On July 17, Greater Harrisburg Chorus Sweet Adelines International competed in the World Choir Games in Cincinnati Music Hall to become the first chorus to win the new barbershop category. Maggie Ryan, president of the 65-women chorus, recounted the experience:
Greater Harrisburg Chorus’s climb to the top at July’s World Choir Games in Cincinnati was an exercise in faith. The chorus floated away with the lone gold medal awarded in the barbershop championship division.
In the very first barbershop competition at this worldwide event, Greater Harrisburg emerged as champion ahead of other choruses from Sweet Adelines International, as well as Harmony Inc. and the men’s Barbershop Harmony Society.
The World Choir Games attracted 362 choirs from 64 nations. To say the chorus is delighted is an understatement. To say it is surprised is, well …
“I went in thinking, OK, silver. A silver medal would be good,” said Greater Harrisburg Master Director Claire Domenick. “Obviously, you want to win, but I didn’t want to jinx us and say we were going for gold. I thought silver would tell us the whole thing was worthwhile and that we’d done what we came to do.”
But as the event drew closer and Greater Harrisburg’s preparation jelled week after week, Claire sensed something special in the air. So did her singers and coaches. The vibe was good, really good.
“I felt it the last time I came to coach,” said Melodeers Master Director Jim Arns. “You could see it in the energy and effort from the chorus.”
The World Choir Games was not on Greater Harrisburg’s radar two years ago, when the chorus went on an international cycle, having won three straight Region 19 championships and finishing in the top 20 in Las Vegas, Honolulu and Seattle.
That followed a Region 19 gold in 2011 and a trip to Denver for international contests, where Greater Harrisburg finished a disappointing third in the regional.
Claire floated the idea of going to the World Choir Games; she had learned it had a new barbershop division at the Sweet Adelines International convention in Seattle. She knew she needed to shake things up a bit and pull the chorus’s focus to a new goal.
“We were in such a bad spin after regional that year,” she said. “Everyone was doubting themselves. I was doubting myself. We needed something else, something new. World Choir just seemed right. And this chorus loves to compete.”
Compete with men and women of different barbershop organizations, with judges from each – even outside our genre? Cool. It would be the Olympics of singing, and in the United States for the first time, just a bus ride away in Cincinnati, Ohio.
It would be at once different and familiar. It could be just the balm the chorus needed. But to do it right, Greater Harrisburg would need to skip regional contests for 2012 and put all its resources into World Choir Games.
In 56 years as a chapter of Sweet Adelines, Greater Harrisburg has competed in every regional contest in which it was eligible. But with only a couple of months between regional contest and World Choir Games, Claire and her music team knew there would not be enough time to get ready for both.
It could become intense, but the chorus took a light approach. During one rehearsal, Coach Arns arrived to find the chorus in its pajamas, asleep on the risers.
The games arrived so fast it made heads spin. The magnificent Music Hall, an old historic opera house, was packed with more than 4,000 listeners. It was at once enormous and intimate.
The goal was simple: show the world what barbershop music is about. Perhaps that’s what ultimately gave Greater Harrisburg the freedom to be at its best. Greater Harrisburg Chorus won it all, and while other choruses will be barbershop champions in the future, only one will be the first, and we’re extremely proud it’s us.
Maggie Ryan is president of the Greater Harrisburg Chorus and the chair of the Sweet Adelines International membership committee.
