then we moved onstage in the smaller hall for another tuneup. As we were going down the stairs to get onto the risers, one of our leads, Paul Graham, missed a step, fell and cracked his head on the floor. We all stood around helpless, as they tried to help Paul, stop the bleeding, and keep his tux clean. Medical people were called, and we went ahead with our brief rehearsal as they staunched the flow of blood and taped up the gash in Paul's head. He got his first applause of the day when he got shakily to his feet and joined us onstage. As one member put it later, it was "a thrill seeing Paul Graham wipe the blood off and sing like a warrior who doesn't know the meaning of quit."

Next came the final stage of waiting, in the bowels of the backstage area. Finally, we tiptoed into the wings, waiting for our turn to enter. We quietly entered as the judges tallied their scores from the previous chorus' performance. Then the announcement was made, the lights went up, and the show began.

Our performance was almost surreal—it somehow seemed to fly by as it dragged out forever. Our start was a bit tentative, and we weren't as strong as we could have been during the first song, our ballad. But we made up for it by tackling our up-tune with gusto. I'm sure everyone felt they could have done better, but overall it was a very good performance. We finished out of breath, panting and happy,

We were next to last on the program, so we didn't have to wait long to find out that we had qualified. Sure enough—we would be singing again on Saturday. There hadn't been a whole lot of doubt, but it was good to have that stage over with.

There wasn't much time to get our makeup washed off, change out of our tuxedos, and get dinner. We ended up grabbing a sandwich and hurrying back to the Conference center to see the AIC (Association of International Champions) Show. It was a real treat. We got to hear Gotcha, Four Voices, Acoustix, FRED and Powerplay, among others. It was an awfully nice ending to an exhausting, exhilarating day.

Friday, July 8

Friday was another rehearsal day, and we made the most of it. With one performance under out belts, it was easier to target what we really needed to work on, and we did it with fervor. As soon as they released us, we hurried over to the concert venue to watch the college quartet contest.

In a sense, this contest was similar to the "big boy" quarterfinals. Some of the quartets really didn't belong there, but had essentially qualified by default, since each district is guaranteed at least one entry into the competition. The ones that stood out, though, really stood out. We were thrilled to see Men in Black rise to the top for the medal, since they were clearly the best in the pack.

After this event, Jim and I used our only block of spare time to head over to the headquarters hotel and do a little barbershopping shopping. I bought a couple of CDs (including a release from the quartet that would eventually take the gold on Saturday night). I also bought a couple of shirts and a new pitch pipe. We went over to the Marriott and met Carl and Melanie Harris, dear friends and colleagues of mine, for dinner.

The semifinals seemed to go forever, but were much more rewarding than the quarterfinals. The pack of 20 was tighter than any of the contests we'd seen so far, and some of the singing was downright amazing. There were also some moments of hilarity, which included the "crash test dummy" set by the Hot Air Buffoons. I don't think there was a dry eye in the house after that one, from the laughing. Another much-talked-about moment came when the lead from one of the quartets (I think it was Sterling) stood up in a moment of inspiration and kicked the stool he'd been sitting on, and it unceremoniously clattered across the stage. It came through as an illustration of what not to do in contest.

Saturday, July 9

This was it—this was the Day. I'm sure the members of all of the choruses and quartets that competed on Saturday woke up with a very similar feeling: that all of the hard work would come down to just a few minutes onstage today. As I caught the shuttle to our rehearsal hotel, that's what I was thinking.

We did the drill: slow warmup, building to a couple of run-throughs, then starts and stops and some spot fixes. We had multiple pep-talks of the win-one-for-the-Gipper variety. One of the best moments of the morning came when Russ Young, one of our directors, gave me one of his medals to take with me onstage for luck. I guess it's his tradition to do this for members of the chorus who have never had competed in internationals before. I actually put the medal on under my tux shirt, so I could feel it dangling there while we performed.

We did breakfast, then makeup and costumes, and then the long windup began. After what seemed like hours (because it was), we found ourselves backstage, getting ready for our final tuneup before our performance. In a strange echo to Paul's Thursday injury, one of our basses collapsed just before we went onstage. Rick Wells couldn't and didn't perform with us—and ended up being hospitalized for what turned out to be a hypoglycemic semi-coma. After making sure he was taken care of, we trooped backstage and waited to go on.

This time we knew what to expect. We were much more relaxed, and performed at a very different level. First, we nailed the ballad, singing our hearts out, and then moved on to our uptune with renewed vigor. When we filed offstage, we knew we had done well. Again, we didn't have to wait long to find out that we had placed 8th overall, (and 6th in singing). Since our goal had been to be in the top ten, we were thrilled with our accomplishment.

There was literally no time between the end of the chorus finals and the beginning of the last quartet contest. One of the greatest things about the quartet competition was that I got to sit with Mike Morgan, the bass from my first quartet and the guy who really got me into barbershop. We watched and listened, compared notes, and were very pleased when Realtime grabbed the gold (and when Max Q didn't).

After the show, I took Jim back to the motel and went to our manditory afterglow with the Far Western District. It turned out to be a disappointment and a snafu. Our co-hosts, the Masters of Harmony, apparently decided that we didn't deserve another chance to sing. Lots of our chorus members got pretty ticked at the way we were snubbed, so we walked altogether. I joined up with Jim Case, Jim Ziegler and Tim Haskins (the other members of my newly-formed quartet) and we ended up at a Denny's, eating pie and ice cream and making plans for the future.

Sunday, July 10

In spite of yet another late night, Jim (Boatright) and I got up early to go to the Sacred Gold concert. We got there in plenty of time to get a good seat, and chatted and listened as the chorus and choir went through technical runthroughs for Music and the Spoken Word. A very rude man and woman in front of us very rudely shushed us for talking, even though the performance hadn't even started. Apparently they just had to hear the rehearsal, even though they'd hear everything two more times. Oh well.

Eventually the doors were closed and the music began, and it was perhaps the highlight of my week. It might have even topped the experience of being on the international stage. Maybe. Nobody could have sat in that performance and not felt the spirit, not believed that God had created us and had given us music to stir our souls. We heard the 360-voice Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the 600-voice Gold Medal Chorus, and the quartets Acoustix, Powerplay, and Four Voices (with a replacement lead). When the almost 1,000 voices joined together, you could hear angels singing with them.

True to form, the concert ran long, and we had to rush off to get everybody off to the airport. Before I knew it, I was on the road again, driving back south by myself (Jim flew straight from Salt Lake to Chicago), listening to barbershop CDs and still in awe over my week-long experience.

Next year in Lousville!

Images:

	My dear friend Jim gets his first look at the Grand Canyon		The chorus receives instructions during our Thursday warmup
	The chorus honors members who couldn't make it to compete		Waiting to compete on Thursday
	Waiting to compete on Thursday		Onstage during our Thursday performance
	Onstage during our Saturday performance		The Gold Medal Chorus combines with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for a huge, powerful sound

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How I pay the bills:
DriveTime
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What I do for fun:
Equinox
Spirit of Phoenix