Southern Gateway members excel in "Extreme Quartetting"

Nine members of the Southern Gateway Chorus traveled to Indianapolis this weekend to be a part of the Indiana Harmony Brigade, an annual event where participants are expected to learn ten songs before arriving and then spend a weekend singing together in spontaneous quartets. Typically singers will rehearse together to get used to singing together, working out timing and blend before performing together, and skipping this prework forces the singers to listen more closely to each other, which is why the harmony brigade dubbed this "extreme quartetting."

The weekend is filled with friendly singing competition and an opportunity to meet singers from around the world. Many participants arrived early Friday morning to be part of a day-long performance series at area high schools to promote a capella singing to students. Later in the evening, registered attendees were randomly grouped into quartets and given a song that they had less than an hour to prepare together before performing as part of a friendly competition judged by the reigning international senior quartet champions cityScape featuring our very own baritone Paul Gilman. This year had more basses than the other voice parts, so some of the tenors, leads, and baritones got to compete in two quartets to allow each bass an opportunity to participate. FIVE of the top ten quartets chosen to move on to the Saturday finals contained Southern Gateway members. Jim Fry, Jonathan Kieser, Luke Lieghley Steve Miller, and Bernie Reen represented Southern Gateway in the Saturday finals.

Saturday included a lot of opportunities for the attendees to sing together, including a new surprise: roulette quartetting! Five wheels were projected on the big screen - one for each voice part and another for the song selection, and each wheel was spun once to determine who would go up on stage next and which song they would be singing. After dinner, a free community performance was held, featuring the full chorus of attendees singing the ten core songs of the brigade, two step-out quartets, a performance by cityScape, and the quartet finals. Finalist quartets were called up in random order, where they were asked to pull a name of a song from a bag as they walked on stage before performing whichever song they drew. The top four quartets were recognized, and Luke and Bernie were in the fourth place quartet!