Competition

Three of Tim's groups competed in the Rocky Mountain Regional Harmony Sweepstakes competition tonight. (There were 7 total groups: a high school group, a college group, 3 of Tim's groups, Face--who Tim is a sub in, and Cross Examined--who Tim does vocal percussion on their recordings for.) Tim's groups were his new ones: Vocality, a vocal chamber ensemble that has classical/jazz/new music leanings; Plumbers of Rome, a 3-man eclectic, mildy comedic group that's performed and won awards before but not with the guys they took tonight; and Placental Armageddon, a hard rock "spinal tap done acappella" (and not dirty) group that is totally tongue-in-cheek but exists so Tim can experiment with rock music and with using technology to modify voices in live performance. None of these groups has been together longer than 8 weeks, some of them only for 3 weeks, all under Tim's direction and singing his music (arrangements and original songs).

And they did REALLY well. The Vocal Percussionist for Placental Armageddon won the vocal percussion award for the night. Pretty impressive since the group, in order to compete without "competing" had to intentionally disqualify themselves (5 of the 6 guys in the group were also competing in other groups that they wanted to win).

And Vocality won second place! They had no more than 10 minutes to show their stuff, and they sang a single song composed by Tim, called "9:15", for almost the whole ten minutes (if done right, the song lasts 9 minutes and 15 seconds). It's a song that pulls elements from pop, contemporary acappella, and the classical choral traditions, with lyrics based on the Bible. The group has seven or eight members, but tonight they sang with 5--4 guys and a girl.

And "9:15" won the Best Song award! This is an award I was hoping for, since that song will probably end up being part of Tim's thesis, and it goes on his resume, so it looks good that it's an award-winning song. Also, it makes him a legitimate "award-winning composer of vocal chamber music", since his other composition award was actually for an arrangment of a song--a parody no less--that he didn't even write the lyrics for. This will help him get a job later on.

So now Tim has been the artistic director of at least 4 award-winning vocal ensembles! And Vocality is the one that I was hoping would win this year--so I'm thrilled that they did. They're really good, new, and different.

After a day of being nervous, I can finally breathe.