Joint Benefit Concert

Joint Benefit Concert Olean N.Y. Chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society www.oleanbarbershopchorus.org Chapter Officers Chapter President Marshall Allen Chapter Immediate Past President Harris Fitch Chapter Secretary David Ross Chapter Treasurer William Ford Chapter VP Member/Develop Phillip Farris Chapter VP Music/Performance Chapter VP Program Harris Fitch Chapter Board Member at Large Ronald Washburn Chapter Board Member at Large John Ross Chapter Chorus Director Louis Petroni Chapter Bulletin Editor Patrick Close Chapter Chorus Contact Marshall Allen 2010 Barbershopper Of The Year Patrick Close Rehearsals every Tuesday at 7:00 PM Trinity Methodist Church 131 N. Ninth Street Olean, NY 14760 Bob: 716-378-3525 / Ted: 716-372-4536 The Olean Enchanted Mountain Chorus will be performing with the Olean Keynote Chorus on June 5, 2010 at 7:00 pm at the CUTCO Theater to raise funds for Genesis House. The Keynote Chorus is an adult community chorus that performs benefit programs to celebrate special occasions and assist in fund raising for various area organizations. The chorus also performs two major concert programs each year, one in December and one in May or June. The Barbershoppers will be singing two of our show songs during Keynote s concert and then the concert will conclude with both choruses singing God Bless America. Genesis House is a faith based organization that welcomes and serves those in need of a home. We offer temporary shelter and nutritious meals and snacks free of charge to families and individuals. We are a homeless shelter that serves approximately 40 families per year for an average of four weeks per stay. For more information about either of these groups, please go to; www.keynotechorus.org/ and www.genesishouseofolean.org/ Check www.oleanbarbershopchorus.org often for updates! 1

Chorus Director Workshop What you can expect: On Saturday June 19, Olean Chapter is hosting a Chorus Directors Intensive Workshop, fondly known as CDWI. This workshop will run all day for the participating directors, from 9:00 AM 5:00 PM. There are two trainers who will lead the course, one is Jerry Schmidt from our Seneca Land District in Binghamton, and the other is David Gelb who will be flying in on Friday from Indiana all the way from the Cardinal District. The CDWI trainers are far and few between, and is a very rigorous challenge to obtain certification to teach this course. The directors and the trainers will begin at 9:00 A.M. session by exploring skills that each director wishes to concentrate upon during the afternoon session. The chorus members should arrive between 12:30 and 12:45 P.M. Warm up will be at 12:45. We hope to start the afternoon session at 1:00 P.M. with the chorus. The chorus should be done by approximately 4:00 P.M. There will be 3 or 4 risers set up in our chapter meeting hall where we usually set them up against the stage. Chairs will be provided during the singing if you require one but if you get tired during the singing, don t hesitate to go sit down. The chorus will probably be singing Polecats since most of the directors won t be familiar with our repertoire, and we won t be familiar with each of theirs. Understand this is not a chorus coaching session but rather intensive training centered on the needs of each director. A video camera will be mounted at the middle of the stage so that it is facing the director. Each director gets 10 12 minutes working with the chorus, with one of the trainers. After each director is taped, the director and the coach (trainer) will go to the board room to review the video that was just taped. The next director will step up with the other coach. They will continue to alternate in this manner until all five directors have had a go. Break time. Then the whole process is repeated, this time each director works with the other trainer, so that each director spends about 25 minutes total with each trainer both in front of the chorus, and in the video review booth. The directors go on for a final wrap up session with the trainers and usually say their goodbyes by 5:00 P.M. So that is the whole thing in a nutshell, hope everyone can participate in the chorus. Our participating directors are: our own Regina Gabriel, Matt Clancy director of the Hornell Chapter, Bruce Cornelius director of the Dubois Chapter, and Scott Ventura & Jason Weitz both assistant directors coming all the way from Rochester Chapter. Please make them feel welcome in our humble abode, and please do try to participate in this event. Thanks Louis Petroni Check www.oleanbarbershopchorus.org often for updates! 2

Alleghany Division Show wrap up By Louis Petroni, Enchanted Mountain Chorus Director: Hey Folks! It was a great division show this past weekend! A huge thank you to all of you who participated! We tried some different things this year, and in this message to you all I will attempt to point out those differences and give you my opinion of how they worked. Maybe you can forward this e- mail message around to your chapter guys, and perhaps discuss your opinions about how things worked, could be better and so on. As you know we had an extra rehearsal two weeks before the show. At my count we had about 35 guys at that rehearsal, and again at my best estimated we had about 55 guys on the risers at the show. I think the extra rehearsal helped a lot and took some of the anxious edge off of the rehearsal on Saturday. One new feature was that we had two completely new songs on the show this year, "Sound Celebration" and "I'll Walk With God". Because of the new songs we ended up using music and black folders for those two pieces. In my opinion we did well with those two songs considering the short time to develop them. From the point of view of the audience I think 2 songs like we did; even using the music (for some of the guys) was more rewarding that singing a medley of nine Polecats as in previous years. From the chorus point of view I think those two new songs made it more interesting for you the singer and maybe some chapter will decide to adopt one of those songs. Now that they have been broken in they could be used in the next division show. Another big departure from past shows is the use of four chapter choruses! In my opinion I think it is a real treat for the audience to get to see a total of 5 choruses sing in one evening. For many of you who have attended conventions you probably don't think twice about seeing several choruses, but for the general non barbershop public I think it is a rare treat. So four participating choruses got to hone two of their songs in front of an audience, and the audience got to experience four different chapters, not to mention the mega chorus, win - win! This show did not follow the patent layout, chorus in the first half and quartets in the second half. The mega chorus had four songs at the beginning and four at the end. In the previous years the mega chorus sang about seven songs in the first half, plus several Polecats, and then usually a one or two song finale. In this show less was more. We maximized the impact of the mega chorus. From the point of view of the non barbershop patron the impact of the large chorus at first is wow! We left them wanting more after just four songs, and gave them a little bit more at the end with our final four. In the meantime we peppered them with five great quartets, again not all bunched together but interspersed with the four chapter choruses. The really neat part is that we did all of this with an intermission in just under 2 hours. That was perfect timing. Speaking personally, no matter how good a show is, even on Broadway, after 2 hours, I'm looking at my watch. So that is the meat of it. Even looking over the program in the aftermath I can't really see how to significantly improve it given the limitations of time and distance. My suggestions for the future is try to keep an extra rehearsal to take some of the pressure off of the Saturday do or die type rehearsal, and (cont pg 4) Check www.oleanbarbershopchorus.org often for updates! 3

(cont from pg 3) break up the mass chorus, and if at all possible feature at least a couple of chapter choruses. We were so fortunate this year to have four choruses perform. Also try to add at least one new song a year, so the repertoire doesn't get stale. (Stay away from songs with 20 versions!) This year we had about 100 in the audience, which is a little better than the best I've seen in the last several years. In my opinion I would recommend that tickets be priced at $8.00 and sell them pre-sale for $5.00. Even if we made the same money but had twice as many people attend that would be another win-win. Everyone loves a full house. This year our chapter hosting the event donated our 1/3rd share of the ticket money to a local charity. This is a great way to generate interest in the show and get people to come who wouldn't normally, but I think it would work better with cheaper tickets, as who wouldn't plunk down 5 bucks for a good cause, even if they know they can't attend on the date. Well I think I've said enough, hopefully you guys will talk it over, and some of your great ideas can be used in future division shows. Thanks for a great show! - Louis Petroni Editorial I thought I would take a few lines to comment on the recent Division Show. Generally speaking, the show was a great success. Many things had changed from years past and a few new things that hadn t been tried before were given a chance to succeed. The Olean chapter is taking a long look at what had gone right and what had not. It is our intention to take input (constructive criticisms, suggestions and ideas) from all sources available to document progress and to potentially create guidelines to assist other chapters to overcome the idea that hosting might be too daunting. Here are a few of the comments received thus far; So Congratulations on a great show!...your Divisional show and all that you have accomplished will lead the way and serve as the template for the rest of the Seneca Land divisions to have fun. Pete Carentz, SLD Barbershopper & President Once again Louis, thank you for an incredible job and the monumental effort. Congrats on a successful show. And kudos for finally breaking the mold!!! Jerry Pask The entire day was well organized and went very smoothly. The only "snafu" was that no one followed procedure to exit the stage. The evening meal (cont pg 5) Check www.oleanbarbershopchorus.org often for updates! 4

(cont from pg 4) was a wonderful idea. The food was great; a good value for the money, and it sure beat the idea of all of us hitting a local restaurant at one time. Bob Robbins We would like to hear what needed to be fixed so WE CAN indeed fix it! If you have any comments, suggestions or ideas that would help to make a better show please send them to me and I will ensure that they makes it into the plan. Look for future articles on this subject for updates. Thank for helping your Division with your input. {ed} For comments or inquiries Sharps & Flats Editor Patrick (Pat) Close, 5 Fourth Avenue, Franklinville N.Y. 14737 716-912-4795 mrpclose@aol.com www.oleanbarbershopchorus.org Harmoniously serving: Olean- Bradford Coudersport Save the date of Sunday July 11 To celebrate in song Zeke & Romayne Burr s 60 th Wedding Anniversary!!! (More details to follow) June 05 Saturday 7:00 pm Joint Olean/Keynote Chorus Show Cutco Theater, JCC, Olean June 19 Saturday Chorus Director Workshop Intensive Trinity Methodist Church, North 9th Street Olean, NY (downstairs) Five directors and two trainers meet from 9-5:00. The chorus sings from 1:00 - to about 4:00 under the direction of the 5 directors who are receiving coaching from the two instructors. August 22 Sunday 2:30 pm Chautauqua Show Some of the performances will be; EMPIRE STATE QUARTET (ESQ) 2009 SLD Quartet Champs SLAM (SLD Youth Chorus) 2010 6th Place Youth Festival, Tampa FL SENECA JUNCTION CHORUS (Salamanca) 2010 Plateau A Champions Other performers including out of district talent are being contacted for the 2010 show. Check www.oleanbarbershopchorus.org often for updates! 5

JUNE 2010 SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY 6 Happy Birthday Harris Fitch 13 14 Flag Day 20 Fathers Day 1 2 Happy Birthday Gary Larson 3 4 5 Keynote/Ench Mtn Chorus 7PM Cutco JCC 7 8 9 10 11 12 21 Summer Begins 15 Happy Birthday Bill Ford 16 17 18 19 Chorus Dir. Workshop 9am-5pm Chorus needed 1-4 pm 22 23 24 Happy Anniv Bill Jean Ford 25 26 27 Happy Anniv Louis Patti Petroni 28 Happy Birthday Ken Haas 29 30 JULY 2010 SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY 4 Happy Anniv Ted Nan Norton Ind. Day 5 Happy Bday Greg Wagner David Ross Kris Kier 1 2 Happy 60th Anniv Zeke Romayne Burr 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 3 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 Happy Anniv Don Mickey Johnson 27 28 29 30 31 Check www.oleanbarbershopchorus.org often for updates! 6