More precious metals for Black Sheep!

Type of post: Chorus news item
Sub-type: No sub-type
Posted By: Kathy Farrell
Status: Current
Date Posted: Fri, 31 May 2024
Five members of Black Sheep Harmony, Cat, Chris T, Noey, Nooj and Sue, D along with MD Emeritus, David Proud, took a trip to Harrogate for the special 50th anniversary convention of the British Association of Barbershop Singers, or BABS. It’s a long way to Harrogate, especially during rush hour, but these intrepid sheep made the journey to sing, compete, assist and spectate.

BABS is the largest barbershop organisation outside of America with over 60 registered choruses and 100 quartets across the country, including mixed choruses and quartets.

Cat and Nooj worked hard on the reception desk for the whole weekend, welcoming barbershop friends old and new to this very special convention. Here both of them are seen on reception duties with our travelling mascot Lambert the Sheep!



Nooj performed with his international gold medal winning senior quartet, One Foot in the Stave, where they gave a stunning swan-song performance in the Saturday night show.



The quartet semi-finals took place during the whole of Friday with 43 quartets taking part in the male, youth and senior competitions. Noey was competing in the senior's competition with Mary, Dave and Simon in the mixed quartet Mixed Blessings and they were thrilled to achieve the gold medal position with a score of 72.8.



Cat, Chris, Noey and Sue are also members of the 2022 champion mixed chorus, The Bristol Mix (TBM) is made up of singers from the six Bristol choruses (Avon Harmony, Black Sheep Harmony, Bristol A Cappella, Bristol Fashion, Fascinating Rhythm and Great Western Chorus) as well as other Bristol singers. As gold medallists, The Bristol Mix were not eligible to compete in 2023, when the top spot was won by another Bristol mixed chorus, Bristol A Cappella. The Bristol Mix was formed in 2019 and only meet between four and six times a year yet achieve a very high standard of singing. 



With forty-eight members on the risers, TBM were competing with some relatively new and much larger choruses but the aim was to achieve a score of above 80 for the first time in the club’s history. TBM were so pleased to gain a score of 80.6 and the bronze medal place under the inspirational direction of Linda Corcoran. Lux A Cappella came in silver position and the newly formed Crucible Vocal Project won the gold.



Sue and Noey were also competing with an international silver medal winning mixed chorus called Endeavour made up of singers from across Europe under the direction of Lisa Robathan and Rae Watney. This year, Endeavour achieved fourth place.



Congratulations go to TBM members Will, Dom, Ali and Ollie, for achieving bronze medals in the Youth quartet competition with their quartet In The Wings; Ali for his gold chorus medal with Crucible Vocal Project; Great Western Chorus for their fourth place in the male chorus competition under the direction of their shiny new MD, Craig Kehoe and to Chris M for his swan-song sets with the outgoing male chorus champions Cottontown Chorus.

A great, if exhausting time was had by all!
 
Back home in Bristol the jubilant singers showed off their medals with pride to the rest of Black Sheep!


Sue Davis