Hills Harmony
| Type of post: | Club news |
| Sub-type: | No sub-type |
| Posted By: | Dick Bushell |
| Status: | Current |
| Date Posted: | Sun, 23 Oct 2016 |
Like all other choruses competing in Newcastle, we had a busy September.Three weeks prior to the Convention in Newcastle, we had a weekend workshop with the four guys from Catalyst quartet which included time for some social singing with our coaches.The following weekend we sang at a retirement home enabling us to try out of our comp set prior to Newcastle.
We had 2 quartets, First Edition and Something Good, appearing in the Thursday competition. Something Good, who had only been formed just prior to regionals, came a creditable 16th.
Newcastle was our first national convention under the direction of our new MD Peter Donald. We were all excited to come in 6th place as well as winning the Most Improved Chorus Award and the Mature Age Chorus Award. Our singing score was our best ever. Going forward, the chorus now has confidence to improve on these results even further in Sydney.
Peter Garnett
A funny thing happened on the way to the contest
On the morning of the Newcastle contest, three of our members arrived early at the Wests Club dressed in our Victorian Era finery ready to perform our competition set which was a couple of numbers from the musical Oliver. ( One of us looked like a Hobo!) Like all competitors, we had to arrive in full costume for our performance. As our Chorus was first up we arrived early at 7am and thought we would go into the club for coffee. Arriving in the bistro area we asked if we could get coffee and some breakfast. There was one of the Choruses in the Bistro who had booked the bistro out for a pre-contest session which included great quantities of food and coffee laid on. As it was a private function, we could not be served so we happily left. As we were leaving, a lovely lady came up to us and told us that she was with the function and saw that we had been turned away and thought that we were homeless people. She wanted to offer us some of their food but didn’t want to offend us. We thanked her and politely declined. As we came on stage in our costumes , the penny must have dropped, obviously our costumes where authentic. We were still very touched by her kindness.
Ron Hovorka