Harmony Rag Quartet of Nations Newsletter, Region 31 Sweet Adelines International Autumn2010
Don’t Stop Believing! DaleDiva Wins TV Finals DaleDiva is proud to have helped bring Barbershop singing to a new national audience by winning the final of the new allsinging, all-dancing Channel Five show, “Don’t Stop Believing”.
And in the process musical director Ally Law achieved what she wanted to do - to challenge the old-fashioned stereotypes and give Barbershop a funky, 21st century twist! “We won our heat in show three of the series with a mash-up of one of our own Diva’s arrangements of ‘The Power of Love’ and the Beyonce hit dance track ‘Single Ladies’ with the vocal harmonies arranged by Ally and her assistant director Harriet. In the final we wowed the judges with the Donna Summer/Barbra Streisand duet ‘No More Tears (Enough is Enough)’ finished off with some ‘Hot Stuff’,” writes Liz Tomes. “First of all we want to say a MASSIVE thank you to all our Region 31 friends who voted for us and sent us much-appreciated messages of support – and SAI Barbershoppers around the world who have sent us congratulations and fabulous messages of support.” “It was an absolutely amazing experience to win the Don’t Stop Believing final and we are all still on an absolute high,” said an ecstatic Ally. “But what made it extra special for us was the support, goodwill messages and congratulations we’ve had from all our Barbershop friends.
“I’m proud that one of the things the judges particularly commented on was our vocal tuning, harmony and blend, which is of course down to the work we do singing in fourpart harmony.
him but we were secretly his favourites we think! “I was so thrilled when I heard compliments about how we weren’t fazed by performing live - I certainly put it down to the average 20 performances we do
performance while maintaining good vocals, Tamzin Outhwaite said ‘now that’s a show choir!’ And we loved the fact High School Musical choreographer Chucky Klapow said ‘Beyonce
the same place so many famous people have worked including Michael Jackson and Sir Elton John. You can catch up with our winning performances, see backstage footage and learn our two dance
“The high standards demanded by Barbershop ensure we put good vocals first and I think that’s what came over in our performances. “We’re getting used to choreographic routines enhancing our songs - but nothing could prepare us for the moves that ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ creative director Kim Gavin and his team of choreographers had planned for us! “Kim was responsible for producing Take That’s ‘Circus Tour’ so dealing with 46 very excited women was a new challenge for
each year. I always remind the girls that if we’re having fun performing, our audience will have fun watching us - and we think they did have fun. “We’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who supported us and voted for DaleDiva. It got us to the title and means the world to us.” One of the celebrity judges, American pop goddess Anastacia, said our vocal blend was beautiful and sounded like ‘one instrument’. Meanwhile, talking about our energy and
should be hiring you guys!’ and that Tamzin thought we were not just ‘rock-star ready - but Vegas ready!’ But it has to be said – most of the Divas will never forget the lovely Duncan James calling us ‘Divalicious’ and commenting how he’d ‘like to put a ring on it….!’ Happy memories! Now we’re really looking forward to recording our album at London’s Rak Studios in October and promoting it in the run-up to Christmas. We still can’t believe we’ll be recording in
routines at www.five.tv/ dontstop or on YouTube. It’s been great to get your messages and we love to hear from you. Please visit our guestbook at www.dalediva.co.uk or visit our Facebook page. We would especially like to hear if anyone has approached your chorus about joining since watching the show. It would be the icing on the cake if we knew we had played some small part in introducing new members to our fantastic hobby. Liz Tomes - PRO www.dalediva.co.uk