This year we're proud to host our friends from the Cardinal District
JAD Harmony College (formerly known as Leadership Academy) is a weekend training seminar for any chapter member, no matter what their leadership or member level. It's not just for leaders anymore! While there are still chapter leader training sessions available, during the weekend, expect to have opportunities to meet other chapter members and leaders and to talk about roles, experiences, and items in a round-table setting. There will also be dedicated coaching and learning opportunities.
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Chorus 360 - Several choruses will have the opportunity to participate in the event and receive three hours of focused coaching. Additionally, 90 minutes will be set aside to address the area of growth within the chorus and the community. The growth sessions will be conducted by nationally recognized individuals with reputations for building chapters and choruses.
Other classes offered during the weekend will focus on areas related to music and singing, leadership roles in transforming and improving chapters, and strategies for motivating participants within volunteer organizations to improve what they do. A Director/Music Team track will also be offered, and we are pleased to announce that Dr. Jim Henry will be our key facilitator for this track.
Jan 10-11, 2025
Fri 6:00pm - Sat 5:00pm
100 Green Meadows Dr South, Lewis Center, OH 43035
Directors & Music Team Track
Jim Henry
Dr. James Henry holds degrees in vocal music education, music theory, and music composition, including a Ph.D. in music composition from Washington University. He is currently Director of Choral Studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where he conducts University Singers and Vocal Point and teaches courses in Choral Methods, Choral Conducting, and Choral Arranging. His Choirs have performed in choral music and music education conferences and on prestigious stages across the country.
As a composer, Jim has won awards for his songs and piano pieces. He served for three years as composer-in-residence at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School under the aegis of Washington University, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, and the Buder Foundation. He was also a music mentor for the “Music, Words, Opera” educational program sponsored by Opera Theatre of St. Louis. For more than 30 years Dr. Henry has been the Musical and Artistic Director of the 5-time Barbershop Harmony Society International Champion chorus, the Ambassadors of Harmony, a 120-voice men’s ensemble. He has also sung bass and arranged for two renowned international championship quartets: Crossroads and
the Gas House Gang. As a member of those ensembles, Dr. Henry has performed in 20 countries and all 50 states, including venues from the Grand Ole Opry to Carnegie Hall. A 50-year member of BHS, he is the only person to have won the International Competition as a chorus director and quartet singer in the same year. Both the Gas House Gang and Dr. Henry individually have been inducted into the BHS Hall of Fame.
Dr. Henry has conducted numerous district and state honors choirs and has traveled the world as a conductor, coach, and lecturer. He has presented at state, national, and international music conferences. He has served as the TTBB Resource Chair for both the Missouri Choral Directors Association and the Southwest American Choral Directors Association. He is a contributing author for the Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music and the Grove Dictionary of American Music. He has won several awards for his singing, composing, and teaching, including the Missouri Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, Southeast Missouri State University’s Alumni Merit Award, and the National Association for Music Education’s (NAfME) prestigious “Stand for Music” award for his work on behalf of music education.
Chorus 360 Instructors
Ted Chamberlain
With over three decades of successful experience in voice coaching, Ted Chamberlain began with a degree in vocal performance and education from Seattle Pacific University and later achieved recognition as a National Board Certified Teacher status in that area. As an instructor, he has also played significant roles in barbershop with faculty appointments at the BHS Harmony University, as well as frequent appearances at the Northwest Harmony College.
Ted has sung in Barbershop quartets since 1981, competing internationally on three different voice parts – Baritone, Bass, and Tenor – more than a dozen times. His accolades include being a three-time Evergreen District quartet champion and he currently sings bass in a mixed quartet called Hot Notes.​
As the owner and instructor at Ted's Voice Academy, Ted has successfully coached and mentored thousands of singers, helping them achieve remarkable success on Broadway, in opera houses, recording studios, and on international tours. His students' achievements are a testament to his effective teaching methodology, characterized by simplifying complex concepts and making learning accessible and engaging.
His career as a director of barbershop choruses from 1987 to 2019, coupled with his extensive coaching experience at Harmony University and Northwest Harmony College, underscores his commitment to elevating singing and vocal performance across various platforms.
Elizabeth Davies
Lifelong musician Elizabeth Davies fell in love with barbershop in 2010 when she and her 14-year-old daughter were invited to join a Sweet Adelines quartet. She sang lead in the 2018 Sweet Adelines Region 13 champion quartet, Liftoff, and currently sings tenor in a mixed BHS quartet, Impact.
She directs two barbershop choruses, Sound Harmony Chorus (SAI) and the Seattle SeaChordsmen (BHS), a 45 member non-audition chorus approaching its 75th anniversary. She has served on the faculties of Harmony College Northwest, Rocky Mountain Harmony College, New England District Leadership Academy, BinG! Harmony College (Germany), and Harmony University.
Most recently, in 2023, she and Renee Tramack became the first women in BHS history to be certified as judges in the Singing Category. Elizabeth has coached quartets and choruses from around the world and loves helping ensembles build new skills, discover more enjoyment in singing together, and achieve their goals in a vocally healthy way.
Paul Ellinger
Paul Ellinger is one of the most requested coaches in a cappella singing today. He is a perennial Harmony University Faculty member and is the creator of the Wavebox Singing holistic approach to singing. Paul is also the creator of the popular Supercharging Your Chapter outreach, which helps groups to grow, be relevant in their communities, and help groups sing at higher levels more quickly and consistently. Paul has created the Performance Sphere, which distills “performance” into one elegantly simple concept, allowing groups to discover why they are stalling in their progress. Recently, he has also developed The Roadmap, an approach to greater improvements over time wherein all of the concepts build off from one another for ongoing improvements. Paul’s strategies have helped groups grow 100% in just six weeks.
Of those who have worked with Paul, over 15 choruses have won Most Improved, some twice in a row. Quartets utilizing his methods have seen some of the largest one-year score increases and placement in Barbershop Harmony Society history, with many qualifying for International for the first time ever. In his work with them, he focused solely on increasing their core competency so that they now sing every song at a higher level.
As a performer, he won a Pioneer District Championship singing lead with Chordiology. He also sang with the 5-man contemporary a cappella group, elmoTHUMM, who were Harmony Sweepstakes National Finalists, performed through two rounds of America’s Got Talent, sang for the President of the United States by request, had over 300 stage performances all around the country, were given contracts to be on NBC’s The Singoff. Paul is a certified Performance Judge for the BHS, has presented numerous Master Classes at International Competitions, coached in many of the Areas and Regions of both Harmony Inc. and Sweet Adelines International, and coached in all 17 Districts in the BHS and around the world. Among other roles, he is a past member of the BHS Membership Task Force, Executive Vice President, and President of the Pioneer District. He is the only person to be elected into the Pioneer District Hall of Fame – twice.
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Class Surveys
If you attended Harmony College 2025, please fill out a class survey for each class you attended. The feedback is given to each instructor anonymously and helps them develop their classes and their presentation skills.
Class Files
If your instructor provided files (PDFs, Power Point, spreadsheets, etc) to be distributed, you can find them in the individual class folder inside the Harmony College 2025 folder linked above. If nothing is present, allow your instructors a few days to upload and check back later.
Overall Event Survey
If you attended Harmony College 2025, please fill out the overall event survey. Share thoughts about the facility, the food, the hotel, the staff, the classes, along with any suggestions to improve for next year.
Registration & Payment
To register please go to JAD 2025 Harmony College Registration. You may choose to pay through Zeffy (linked below) using a credit card.
Registrations
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Single Occupancy includes a hotel room on Friday night, breakfast and lunch on Saturday.
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Double Occupancy includes a hotel room on Friday night, breakfast and lunch on Saturday. You must share the room with another HC attendee (you can specify a roommate if desired).
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Commuter includes lunch on Saturday.
