(Last modified: $Date: 2006/03/08 20:01:50 $)
There is something exciting and new in store for mixed quartetting in 2006. The Barbershop Harmony Society (B.H.S., aka SPEBSQSA) has expanded its annual week-long intensive barbershop education program to include barbershop quartets containing women. Now known as Harmony University, it will take place July 30 through August 6, 2006. It will be held on the campus of Missouri Western State University, and will consist of three simultaneous "Colleges" - Quartet College, Director's College, and Barbershop College.
Quartet coaching will consist of "pods" of six quartets (all-male, all-female, and mixed), each pod assigned to four Society coaches. Each pod has its own permanent team of four coaches, one from each of the four categories: Music, Performance, Singing and Presentation. This is the same coaching-team method used in past years - often taken advantage of by Society quartets who later end up in the top ten at International Conventions. The coaching team works with their six assigned quartets all week, culminating in a show on Friday night. Quartet members will also have the opportunity to take classes which are specifically designed for quartets, or other Harmony College classes in which they are interested, as time permits.
There is only one requirement: You should be singing barbershop! You can get more details (or register) by contacting Jim DeBusman , the B.H.S. Music Specialist for Quartet Development. If you wish, you can also phone him at Society office at 1-800-876-7464. What will it cost? After March 1, it will cost $575 per person for each quartet member who is a Society member, and $700 for quartet members who are not Society members. That includes not only all the classes and coaching, but a week of meals and lodging! If you register after June 1, the fees will increas another $50 per person... if there are still openings.
This is the first time that mixed quartets have been invited to this intensive week of coaching by some of the Barbershop Harmony Society's finest coaches. Guaranteed - it will be a full immersion in the joy of singing barbershop. No quartet will emerge without major change! Mixed quartets have been coached at some of the District level Harmony Colleges and at the British Harmony College for several years, but it has never happened before at the top Society level.
At the end of the week, all of the participating quartets will be a part of the Quartet Parade Show on Friday evening, as well as sing one song together in a mixed quaret chorus with Joe Liles directing.