Masters of Harmony

Our performance on the International stage in Las Vegas on July 4th was a most memorable and satisfying experience. I doubt that I am alone in feeling this way.

On a personal level, I experience our moments on the stage that early morning each day – from the vigorous applause as we walked onto the stage, to the thunderous ovation when Justin Miller appeared, to the near “hear a pin drop” silence from the audience as we mesmerized them with our rendition of “My Romance,” to the explosive standing ovation we earned from the crowd at the end of “No New Tunes.” I can see it. I can hear it. I can feel it. This was, by far, the best musical experience I’ve ever had.

From a musical leadership perspective, I could not be more pleased or more proud of all of us. Our singers were focused, committed, and genuinely excited to perform. In my opinion, our moments on stage that morning represented the first time the chorus, as a whole, decided to let go and be emotionally available to Justin so that he could work his magic. We finally trusted him. This level of trust allowed Justin to take us on a wonderful, musical journey. As a result, we sang artistically, performed like champions, and we earned the ovations we received. Our numerical scores reflect some of the highest we’ve ever received. We entertained the audience thoroughly. We were truly masterful.

Our choice of coaches was perfect; we covered all of our bases. Each person deserves special acknowledgement and our heartfelt thanks:

• Our highly qualified internal coaches – Brett Littlefield, Dr. Chris Peterson, Alan Gordon, Royce Ferguson, Pat Claypool – whose commitment to our chorus goes so far beyond the call of duty it’s impossible to describe.
• Our brother Marty Lovick who provided detailed feedback, suggestions, and motivation remotely helped us attend to the details of the “why” of our performance.
• To the genius of our former director, Dr. Greg Lyne, whose ability to hear and identify the tiniest of inconsistencies and then articulate their remedies, helped us fine tune our singing and elevated our performance immensely.
• And, last but certainly not least, to the incomparable Erin Howden, whose love and dedication to the Masters of Harmony is above reproach. She created an incredible theatrical performance package for us and (lovingly) beat the heck out of us as we strived to make it our own. She opened her heart to us and challenged us to do the same for our audience in return. And, we did just that much to the delight of everyone in attendance.

Again, I have never experienced such joy, enthusiasm, and the good, old-fashioned feeling of knowing we did a great job from our singers. We were happy with our performance.

We’ll be back in the competition cycle again soon; stronger, wiser, better prepared, and mainly, trusting our leader, our coaches, and ourselves.

I am so proud of us.