BHS Contest Rules changes for Fall 2022 and Beyond
Now that our glorious return to a semi-normal International Convention in Charlotte is behind us, it is time to look ahead to the next contest cycle. An updated version of the rules will be published on the BHS website, but for easy reference, here’s a summary of the updates.
Qualifying scores and number of competitors
- The target scores to qualify for the 2023 International Contests have been set to 77 for quartets and 80 for choruses.
- The minimum number of BHS choruses to be invited has been increased from 27 to 30.
- This does not mean that groups scoring below the target score cannot be invited. Each district still has an automatic representative (as long as they meet the minimum score of 74) and others below the target score can be added as wildcards if there are fewer than 45 BHS quartets or fewer than 30 BHS choruses.
Invitations to Bing! World Mixed champions
The winners of the BinG! World Mixed quartet and chorus championships will be automatically invited to compete at the International happening that year or the following year (since this event only happens every other year).
Distinct choruses
The calculation to determine if choruses are distinctly different will now always be applied to the smaller of the choruses. In previous rules, there was language saying the 75% threshold would be applied to the all-voices chorus if there is one. In an effort to remove gender-based language, that has been removed.
This does have the effect of not allowing a chapter to enter a men’s chorus plus a women’s chorus plus a third chorus which is an all-voices chorus consisting of those two choruses combined. In this case, 100% of the men’s chorus and 100% of the women’s chorus would be in common with the all-voices chorus, therefore exceeding the 75% threshold.
Multiple quartets for one singer
Rule I.A.5, which prohibited a singer from competing in multiple quartets at International, will be reinstated. This was suspended for Charlotte because the decision to make Charlotte a completely open contest with no gender classifications happened late (February 2022) and there were already singers in multiple quartets of different gender classifications preparing for contest as the rules in effect prior to the February announcement would have allowed that. It would have been unfair to deny them that opportunity on such short notice, but the spirit of the original rule continues to be desired as it allows more people to experience being semi-finalists, finalists or medalists.
Steven Armstrong is Society Chair of Contest and Judging.