Saturday, June 10, 2017

Looking Back on the June 6th Chapter Meeting
(Many thanks to reporter Don Harrington for taking notes this week while YeEd recovered from hand surgery.)
Rehearsal was at the First Baptist Church this week; next week, too, when we will be celebrating our 69th birthday. Please take note. Associate director Tony Colosimo did the warm up. Maestro Joe Cerutti welcomed everyone, especially Rich Peyton, Larry Dennis and Rick Wagner who were back on the risers. He encouraged folks to read the announcements, especially Dave Branstetter's weekly email, and use it to help make best use of our rehearsal time. He also expressed confidence in the chorus's ability to learn the three new songs for Harmony University. Coaching is expected to bring about changes in the music, so our goal is to arrive singing notes and words accurately and singing artistically, but not perfection. Joe asked each guy to commit to a date when he will be solid on each song and gave us a paper form to record it.

The guys worked hard on all three songs, focusing on the sections announced previously, then broke into sections and practiced those and other difficult sections further.
Executive director Terry Reynolds and AH Inc. Chapter president Liz Birnbaum represented the chapter at the Choralis Ovation Awards gala. The Harmonizers were selected from 140 performing groups in the DC metro area and nominated for the Best Specialty Chorus award. Congratulation to the Washington Revels Chorus, which took home the award. In Terry's absence, operations chairman Mike Edison made several announcements.

TBD, our a cappella group, was hired to perform this past weekend, singing "America" as a flash mob for a tour group at the Jefferson Memorial, earning $750 for the chapter. Way to go, guys!

Mark your calendar for the All Parts Sectional Rehearsal, Saturday, June 24 9:00 AM - 12:00 noon at the First Baptist Church in Alexandria. Also, don't forget to sign up for Personal Vocal Instruction with Vickie Dennis.

Chapter Secretary Chris Buechler presented membership cards to Kevin McKenzie (18 Years), Larry Dennis (21 years, Ken Rub (26 years ) and Dave Welter (41years).
Mark Klostermeyer introduced our guests and we sang for them before taking a break

We kicked off the second half by listening to our new up tune, “Blow Gabriel Blow.” The amount of toe tapping, clapping and body movements signals we can't wait to wade into this one.

We wrapped up the evening applying what we learned on the two new songs until Rick Wagner directed us in “Keep the Whole World Singing.”
Until next time – editorjack!

(This message is prepared for your review if you were there, for your information if you had to miss, and as a historical record of the great things going on each week during the 69th year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd