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NEW CHAMPS TOTALLY DELIVER!
photo credit: Shawn York
IC Vaults to quartet championship
In a thrilling victory, dark horse Instant Classic jumped from eighth place in 2014 to the gold medals in the international quartet contest. It was the largest leap since 1998, when Revival moved up from tenth to first. The quartet faced stiff competition from returning veterans; quartets finishing second through fourth all had achieved medals previously.
The top five this year, were, in order:
1. Instant Classic, 8343 pts, 92.7%
2. Forefront, 8332 pts, 92.6%
3. Main Street, 8313 pts, 92.4%
4. Lemon Squeezy, 8219 pts. 91.3%
5. Throwback, 8074 pts 89.7%
The Kitzmiller brothers anchor the bottom half of the new quartet champs: Kyle sings bass and Kohl baritone, with Theo Hicks on lead and David Zimmerman up top.
Trivia bonus: Name the other TEN champion quartets that won gold with brothers singing together...
Link to Quartet Finals scoresheets here!
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CHORUS REMATCH, AUDIENCE IS REAL WINNER
Westminster seizes day, wins gold!
History repeated itself as the Westminster Chorus topped the Ambassadors of Harmony to capture the gold medals in the Barbershop Harmony Society's annual chorus competition.
Singing "A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes" from Disney's "Cinderella" and "Seize The Day" from "Newsies," the 74-man chorus emerged at the top of 28 choruses from around the world to win its third gold medal. The last time Westminster faced the Ambassadors in 2007, the contest ended in a tie, winning on a tie-breaker. This time, Westminster earned a 97.5% score, compared with 95.6% for the Ambassadors -- itself a score that would have won in many other contests.
New to the medalist ranks were Kansas City's Central Standard in third, and Nashville's Music City Chorus in fifth, with perennial powerhouse Alexandria Harmonizers in fourth.
Get score sheets from Friday's chorus contest here!
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CBQC WINNERS... TROCADERO!
Trocadero wins college championship
Lest anyone wonder if barbershop has become a global phenomenon, consider this: four of the top five quartets hailed from outside the United States. Leading the pack was Sweden's Trocadero, who posted A-level scores in the college contest, and later in the week, earned a 17th-place finish in the open contest.
Trocadero continues a tradition of Swedish domination in the college contest, as the fourth Swedish quartet to capture the crown in the past eight years.
The quartet consists of David Holst, tenor; Jakob Berggren, lead; Sam Andren, bari; and Filip Sibien, bass.
The top five college quartets were, in order:
- Trocadero, Society of Nordic Barbershop Singers, Sweden, 1490 pts./82.9 %
- 'Shoptimus Prime, Guelph Ontario and Buffalo, NY, 1479 pts./82.2 %
- Yonge Guns, Ryerson University; University of Guelph; University of Toronto, 1442 pts./80.1 %
- Blindside, Barbershop Harmony Australia, 1422 pts./79 %
- Flightline, Cal State Fullerton & Fullerton College, 1416 pts./78.7%
Get the score sheets here.
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BIGGEST HFI CHALLENGE EVER!
Donors Launch Largest Match in Foundation History!
The Legacy of Harmony Endowment Campaign to ensure the future of singing is underway. So important is that future that 6 donors have thrown down the largest matching challenge in Foundation History!
John & Sharon Miller, Dick & Peggy Lidstad, and one more anonymous couple have pledged a 1:10 'Cash Gift-to-Planned Gift' Match... of a half million dollars!
For every $10 in pledged Planned Gifts (Wills, Bequests, Life Insurance Beneficiaries, etc), these donors will give Harmony Foundation $1 in Cash today.
That means $5 Million in 'Legacy of Harmony' planned gift commitments raises $500,000 cash TODAY!
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EYE CANDY
Recaps, premieres, and the fun stuff
Missed one of the daily recaps?Looking for that hilarious Harmony Foundation video? Need to watch the Fantasy Quartet performance for the 26th time? Check out all this and a few more surprises here! It's not the same as being there, but it's pretty dang close.
2015 Fantasy Quartet... and more!
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HOT OFF THE PRESSES!
Order your Barberpole Cats Songbook, vol II... today! 
Our first run of Barberpole Cat II books sold out before the week was over in Pittsburgh... that's 1,000 copies that flew off the shelves! You like it, you really like it... and we're thrilled.
Ye olde printing press has been fired up and we are shipping orders out like crazy. Order online or pick one up in person at Harmony University in a few weeks. Learning CDs are ready to go and the original Polecat collection hasn't slowed down a bit, either.
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VIDEO OF THE WEEK
CBQC Champions Trocadero
Boy, what a great time we had at Heinz Hall with our Collegiate competitors! Gorgeous venue, hyped-up crowd, and INCREDIBLE singing. BEST. EVER.
Contestant #1 started things off just right... and walked away with the gold. Here's Trocadero with their stirring ballad "And This Is My Beloved".
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HFI: EVERY VOICE MATTERS
Harmony Foundation donors changing lives in urban city schools
Change is happening, sometimes in the most unlikely of places. With the unprecedented success of the Youth Chorus Festival, the College Quartet Contest, youth camps and workshops, and the exponential growth of the education and outreach programs funded by our donors, we are beginning to see just how far our music can reach when people invest in the life changing mission of the Harmony Foundation. And, it's only the beginning!
One music educator's life was drastically changed by the Youth Chorus Festival when he was a young man. He is now using his experience as inspiration for impacting dozens of students in an inner city school through barbershop. The response from these students led to him taking 4 young boys who had never left the city on a journey toward discovering what is possible when you dream big and realizing how quickly those dreams can come true when others give.
Harmony Foundation believes that Every Voice Matters. Even the smallest voice can have the largest impact, so as we press on toward raising 1000 new voices for Harmony Foundation, we hope that this story will inspire you to become one of the thousand. Our story is still just beginning. Will you be a part of it?
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THE JOY OF SINGING
See the mosaic - and add yourself to it!
LiveWire readers last week saw some new messaging materials developed to help us live the brand of the Barbershop Harmony Society. We considered experiences that are central to our lives -- and that give us pride and joy as Barbershoppers. All of these experiences, these bonds, combine to form a great worldview that we call barbershop.
We thought it only fitting, then, to put your faces into that great mosaic, and how better than by using pictures you have taken?
Skip over to barbershop.org/joy to see the mosaic built LIVE online from pix snapped and posted to Twitter and Instagram using hashtag #BHSPGH Then, add your own pictures from Pittsburgh, from your webcast parties, or from wherever/however YOU are barbershopping. Share the joy!
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ON TEH INTERWEBS
Flood your social media feed with BARBERSHOP
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