BQPA/PIONEERS

       Barbershop Quartet Preservation Association

BQPA Spring Festival April, 2011 Tempe, AZ

Another Festival goes into the books as a success, judging from the smiling faces, the many positive comments and promises to plan on attending next year. Since many did not register, we could not get an accurate count but the estimate is 90 –100 quartet singers.

The kick-off for the weekend was the spaghetti buffet and pickup quartet singing hosted by the Arizona Quartet Chapter on Wednesday evening which is now an official part of the Festival weekend. There were enough attending to make up 21 quartets for two rounds of singing and performing. The AZQC’s chapter quartet, 2 Under Par, sang several songs for the group too.

Both Thursday and Friday mornings had golfing with the usual singing on the tee boxes. But the principal feature and attraction of the weekend is always the nonstop , informal quartet singing. You would find quartets singing inside, outside, poolside, barside, even side by side. ( Nice song title, don’t you think ) The traditional Friday night out-of-the bag quartet ‘contest’ is always a hit and there were 16 quartets this year with only a few singers doubling up in more than one quartet. But it is always a fun filled time. Missing this year was the traditional MC for the evening, Pioneers founder Tom Neal. This was the first time in 44 events that Tom had to miss.

The Saturday evening Parade of Quartets capped the weekend with 8 quartets performing. We had quartets from Orange County, CA, Las Vegas, NV, Show Low, AZ, Tucson, AZ, Albuquerque, NM , Mesa, AZ and Phoenix, AZ. Headliner quartet was Audacity, 2009 International Seniors Quartet. What a great show !! Next year’s Spring Festival weekend is under contract with Embassy Suites for the second weekend in April, 2012. So mark your calendars now. The Fall Festival is set for September 8-10, 2011 in Chicago, IL. Check the website for details and plan to join us.