We prepped for months, and that journey and the International contest itself were incredible experiences.

What was the Convention like?

The Music City Chorus recently traveled to Denver, Colorado, to compete in the Barbershop Harmony Society International Contest. It was an exhilarating competition week, including numerous practices leading up to our performance and supporting fellow barbershoppers in quartets and choruses along the way.

Seeing barbershoppers on the International stage is incredibly motivating because most of these people aren’t professional musicians. From the top performing quartets and choruses to those for whom it was their first competition at international, the vibe was neighborly, festive and welcoming. The whole week was filled with so many people who genuinely love singing and sharing their barbershop talents with others.

Winning the Silver Medal

Quartets and choruses in the international competition are scored by teams of judges trained by the Barbershop Harmony Society in musicality, singing, and performance. These competitions have been going on for over 75 years, so there is a lot of consistency and objectivity built into the criteria. We felt great about our readiness to compete, and when it was our turn, we took the stage and gave it all we had. During our performance, we had multiple standing ovations and lots of laughs.

The next day, when the scores were announced in the huge, 5000-person auditorium, you could hear a pin drop. When they announced our Silver Medal, the cheers throughout were loud and sincere.  The mountain of effort that went into our performance - from each singer, our Directors, our coaches, and even the support from our families - was felt in those cheers. We had fierce competition from the Vocal Majority, from Dallas, Texas. They were outstanding and edged us out in the score to win the Gold medal. Congrats to them. If ‘Having Fun’ were a real judging category, we may have won the ‘Platinum.’