A full-house audience was on hand for the 7:30 pm Friday, Feb. 7th show when the Harmonizers presented The Yale Whiffenpoofs at the George Washington Masonic National Memorial. This is the 101st year for the famous college a cappella group, and the chapter is pleased to host them again in Alexandria.
The Harmonizer chorus was directed by associate director Tony Colosimo and they sang five of the great Broadway show songs from our fall show for the mostly new-to-us audience.
The chorus walked in and positioned themselves on the risers and after a moment’s silence, Tony began the opening solo for “Heart of Music.” This opener set the stage for great audience responses to every song. Drew Fuller also sang a solo in the first song.
Ben Roberts told the great story in his solo for “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables,” then when Brian Ammermann tried to cheer up Ben, they set the stage for a fun song the audience liked, “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.”
The TBD ensemble sang “If I Were Gay” from Avenue Q with Tony teasing Noah Van Gilder for this song.
Jon Frank sang the powerful solo message with the chorus on “For Good.”
And the Harmonizers finished their portion of the show with “Circle of Life” adding percussion by Bob Blair, solo by Tony and all the ribbons and choreo for the finale.
Terry Reynolds welcomed the audience and invited men who like to sing to visit with any member after the show.
A riser crew arrived early to set up along with Mike Kelly and crew for the sound equipment. During the chorus warm up, a crew of volunteers sold tickets, welcomed guests including some folks from local senior citizen facilities, ushered and helped the guests trade in their online paperwork for tickets. Volunteers were family members and chapter members - Aideen Mannion, Rebecca Conner, Lydia Golden, Ginny Wells, Jack Pitzer, Walt Page, Kathy Kauffmann, Janet Cerutti, Naida Harrington, Isabella Salmi, Nate Balke, Alex Chen, Amber Friedman, Dixie Kennett, and Krissi Folsom. Robyn Murane helped coordinate that crew and coordinated the performers getting to the stage for sound check and show times. Shows chairman Joe Cerutti Sr. helped with logistics including hosting our guest artists. Rob Langston took photos for the chapter communications team.
The Whiffenpoofs are on a tour of US cities and sang a great mix of their favorites. Most of the fourteen singers had a solo or specialty piece to perform. Ben Watsky, a Harmonizer who is also an alum of the Whiffenpoofs, joined other of their alums in the audience to sing the group’s well known “The Whiffenpoof Song” as a show finale.
The chorus sang about 30 minutes and the guests sang about one hour.
It was great to see several members and former members in the audience. The audience was invited to complete a survey online with a handout flyer and survey form given to concert attendees.
A number of members and some of the Whiffs enjoyed an afterglow at Chadwicks in Old Town Alexandria.
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 71st year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd
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