Spring 2007

Young Woman in Harmony Festival - Diva Day 2007

Take the Harborlites Chorus, add about 250 high school singers from Southern California, Arizona and Nevada, pus Debbie Connelly and Pam Pieson and what do you get? The 2nd Annual Harborlites "Diva Day" Young Women in Harmony Festival.

The day-long educational event taught high school girls the basics of singing barbershop style, vocal production, singing their part and choreography with Debbie Connelly as our clinician. The event culminated in a performance for the community including the young singers, quartets, and the Harborlites and Westminster men's choruses. the memorable finale featured over 400 singers on stage under Pam's direction!

Of the 307 registrations, we had 249 young singers from 17 high schools in the area. This included the Almost Adelines who traveled from Scottsdale to participate. One school brought 60 girls from their music program. Debbie Connelly from the International Champion Quartet, the Buzz, was absolutely fantastic with the girls, being a high school music teacher herself. The girls learned three songs – Wakin’ Up is Hard To Do (parody), We Go Together, and Heart (sung with the Harborlites Chorus at the end of the show). The day was fast paced as they participated in section rehearsals and learned choreography. During their lunch hour, teams of Harborlites went from table to table teaching tags. There was a separate class for the choral directors as Debbie helped them with ideas to integrate barbershop into their music programs. Many of the choral directors in attendance have already used barbershop music early in the year for ear training and ensemble singing.

They were all delighted with the day’s program and are anxious to come back next year. Here are some of their comments:

“WOW! What an amazing thing. Watching all those girls and how quickly they picked up on the instruction given by Debbie made me a bit envious of the benefits of youth.”

“I would like to say again how much I appreciate all that Harborlites do to make Diva Day so successful. My students enjoyed themselves so much (and learned a little something along the way)!!”

“Saturday was really wonderful. We ALL LOVED the clinician. She was vibrant, fun, knowledgeable, creative, demanding and flexible. We loved her choreography ideas. We are going to use these numbers at our next performance which is a “musical cabaret” event. Thank you for adding to our program – the girls are thrilled to get to perform the music again.”

“Many thanks to you and your gals for giving my young ladies such a wonderful day of music and fun. The festival repertoire will appear in our March concert and we have at least one (so far) ladies quartet on its way in the program.”

From the same teacher – “Great job with the Diva Day. We can’t wait until next year. Let’s get the Diva Day event even more solidified and sponsored as part of the SCVA organization in meetings throughout the rest of the year. Both the Young Men in Harmony and the Diva Day may just be the recruitment salvation for some of the struggling choir programs throughout Southern California.”

“My girls especially want to thank you for the unbelievable amount of time you put into planning and running this event. The day was so well organized and so well thought out. For me as an instructor, I especially enjoyed the time alone with Debbie, learning about barbershop technique so I could better teach my students as we prepare for our 1st annual “Barbershop Mania”

competition in which all of my choir students are involved in a barbershop quartet. It was an educational – fun filled day – a day where our young teenagers could bond with the “more mature” generation through the love, joy and excitement of barbershop singing. Please, please continue to have this program each year. My girls immediately asked me if we were going to be part of the Diva Day Festival again next year!!”

“We loved Diva Day – the rehearsals, the food, the show, and, oh yeah, the GUYS from Westminster Chorus. Debbie was awesome and we felt like true stars when we were able to do what she asked of us. It was so much fun to meet the girls from all over Southern California. We discovered that we had a lot in common – like, a LOVE of barbershop harmony, as some of us are planning to stay in contact with our new friends.”

From Debbie Connelly – “What a memorable and valuable experience for literally hundreds of young women. You are also providing an extremely favorable impression of barbershop harmony, both with your personal interaction with the girls, and with the amazing quality of the performers on the evening show. Many regions and/or choruses host a YWIH Festival, but they can only DREAM of having an evening show that includes the likes of Westminster and Harborlites.”

(Thanks to Karen Ridout)