Jersey Harmony Explosion 2024 was co-produced by the Montclair and Caldwell Chapters on Saturday, January 27th at James Caldwell High School in West Caldwell, NJ. This year’s event, the fifth since 2018, had nearly 200 middle and high school registrants representing 12 different schools. Through generous personal and organizational donations and grants, including from the Association of International Champions/Harmony Foundation International and the Mid-Atlantic District, the event was and always has been free for all participants. This year’s world class faculty featured Signature, GQ, Debbie Cleveland and Tony Colosimo.
On Friday the 26th, Signature visited three high schools – Elizabeth HS, West Essex HS and Bloomfield HS – all of which were not participating in the festival. The quartet generously performed, spoke to the students about barbershop and quartetting, taught tags and spoke with students informally.
On Saturday, students rehearsed TTBB, SSAA and SATB combined festival songs and received up close and personal coaching from clinicians for their individual school ensembles. The day also featured a tagging hour where students mingled with those from other schools to create quartets, sing tags and, if they so desired, enter a contest to sing their tag in front of the entire festival.
The day concluded with a free-to-the-public show featuring all of the participating school ensembles, the clinician quartets and the combined festival ensembles directed by Ms. Cleveland and Mr. Colosimo. The students cheered wildly for each other and the clinicians and the appreciative public audience gave a rousing standing ovation at the conclusion of the show.
The Montclair and Caldwell Chapters look forward to spreading the joy of harmony via this event for many years to come and appreciate the support they have received for it from the District and its members!