February 2026

IABS Spring Sing

Published by Liz Garnett at Helping You Harmonise on Wednesday 11th February 2026

I’ve just spent a happy weekend in Athlone as part of an international faculty at the Irish Association of Barbershop Singers’ annual spring education event, including educators from the US (Vocal Spectrum, Don Campbell) and Germany (Lucas Bitzer) as well as me from the UK. The structure of the event is built around coaching for choruses and quartets from across the association, supplemented by classes on various aspects of barbershop craft and a daily Big Sing chorus experience.

My role in the team was to do a modicum of coaching, but mostly to deliver sessions in a new initiative to develop Musical Directors and Music Teams. This included workshops for those already in post as well as sessions designed to give some initial training in musical leadership to help people not currently in such roles gain some confidence and experience to open up future possibilities for them. All organisations need to develop their pipeline of future leaders.

Back with BAC

Published by Liz Garnett at Helping You Harmonise on Monday 2nd February 2026

A week ago Saturday took me down to Bristol to coach Bristol A Cappella, in anticipation of their trip to Wuppertal to compete in the World Mixed Barbershop Chorus contest hosted by BinG! in March. It will be their final contest outing for the Barbie set that they took to the European and the British national contests last year. As such, we were working with material they know very well, and so the brief was all about enhancing the execution of the well-established concept rather than re-imagining anything. The main areas I was asked to focus on were resonance, swooshithroughiness, and making sure the choreography was working well with the voices.

...found this helpful?

I provide this content free of charge, because I like to be helpful. If you have found it useful, you may wish to make a donation to the causes I support to say thank you.