The Grand Rapids Chapter announced Derek Hatley as 2007 Barbershopper of the Year at its Annual Chapter Banquet this past December 11.  Derek has been an active member of the chapter for many years, serving on the Board in several capacities, currently as Chorus Music Librarian.  Derek also produces most of the learning tracks for the chorus, and does quite a bit of arranging for the chorus and for quartets of the chapter.  He also plays a vital part in scheduling Singing Valentines, taking most of the orders and coordinating the times and locations for Valentines, and providing maps for the various quartets. 


The Grand Rapids Chapter just this year revised its procedure for selecting Barbershopper of the Year, in order to

The first half of the show was mostly secular music beginning with the show’s title song Christmas Eve In My Home Town.  We ended the first half with the always popular and fun barbershop arrangement of the 12 Days Of Christmas including an appearance by our very own elf, Paul Slack.  Instead of 5 golden rings our 5 showboat baritones got hosed into submission with a volley from several cans of silly string. And with that a roar of applause ended the first half of the show.
 
The second half opened with performances by the very impressive 30 men and women’s member chorus Jenison High School ChamberSingers directed by Les Rowsey, Student Intern Corie Brown and accompanied on piano by Marti King.  The Jenison Public Schools had been honored as having one of the top 100 school music programs in the United States.  The gentlemen wore black tuxedos and the women in black full length sleeveless tunics over white gowns.  They sang Two Early Christmas Carols, Sing We Noel Once More-arr. Smith, Sing We Now of Christmas-arr. Prentice, and Winter Wonderland-arr. Lojeski.

The Great Lakes Chorus and member quartets then returned, this time performing spiritual Christmas numbers such as the chorus singing The Virgin Mary and Lo, How A Rose.

During Wildcard’s moving Mary, Did You know, all the auditorium’s winter coughs and sniffling stopped and at a dramatic pause all 650 audience members were completely silent.  Wildcard received a standing ovation for this song, only partway into the concert’s second half.  The chorus director Curt Struyk who is also Wildcard’s baritone stepped up to the mic to introduce the next song and drew chuckles of agreement from the audience as he rubbed out the goose

The Grand Rapids Barbershop Chapter The  Great Lakes Chorus and member quartets performed a Christmas show at the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans December 5th, 2007. We started having our first snow of the year about a week ago so the ground was covered in white with the cold night air. The hall was their multi-purpose room which had a shuffleboard court on the floor and lighted bingo display signs on the walls. There was a small but grateful audience of vets, their families, and staff. Plus the rest of those in the home physically unable to attend the concert saw it on their closed circuit TVs. During the warm-up we had many early arrivals already in their seats. One vet with CD player in hand heard us singing, burst into the room and was moved to shout out a few joyful notes.