Looking Back on the August 18th, 2020 Virtual Chapter Meeting

 

Looking Back on the August 18^th, 2020 Virtual Chapter Meeting

The chapter continues its virtual meetings with members of the Harmonizer family signing in from all around the nation. 

Director Joe Cerutti started this week’s meeting with a tribute to a great barbershopper and member of our chapter Bob Wachter, who died on August 16^th from complications due to Covid 19.  His daughter Wanda had kept the chapter posted with his health situation the last few days,

Joe lead off the tribute with a brief summary of Bob’s great work and service to the chapter.  It was clear from all the testimonies that Bob was a life-long learner and a willing teacher to all of us.  His years as director of choruses around the world confirm his skills as a teacher.

Although Bob was a 68-year member of the BHS, he joined our chapter in 1993. Many of the stories shared by members on the call included a mention of Bob’s wife of over 60 years, Jean. We all agreed you could not talk much about Bob without including Jean who helped him so much with their lovely home and with sets and decorations for events with the chapters they were leading such as Arlington, Fairfax and Mount Vernon.

Many of us recall celebrating his 90^th birthday last year with the Harmony Heritage Singers of Mount Vernon when he sang a solo and celebrated with his barbershop buddies. Bob sang in lots of quartets over the years, and served as a sound judge, and later a singing judge, for Society contests.  He was always willing to coach a quartet or chorus no matter where and what their rank might be.  In our chapter, he was noted for helping men with vocal lessons. 

He had a successful military career in the Air Force and was proud of his 40 years as a quartet performer at the Military Order of the Carabao Wallow event held each year to “roast” the military and politics in Washington, DC.  

Bob was often called upon for a toast at an important Harmonizer gathering and he would end with “Life’s battles don’t always go to the stronger or faster man, but sooner or later the man who wins is the man who thinks he can.  And I think you can – Bob.”

The guys asked to sing our traditional farewell song in honor of Bob - “There Will Always Be a Place on the Risers for You.” Cards can be sent to Wanda V. Wachter & Family, 2218 Sherwood Hall Lane, Alexandria, VA 22306.

 

After the tribute, Joe acknowledged the “care package” sent to members on behalf of the chapter.  This was a concept started back in May as a way to stay connected to our members, donors, patrons, and VIP's, and others during this time of isolation due to the pandemic.  Internally the project was known as "Lean on Me."

President Stan Quick recognized the following men via email for their time and effort spent making this possible, especially in the face of the challenges due to the pandemic: Jacob Broude - project manager, content coordinator, logistics; Adam Afifi, Noah Van Gilder, Ben Watsky - content generation, design; Mike Kelly - performance recordings for the USB drive; Frank Fedarko - printing, packaging, shipping; Randall Eliason -  review, packaging, shipping; Bruce Roehm, Carl Kauffmann, Dave Welter – finance; Joe - concept & intro letter.  Yet again, another reason "It's Great To Be A Harmonizer!"

 

BTW – several guys were wearing the blue wrist band that was in the packet during this week’s call!

Joe was happy to report that work continues to plan for the chapter’s next live show, and so in two weeks the small group discussion topic will collect ideas from members about “what makes a great afterglow.”

Next week, Tuesday, Aug 25^th. the Harmonizers will host a virtual “Dog Days” event since our friends in the Manassas Chapter had to cancel this year’s in-person event they have hosted for 39 years for choruses in Northern Virginia to perform for each other and socialize.

This year’s virtual Dog Days event will be open to all chapters in DC, Northern Virginia and Baltimore areas. There will be an appearance by the World Mixed Quartet Champs DOUBLE DATE who have won that contest twice – in 2014 and in 2016.  BHS CEO Marty Monson will also be with us.

There will be musical warm up sessions, some singing and two electives: how to work on your music at home; and apps you can use to work on your music.

Again Joe extended an invite to all members to volunteer if they have a topic they could speak passionately about as an elective in a future Zoom meeting.  Passion for a topic is top priority. Let Terry or Joe know of your interest – it does not even need to be related to barbershop! Several guys have already signed up, so if you want to be added to the list, contact music team administrator Terry Reynolds.  These non-barbershop electives will start appearing on the schedule in September.

Similarly, if any of you have internet content you’d like to share, tell Terry, Tony or Joe about it too. 

There were a number of long-time Harmonizers on the call again this week – several guys from others states join us each week. Former member Rusty Orvick now from AZ was a new addition to the call, as was Julian LaFore, lead of the QUIN-TONES, who has moved to the area and will attend Towson University to study music ed. Martin Banks was on the call and Joe acknowledged the terrific history papers Martin has published on the personals page for the chapter.

Jason Lee conducted this week’s warm up session since associate director Tony Colosimo was on a Zoom call with the Richmond VA chapter. Jason started with a physical program since attendees had been sitting for quite a while.

Then Joe moved into work that we didn’t get to last week – the tag of the new contest ballad. He cautioned that a major point to remember is to use good sense in singing the top parts and not to damage the throat.

There were no items of business to announce.

Next Alan Wile conducted the eighth interview of a Harmonizer Hero – this time Antony Takahashi. He shared that his first name was chosen because his Mom liked Shakespeare. And during his first few years of life, he was in Japan and so “Tony” was easy to translate.

His father was a Fulbright scholar and met his mom who was from Arkansas while in the US. At age 9, the family returned to the US and he was raised in California. He attended UC Berkeley and studied physics. However, during his long career, he migrated into accounting and business matters – especially after he earned his MBA from the University of Virginia.

Antony had an eight year stint in the Marine Corps and was an officer.

He sang as a young boy, with prompts from his Mom to be in church groups, and then didn’t sing much again until in his forties. When job and life changes opened up for him, he checked out singing and tried barbershop. He has sung barbershop now for 17 years in Poughkeepsie, NY, Westchester County NY, Research Triangle Park, NY; and in 2003, he joined the Blue Ridge Barbershoppers in Fauquier County.  When his son Massahisa wanted to sing too, they decided to join the Harmonizers.  The father and son sang together in our chorus.

Our special elective this week was a personal visit with coach, arranger and former Harmonizer, Steve Tramack and his family of barbershop quartet singers. Their household is a beehive of musical leadership for all kinds of barbershop including singing in contest quartets, participating in choruses for men and for women, and directing many choruses. The family is mostly centered in BHS and Harmony Inc. Steve has arranged many songs for the Harmonizers and is a popular arranger around the nation.  He is currently category specialist for the music category in BHS.  His wife and daughter are co-directors of their HI chorus.

Before their visit ended with us, three quartets had sung for us on the Zoom call. Steve, his son, his wife, his daughters, and their significant others all were in the quartets. The group also taught us a tag – “Here We Are Again, Falling Back in Love.”

Their final piece was our Harmonizer retreat tag, “Life Is Not Too Long to Live As Friends.”

It was great fun to share the evening with this talented, hard working and dedicated barbershop family from New Hampshire.

Before signing off, Joe reminded all of us about the Legacy Quartet Championship event starting this weekend. This event will be a contest to recognize 25 of the top barbershop quartets that “never won the gold” in past contests.  The 25 semifinalists will be played in a virtual event Sat. Aug. 22 from 4-10 pm Eastern. (Our own VAUDEVILLE sings fifth on Saturday.) The ten finalists will be aired on Sat. Aug. 29^th from 6-10 pm. Go to barbershop.org to sign up for various levels of participation and involvement with the contest.

As is the case each week, a bunch of guys stayed past the closing time of the Zoom meeting for an impromptu afterglow.

Next week’s meeting will be via Zoom again at 7 pm.  Watch for email details.

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 72^nd year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd

Looking Back on the August 11th, 2020 Virtual Chapter Meeting

 

Looking Back on the August 11^th, 2020 Virtual Chapter Meeting

The chapter continues its virtual meetings with members of the Harmonizer family signing in from all around the nation. 

Director Joe Cerutti was excited to kick off this week’s meeting filled with lots of special aspects including guest and chapter friend, Cindy Hansen Ellis, plus an update on the Legacy Quartet Contest from organizer Dustin Guyton. Next week our guests will be the Tramack family singers from their home in New Hampshire.

He was happy to report that leaders in our chapter are meeting and planning for the chapter’s next live show, and that they are eager for suggestions from members about what makes a “successful afterglow” when we have a show.  Therefore - next week’s small group discussion topic will be to collect those ideas from everyone.

Again Joe extended an invite to all members to volunteer if they have a topic they could speak passionately about as an elective in a future meeting.  Passion for a topic is top priority. Let Terry or Joe know of your interest – it does not even need to be related to barbershop! Several guys have already signed up, so if you want to be added to the list, contact music team administrator Terry Reynolds.

Similarly, if any of you have internet content you’d like to share, tell Terry, Tony or Joe about it too.  In that regard, we heard another great tag, submitted this week by Alex Crounk - “Goodbye My Love.” He sang all four parts and revised the standard version that tag singers all know.  It was terrific!

Finally, Joe announced a special event scheduled for Tuesday, Aug 25^th. The Harmonizers will host a virtual “Dog Days” event since our friends in the Manassas Chapter had to cancel this year’s in-person event they have hosted for 39 years for choruses in Northern Virginia to perform for each other and socialize.

This year’s virtual Dog Days event will be open to all chapters in DC, Northern Virginia and Baltimore areas. There will be an appearance by the World Mixed Quartet Champs DOUBLE DATE who have won that contest twice – in 2014 and in 2016.  BHS CEO Marty Monson will also be with us.

There will be musical warm up sessions, some singing and two electives: how to work on your music at home; and apps you can use to work on your music.

Speaking of a warm up, Joe started this week’s session until associate director Tony Colosimo was able to get onto the call. Tony brought back a crazy exercise from the past singing “aluminum linoleum” over and over! And he used the tag “Down By Old Point Bay” to wrap up his session.

 

Then Tony and Joe moved into more review of choreography for “42^nd Street.” This review was done in various speeds from slow to faster, with the teacher facing the camera sometimes, and with guys singing while they did the moves. Joe also stressed that the whole plan included character development by each performer.

As is the case each week during our Zoom meeting, the attendees are merged into small discussion groups.  This week’s question: “What would be your favorite meal?” Joe asked everyone to enter their idea into the chat and then on the count of three, everyone hit return and they all popped up. It was fun to review – several popular comfort food lists, steaks of all kinds, a big plate of my mom’s whatever, and one guy even said a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!!

The chapter’s business meeting was brief with no major announcements. We were reminded to keep Bob Wachter in our thoughts as he is now in Fairfax Hospital with Covid (tho he is making some progress at this point); and Steve Murane’s Mom is recovering from a stroke.

Next Joe welcomed Dustin Guyton back to our meeting, who is the BHS staff member in charge of the Legacy Quartet Championship event being held in August.  This event will be a contest to recognize 25 of the top barbershop quartets that “never won the gold” in past contests.  The 25 semifinalists will played in a virtual event Sat. Aug. 22 from 4-10 pm Eastern. The ten finalists will be aired on Sat. Aug. 29^th from 6-10 pm.

One great aspect of this event is that these performances have been rescued from archive materials stored from the past at headquarters – digitized so that future generations can enjoy and experience the singing for ever more.

Go to barbershop.org to sign up for various levels of participation and involvement with the contest.

It was fun to hear from Dustin again about how the plans have come into focus.  He was excited to report the support from many parts of the Society including Contest and Judging community, Association of International Champions folks, and the district presidents and leaders.

In that regard, our own Bob Eckman, who is our district president, was on our call this week, after having extended an invitation for all members from M-AD to join a virtual district-wide Zoom call on Thursday, Aug. 13^th at 8 pm. Here is the link  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87910357418  Our district is helping sponsor this great legacy contest event.

Our special elective this week was a personal visit with coach and chorus friend, Cindy Hansen Ellis from her home in Michigan. She and her husband, Dave, moved there a few years ago, but it meant she was back to her barbershop roots. (Dave actually sang with the Harmonizers a few years.)

Cindy credits her dad and grandpa with hooking her interest in our music – she fell asleep many times as a child watching quartets rehearse in her home.  Her family was involved in all levels of the hobby in the Michigan area. She says she was lucky that her folks would plan a vacation to go to the Society’s summer contest each year. They would all go and not miss a thing including the popular afterglows of those days.

Her field of study included some theater and thus her interest and skills in the performance aspect of barbershop singing.

One of her earliest moves into coaching happened when she offered a suggestion to Dr. Greg Lyne who was then director of the West Towns Chorus in the Chicago area.  He liked her suggestions and offered her the opportunity to coach their chorus.

Cindy has worked with all levels of barbershop performers in BSH, SAI and HI and many of them credit her as their coach and friend.  She has the talent to bring out the best in performers, and can help them own their efforts to communicate with audiences! She strives to “make them sound better” as they perform.

During her visit this time, we all reminisced about her help with the Harmonizer package of “Lazy Bones” and “Summertime” which was one of our most popular show and contest sets.

We bid her farewell with thanks for being a friend and honest coach for all of us over the years. Joe also thanked her for all she had done to help him as a chorus director and leader in the organization.

As is the case each week, a bunch of guys stayed past the closing time of the Zoom meeting for an impromptu afterglow. Some guys thanked Martin Banks for the great piece he posted to Harmonizers personals about our appearances with famous entertainers.

Next week’s meeting will be via Zoom again at 7 pm.  Watch for email details.

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 72^nd year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd

Looking Back on the August 4th, 2020 Virtual Chapter Meeting

 

Looking Back on the August 4^th, 2020 Virtual Chapter Meeting

The chapter continues its virtual meetings with members of the Harmonizer family signing in from all around the nation.  Always fun to have old friends attend. 

Director Joe Cerutti cranked up the start of this week’s gathering at 7 pm via Zoom by welcoming former members and current members who haven’t been on a call in a while – Casey Belzer from TN, Kevin Kaiser from CO, Bob Thames from FL, Michael Gilmore from OH, Tom Berkey from Williamsburg, VA, and new member Michael Berkson.

Joe joked when he looked around on the Zoom screen about how many guys in the chorus have added a mustache to their appearance!

Then he presented a preview of this week’s meeting including a quick note about next week’s guest speaker, Cindy Hansen Ellis. She has coached more gold medal winning ensembles than anyone, including quartets and choruses in both BHS and SAI.  She will be fun as usual when she is our special guest next week.

He was happy to report next week’s discussion topic for the small groups – If you could choose your last meal ever – what would it be?

Again Joe extended an invite to all members to volunteer if they have a topic they could speak passionately about as an elective in a future meeting.  Passion for a topic is top priority. Let Terry or Joe know of your interest – it does not even need to be related to barbershop!

Similarly, if any of you have internet content you’d like to share, tell Terry, Tony or Joe about it too.  In that regard, Joe played a great tag created by Devin Gerzof singing all four parts.  It was terrific!

(Thanks to our music leaders for all their extra work in preparing for our weekly meetings, lining up guests, creating new ways to use Zoom, and keeping us posted about BHS news. They are also popular presenters for other chapter Zoom calls – this week both Tony and Joe had to be on a call for choruses in the western time zone after our call ended.  Joe thinks he has been on about 100 calls so far, and Tony on about 50.)

This week’s physical warm up session was do-it-on-your-own-before-7 using links that had been sent out to all members. Tony actually asked for a hands up signal to see how many guys had done it in advance – about one third.  Then he got those on the call to do vocal warm up exercises.

Then Tony moved right into the promised review of choreography for “42^nd Street.” He had prepared well to teach the moves that had been taught to the chorus months ago by coach Cy Wood.  Tony used his camera to show his foot work and the moves, and followed that by playing the music and performing the moves.  He started at a slow tempo and then he increased the tempo for subsequent run-thrus.  Chorus guys asked him to do it again with his back to the camera so singers could see it mirror image. He also stressed that the whole plan included character development by each performer.

Joe expressed the appreciation of the whole chorus to Tony for his extra efforts to learn the choreo plan and be prepared to teach it.

Next on the schedule for the nite was the seventh interview by Alan Wile of one of our members who has submitted a Harmonizer Hero paper (those papers are posted on Groupanizer too in the Harmonizer Heritage section of the Documents). This week’s interviewee was Casey Belzer, who has moved with his family to Johnson City, TN.

Casey has been a member of the chapter about five years and joined us with lots of enthusiasm on the risers.  We have known him as a local music educator – mostly at George Washington Middle School in Alexandria –  where we have performed with his students and choir ensembles over the years.

He came to sing with us at the urging of his Mom who was also a music educator at Mount Vernon High School in Alexandria.  He grew up with his parents and family near George Washington’s Mount Vernon. His mom had him singing as a young kid in a church choir where she was also music director.

In addition to his singing as a young boy, he chose the viola as an instrument which he also mastered and still plays some.  And he was a lettered athlete in school in addition to all his music.

He studied at Virginia Tech and was in vocal performance which meant he studied French, Italian and German which meant he could strongly sell a song because he knew what the message of the song was about. That skill was one of his strengths as a barbershop singer as well.

The move to TN meant a career change into financial management, and his moving away triggered the chorus to sing the traditional farewell song – “There Will Always Be a Place on the Risers for You.” Joe wished Casey and Lacey and the boys the best of luck in their new location, and encouraged keeping in touch with the chapter. 

There were 58 attendees this week.  Joe signaled it was time to merge into our small group discussion groups and launched the question: “What is your favorite barbershop song to perform and why?”  This week’s topic brought out a huge list of great Harmonizer favorites – interesting that the list of different songs was about 50% ballads and 50% uptunes – but many of the ballads were mentioned several times such as “I’ll Be Seeing You,” “Bring Him Home” that we sang in France, “San Francisco” from   “I Am Harvey Milk,” and “We Kiss in the Shadows.”   “Sweet Georgia Brown,” “Keep Your Sunny Side Up,”  “Circle of Life.” “Anything Goes,” and “Wait Til You Get Em Up in the Air Boys” were on the uptune list.

The chapter’s business meeting was brief with no major announcements. We were reminded to promote supporting the Choruses for Care and Compassion campaign (the Harmonizers are one of the 31 choruses working to support the Capital Area Food Bank (CAFB). Chapter coordinator  Matt Doniger will send out “easy instructions for donating” so more of us can chip in. About $20,000 of the $100,000 goal has been reached, and about $1,500 has come from Harmonizer donors.

The rest of the evening was used for two electives which the members could choose to attend.

One was a report from Chapter Director of Education, Sheryl Berlin regarding the chapter’s Youth Harmony Festival program. Joe interviewed her so members could learn more about her background.  She is retired from a 37-year career as a music educator in Montgomery County, MD.  She was has been actively involved in our M-AD youth education program and also was an associate director of the Washington DC barbershop chorus for 10 years with Bill Colosimo. In recent years, she earned a BHS certification as a director.

Over the years, she has worked with her students to participate in M-AD youth adjudication activities and has provided similar support for students to participate in SAI programs for youth.

Currently she is a full time coach for ensembles in the DC Metro area and has worked with some of our chapter’s quartets too.

Sheryl is proud to have been asked to serve as our Director of Education.  She is working with Joe and Tony and Randall on planning our programs, along with Dean Rust who is working to fund those programs with any possible grants. She expects to come out of this quarantine era with a strong program for youth is this area in late 2021 or early 2022.

The other elective was presented by Jack Pitzer and Terry Reynolds about Harmonizer Artifacts to pass along to the chapter’s history team.  Terry has a great collection of items he has gathered and not tossed – some of them he has because he was around when they were about to be discarded and rescued them.  One example is the wildly sequined coat worn by Scott Werner in one of our swan song packages – it is covered with red, and blue shiny on the white coat, and the battery pack in the inside pocket makes it light up!

He showed the musical score from the Kennedy Center Honors show when we sang the tribute to Perry Como.  He has the thank you letter from Mrs. Obama after we sang for them at Christmas time at the White House. He found a number of plaques we have received including one of appreciation for our “I Am Harvey Milk” performance at Strathmore.

He rang the big brass bell that Dick Hall used to ring every week to end the break period of the meeting. 

And that prompted Jack to show the miniature of that bell he has – each year the past president of the chapter was given a miniature when he retired.

Jack’s other collection items included a handmade barber pole created by Dick Hall for a chapter quartet contest, the poster for the 18^th annual Spring Tonic in 1968 (ticket prices were $3.00 for reserved and $2.25 for general admission), and the bronze second place chorus medal given in the day when the Society didn’t  make silver medals.

All these artifacts are show as a reminder to be on the lookout for things in your home or files or garage or storage unit that could be added to the Harmonizer collections.  The history committee is willing to come and get them if you find some things.  Also it reminds us all to mark things that you want to keep (but figure your family won’t want in the end), to be sure to pass them on the chapter.

As is the case each week, a bunch of guys stayed past the closing time of the Zoom meeting for an impromptu afterglow. Next week’s meeting will be via Zoom again at 7 pm.  Watch for email details.

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 72^nd year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd