Wednesday 22nd July saw five intrepid BABS members making their way to Denver, Colorado for the triennial meeting of the Barbershop Harmony Society Contest and Judging team, better known as “Cat School”. While Boo de Bruin, Simon Lubkowski and Jill Foskett were all there officially representing the three scoring categories of BABS, dual members Anna Conochie and Alex de Bruin (as well as LABBS E&J chair, Alison Thompson) were there on behalf of our sister organisation.

Unlike BABS and LABBS, who join together twice each year, the BHS judging community only convenes in one location once every three years, but boy do they make up for it! Category School is four intense days of work, with sessions starting at 8am each morning, and running through until 10pm. In addition to scoring two playlists of twenty performances and receiving feedback; and extensive work on live evaluations of four local quartets, each Category spent time on the features most pertinent to them. 

For MUS that included a deep dive into harmonic integrity; discussions of changes to the score sheet; solidifying our approach to scores of 0, 1 and 40 (did you know we don’t give scores of 2-39 in contest?); dealing with cusps (60 vs 61, 70 vs 71 and so on) arrangement analysis; coaching tools for every situation… the list goes on!

In the PER room, there were enthusiastic discussions around developments on how to we assess and give feedback on “the Heart of the Matter”; consolidation of the penalty process and taste; deeper insight into comedy performances and a session on how SNG affects PER. The long days were full of relevant and informative content and the time just flew by: what an experience!

Sessions in the SNG room ranged from Alexander Technique, Estill Voice Training and a new Steve Scott coaching framework to in depth discussions around vocal pedagogy and vocal expression and how they interrelate. There was test scoring and subsequent discussions on those findings as well as some amazing sessions on inclusive coaching techniques and serving our competitors in our evals - an amazing week of listening and learning!

In addition, we were proud to see Alex de Bruin reach the culmination of two years’ hard work to certify as a BHS judge in the Musicality category. BABS uses the same rules and scoring system as the BHS (although we formally ratify each change that they make before adopting it), but the additional work (and cost!) required to become a BHS judge is quite something. Following a rigorous application process to become a candidate, and attendance at ‘Candidate School’ in Denver, over the next two years wannabe judges must judge a minimum of six North American BHS contests: all at their own expense. This is in addition to all of the scoring playlists and assignments that form part of normal judgely training. This probably goes some way to explaining why only three BABS members have achieved the accolade over the years. The other two are BABS Judge Emeritus and 2004 Hall of Famer, Bob Walker, who served as a BHS Presentation judge for fourteen years and Stuart Sides, who certified for BHS SNG in 2023.

The four day trip represented a fantastic opportunity to refresh and enhance relationships between the two organisations, as well as enhance the knowledge and skills of some of our judges. We finished the week enriched, educated and utterly exhausted, excited to share our findings with the rest of the judging community at our autumn seminar.