I wanna speak briefly to the judging issues being brought up from Saturday night with a little insight. I've judged probably 100-125 competitions over the years, and there are some things that I can speak to with a lot of experience to those expressing concerns over the judging. Before I say this, I have absolutely NO OPINION about how rankings turned out Saturday night, as I only saw 2 of the 6 groups.....I have no "dog in this hunt", but am just speaking to those expressing concerns:
---You will NEVER see a finer panel of judges assembled in one place! It was a "who's who" of judges, and ALL are extremely qualified and magnificently talented and experienced.
---It is very common for excellent judges to disagree and have their own take on things....and STILL BE UBER QUALIFIED! Let me give you two examples. First, think of the world's top clothing designers. Does Betsy Johnson look like Ralph Lauren....Does Gucci look like Burberry.....Does Von Furstenburg look like Prada.....nope! Secondly, look at the world's finest chef's and their restaurants. Does the food at a Bobby Flay restaurant taste like a Garden Ramsey venture......Does Cat Cora's food taste like Anthony Bourdain's.....nope! The point is, a "panel" is assembled to take a ton of great and qualified opinions and mesh them together into what is hopefully the correct overall result.
----Old school, traditional groups that are fantastic and incredible are neither better nor worse than new age, thematic story shows. As judges we are listening for tone quality and vowel production, dynamic contour and appropriate sensitivity to phrasing, understandability of words and level of difficulty within the arc of the show...exposure to error. Visually, we are looking for cleanliness of movement, spacing accuracy, smooth transitions, passion, design elements and more. We are not asked to judge our "favorite show", but rather the show we believe was best executed within a certain level of demand.
----To people that believe a qualified panel of judges "consult with one another on results", that's absolutely inaccurate. If we are talking about poor judges or brand new judges that are insecure, then this could definitely be the case. But, does anybody seriously think the judges at this competition, with a combined teaching and performance experience of over 200 YEARS, were thinking "Oh dear, what if I have **** in 3rd and another judge has them in 6th....how can I go on?!?!?!" When I judge, I always save my rankings, and at the end of the day when the judges get together socially after it's all over, I pull out my scores and ask where everybody else ranked it. This is out of curiosity, and NOT to find out "if I was right or wrong". The fact is, if the scores represent how I truthfully evaluated the groups on that day, then my scores and ranking are 100% correct.....as are every other judges.
I hope this sheds a little light on things. Again, I have zero opinion, as I was working with Thirst Project all day and only saw 3 shows all the way through. My purpose in this post in simply to inform people what an incredibly amazing panel of professionals they were blessed to be judged by on Saturday, and to let you know each and everyone of them took their job of being fair VERY SERIOUSLY! I won't say which judge, but at one point during the day I said a quick hello to one of the judges as they were leaning back in their chair between groups and rubbing their eyes. The judge looked at me and simply said "Damn, this is an incredible day." Case closed.....that's exactly what it was. God bless, Damon Brown
Don’t hate on me, I’m gonna tell it how I see it overall:
Honestly, Los Al was not a shock to win the entire thing, but I am a little shocked that FC got 4th tho...
But I said a little earlier that the top 4 were too close to call, so it’s not that shocking to me, this certainly was the competition of the season!
Just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who tuned into the live stream yesterday. Alex and I were honored to host this incredible event and hope you all enjoyed our antics. To all who contributed to the conversation (tweeting us at @show choirlive or using #HOAOrlando) - you’re the real MVPs. It was so fun to incorporate your comments on all things happening into our broadcast. Once again it brought the broadcast to a new level.
Alex and I couldn’t have done this incredible event without Earl Narajos, Matthew Gerard, and the true visionary and mastermind behind it all, Häakon. I can’t even begin to put into words how hard these three worked to make it happen. This seriously is a job for a crew of ten. These three guys put in blood, sweat, and tears in the last week to make this magic happen. The last 72 hours have been a complete whirlwind for them- little to no sleep, food, and even something as essential as a quick bathroom break, all to make this run as smooth as possible. I’m forever in awe of their incredible professionalism, hard work, and passion. They’re the real heroes.
The shows we witnessed from the very start in the morning to the end were all phenomenal. Every group brought something so wonderful and unique to the table. Finals was spellbinding. The atmosphere just felt like history was being made. ALL groups stepped it up in finals. EVERY group should be proud of their performances and their placements. I said it at the end of the broadcast, in my humble opinion, we probably could have gotten together today and done the entire finals again, and possibly seen it shake out a different way. And again on Monday with a different result… that’s a testament to the incredible groups that we witnessed.
I must say, after an insanely long and tiring day, I was so uplifted by the sights and sounds of the performers on and off the stage at HOA. It was rather disheartening to get on these forums at 2 AM and see ludicrous posts blaming sabotage, calling judges crazy, and also pigeonholing show choir as one thing. (many have now been erased) We hear enough “fake news” in every day life as it is, we don’t need it churning out of our supportive show choir community.
Also, the schools in attendance knew what the they were entering into. They knew they would be judged by 2 vocal judges, 2 visual judges, and an instrumental judge in prelims. They knew in finals it was an adjusted sheet (the prelims sheet was rather large for the individual vocal/visual categories), adding in 4 new judges with new opinions scoring ALL categories across the board. (9 judges total) They understood things were bound to change. I’m not trying to defend the results. Are the final results what I would have had? Maybe- had I been staring at the HOA sheet for every group and scoring based off it. From what I listened to and viewed in the balcony last night, probably not. Alas, I wasn’t hired to judge (THANK GOD.) But can you make arguments based on the score sheet used at this competition (that has NOT been shared on this site or is being to referred to at all when sharing all of these “hot takes”) for seeing it that way? Absolutely.
This competition was one for the ages. The judges had an incredibly tough decision; they all were hired because they are professional HUMAN BEINGS with different backgrounds/qualifications and have an assortment of thoughts, opinions, and insight into this amazing art form. Let us celebrate the amazing performances at this once in a life time competition and let the results sit. Logging on here and being nasty about it won’t do anything to change it.
Finally- the day that show choir becomes “one thing” is the day I’m done with it. I fell in love with Franklin Central’s show in prelims yesterday. Does that mean that I want to see 6 of the same types of shows in finals? Absolutely not. Do I only want to see shows with intricately designed character driven stories like Los Alamitos six times in finals? Nope. Variety is the spice of life. I get it, we may have our own preferences (especially well meaning parents who love their child’s show choir show/style dearly) However, there is no rule book for what show choir can and can’t be. This is an ever evolving and expanding art form. Finals yesterday was a buffet of different styles and preferences- and it was AMAZING. Completely different vocal styles- so many wonderful colors of sound! The visual assortment in the shows was dazzling! Each group in finals had a different choreographer(s). What incredible work from all the choreographers/artistic directors involved! Song selection was so eclectic and delved into many different genres and even time periods! Groovy, baby.
Let’s keep an open mind and heart to ALL styles. It’s what makes this world SO COOL. From Cedar Rapids Prairie to Mt. Zion, from Franklin Central to Los Alamitos, from John Burroughs to Center Grove- you ALL have an important place at the table. Congrats to all groups.
It is late. I'm tired and going to go to bed. So I really don't want to get into a stupid internet tiff. But you are wrong.
And this is coming from a guy who preaches support for "traditional, cookie cutter" shows. From a guy who absolutely fell in love with Franklin Central today.
This guy is telling you - you are wrong.
As this will be my only response to you, I wish you the best in your life's endeavors. And continue to love and support your show choir. Just preferably not on SCC worded like this.
I have to disagree with you there. Story shows are wonderful and variety themed shows (Although amazing) aren't the only style of show choir that exist. you have to open your mind a little bit <3 but we still love you! And FC is still my favorite group of the night!
Heart of America Orlando 2018
. God bless, Damon Brown
