Looking Back on the 2018
Harmonizers Events and Milestones
We began our 2018 year
with the Presidents’ Award Banquet and board installation on February 3rd
at Fairfax Elks Club. Shawn Tallant was installed as
president of the Alexandria Harmonizers Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS)
Chapter for ’18 along with his board Chris
Buechler, secretary; Al Herman,
treasurer; David Branstetter, Clyde
Crusenberry and Matt Doniger,
members-at-large; and Randall Eliason
as immediate past president. A large operations team was also appointed to
perform the work for the chapter: Executive
Director, Terry Reynolds; Artistic
Director, Joe Cerutti; Communications Director, Steve Murane; Contest Director, Craig Kujawa; Development
Director, Johan Westberg; Finance Director (BHS Chapter) David
Welter; Finance Director (AH Inc.) Carl Kauffmann; Membership
Director Dave Kohls (replaced by Calvin Schnure midyear);
Operations Director Mike Edison; Director of Shows Joe Cerutti Sr.;
and Volunteer Activities Director Robyn Murane who later stepped down to
take on chapter costuming activities.
The position of Education Director was vacant at the start of the year
but was later filled by Sheryl Berlin. The position of Archivist/Historian
was also vacant but was filled later in the year by Martin Banks.
The nine-member board of the chapter’s sister 501(c)(3)
organization, Alexandria Harmonizers, Inc., elected Liz Birnbaum as president, Clyde
Crusenberry as vice president, Bruce
Roehm as secretary; and Julie Rizzo
as treasurer. At-large members were Pat
Miller, Ken Fess, and Bob Faherty.
Shawn Tallant and Randall Eliason serve
on that board as ex officio, as BHS president and Immediate Past President.
(In May, Terry Reynolds
and Randall Eliason essentially
switched jobs. Terry stepped down as
executive director and Randall was
appointed to that position by the AH Inc. Board. Terry,
as a past chapter president, agreed to be Immediate Past President for the BHS
Chapter.)
On Sunday eve, February 4th, the chapter presented The
Yale Whiffenpoofs – nationally known as the oldest collegiate a cappella
group. The chorus sang three songs
before the guests sang. The show was in the auditorium of George Washington Masonic
National Memorial in Alexandria and the audience filled the hall.
Our Singing Valentines program continued our practice of sending
quartets to make free Valentine appearances in Alexandria and Northern Virginia
at senior centers and restaurants, as well as for the Mayor of Alexandria.
A new experience this year was our performance
March 1st as the lead-off choral group at the Intercollegiate Men’s
Choruses National Seminar at National City Church on Thomas Circle. The chapter
is a member of that organization and shared the kick-off concert session with
The Rock Creek Singers from the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, and the United
States Army Chorus. Marty Monson,
CEO of the BHS, and our director Joe
Cerutti attended the board meeting of the organization.
The chapter hosted its 10th
Youth Harmony Festival (YHF) on April 13nd to provide singing
opportunity for about 50 students – 20 boys and 30 girls. The all-day event was
at Restoration Anglican Church in Arlington.
There were students from several schools. Tony Colosimo was dean of the school and made opening remarks and
welcomed the students, other faculty, guest quartets and local school music
educators. Two guest quartets came to
help with the teaching, singing and working with the students: GIMME FOUR from
BHS coming down from NJ; and THE LADIES from SAI coming from the Dallas-Ft.
Worth area. Deke Sharon, the “godfather of a cappella,” attended the whole festival and met with the music educators. The
Harmonizers sang on the evening show when parents and friends of the students
arrived. The
youth women’s chorus and the youth men’s chorus each sang for the show while
wearing their YHF t-shirts.
The Harmonizers hosted
our fifth Aca Challenge at the Sixth Street and I Historic Synagogue in DC,
Saturday, April 14th.
Although the chorus did not perform, the event was presented by the
Harmonizers and hosted by Deke Sharon. The chapter invited east coast a cappella
groups to audition and six were chosen to compete. The $1,000 first prize went
to GW VIBES. Judges were leaders from
the a cappella community including Tony
Colosimo. Also the audience was invited to vote via text during the contest
for their favorite.
Also in April, the chapter earned over $35,000 as a participant in
the Alexandria Spring2ACTion program on April 25th. Spring2ACTion is an all-day fundraising event
for local nonprofits. We were one of the community’s arts group
participants. Our fans and supporters
were able to donate all day. Chapter members prompted donations in the days
leading up to the event as well as during the day. We won bonus dollars during
the day for having the most donors in a particular hour and for having the most
donors overall among arts groups. The
chorus gathered around dinner time at Virtue Feed and Grain in Old Town to sing
for patrons there, and to have fun as the restaurant donated a share of their
sales. Mayor Allison Silberberg stopped
to see us, spoke well about our group and presented a city proclamation in
recognition of our 70th year.
The chapter’s goal got a big boost from the significant matching grant
from Ken and Kim Fess.
In the fall of 2017, director
Joe Cerutti
got a request from the staff at the Music Center at Strathmore in Bethesda, MD,
to provide the major choir for an original work called “Iron and Coal –
Survivor and Son.” The rock music work was created by composer and lyricist
Jeremy Schonfeld as a multimedia event to pay tribute to his father’s life and
experiences as a Holocaust survivor , including his time in Auschwitz. About 70
Harmonizers and about 40 women who auditioned with
Joe to sing with us formed the choir.
For the Strathmore performance on May 3-4, choir members wore gray and black
of their choice and used music scores for the performances. Many of the songs
were sung in Hebrew. The show was very successful and the chorus received
positive mentions in the theatrical reviews in the media.
Joe was recognized during curtain calls as director of the choir.
This 90-minute world premiere production was attended by many Harmonizer family
and friends
The M-AD southern division
chorus contest was in Alexandria at the Mark Center, May 18-19. First place
quartet in the division contest was POTOMAC SOUND with Tim Cobb, Tim Peterson, Mike
Pinto, and Dale Bird. Second
place quartet was CAPITAL CITY CLOSE HARMONY CLUB with Mario Sengco, Jordan Haedtler, Chuck Hunter, and Ken White. Since the chorus did not
compete, several Harmonizers sang with other local choruses.
At the May 29th
chapter meeting, we welcomed visitors from the British Association of
Barbershop Singers, The Kingsmen from Kingsbridge. Their chorus was with us for
the whole evening, and their leadership had dinner with the Harmonizer
leadership prior to our rehearsal. They
spent about 10 days in the US visiting cities and choruses. Gerry Fuller was coordinator with their
leadership for this visit in Alexandria.
On June 6
th the Alexandria
Harmonizers chorus was named "Best A Cappella Ensemble" at the 2018
Greater Washington DC Area Choral Excellence "Ovation" Awards,
sponsored by the Choralis Foundation. Associate Director
Tony Colosimo, President
Shawn Tallant, and Assistant Director
Terry Reynolds attended the event
representing the Harmonizers.
We took time at the June 19th chapter meeting for a
brief Charter Night Celebration. It was
70 years ago on this date that the Alexandria Chapter of SPEBSQSA was
chartered. There were 18 men’s names on
the charter June 19, 1948, that was officially signed by Society founder OC
Cash. It was also an amazing coincidence
that June 19th was the same day the Barbershop Harmony Society
released the announcement to truly take action on the concept “Everyone In
Harmony” with expansion of membership possibilities to include women and the
spread of more people singing. Our
chapter has been a part of some of the early trials in this regard with some of
our men singing in mixed quartets.
The Alexandria Harmonizers
did compete in the 2018 International contest in Orlando in July. We held our
pre-International contest retreat as usual at McDaniel College in Westminster,
MD, June 8-10. Our coaches were David
McEachern and Steve Scott. Chuck
McKeever coordinated the retreat.
Our send-off event before going to Orlando was June 26th at
the chapter’s new meeting place – Scottish Rite Temple on Braddock Road. We were happy to have a full house of fans
and relatives and other barbershoppers come wish us good luck.
The
always-competitive Harmonizer chorus returned to the International stage with
84 singers with our director Joe Cerutti.
Our ballad was “We Kiss In A Shadow” arranged by David Wright, and our uptune was “Blow, Gabriel, Blow” arranged by Rasmus Krigstrom. We earned 2,728
points, 90.9% and an eighth place finish!
We have competed at 27
International chorus contests since our first one in 1978 when we placed
fourth.
In Orlando associate director Tony Colosimo
conducted all warm-up sessions before director Joe Cerutti started
working with the chorus. Choreographer Carlos Barillo, who created the
plan for the uptune, helped fine tune and helped add the extra performance by Cy
Wood (as a sort of Gabriel character) and Cecil Brown (as a sort of
“confessing sinner”). Cy was our coach at Harmony University and Cecil
sings in UP ALL NIGHT. Cindy Hansen helped
at all rehearsals. She was joined by
coaches from our pre-International retreat, Steve Scott and David
McEachern.
In the evenings during the week, many of us
adjourned to socialize with our friends in the Harmo HideAway. Good crowds made it there each night to the
suite hosted by Chuck McKeever, with Craig Kujawa and Ken Rub
whose room we used. Thanks to those who
helped finance the suite or made contributions for goodies. Also thanks to the
Class of 2018 for helping with shopping, set up and clean up.
At the Togetherness Dinner the night before going
onto the contest stage, there was a bandana check for the Class of 2018 (they
have been wearing a wildly colorful blue/green scarf since our retreat in May).
Thirteen-year-old Mickey Robertson, their president, gave a great talk
based on a new guy’s perspective. This year’s class of guys who had never sung
on the International stage with us before included Connor Goss, Jerry Jayjohn, Mario Sengco, Mickey Robertson, Rob
Barnovsky, Johan Westberg, Adam Afifi, and Chris Leyen. Later in the week, Cy Wood and Cecil Brown
were presented bandanas and welcomed to the Class of 2018.
Coach and friend of all the chorus members, Cindy
Hansen, spoke about how the Harmonizers have changed her life as an example
of how they change lives of others. Current Mid Atlantic District president,
our own Dennis Ritchey, extended greetings from the district. Jack
Pitzer shared Top Ten Moments of Harmo History from the many other
International convention appearances during our 70 years. Guest quartet and
current M-AD mixed quartet champs, BETTER TOGETHER, sang for us. The quartet includes Tony and
Elizabeth Colosimo and Andrew and Heather Havens. Director Joe
spoke about the importance of our singing and thanked the members and their
families.
In August over 70 of us had
great fun at the annual sing with other local chapters at the 38th
annual Dog Days hosted by the Prince William County Chapter.
The Alexandria Harmonizers
armonizeBarbershop
Chapter, chartered in 1948, celebrated the 70-year rich history of musical
excellence, barbershop leadership and brotherhood at our fall show titled
Platinum Moments. The performance was at
4 pm on Saturday, Sept. 8
th at Schlesinger Hall on the campus of the
NoVA Community College in Alexandria. We were joined by our brothers, Toronto
Northern Lights (TNL) chorus, from Canada; and by our friends SIGNATURE quartet
from Florida.
The silver medalist quartet came to town on Wednesday and spent Thursday and
Friday visiting schools in the DC area introducing youth and music educators to
a cappella singing and promoting our spring Youth Harmony Festival.
Our education director,
Sheryl Berlin, coordinated that effort.
This was the third time the SIGNATURE guys
have spent time at schools in our area.
Our other special guests for this show were folks who played an important
part in our musical history on stage and in contest and in our growth as
singers. During the show they made introductions of songs and told stories of
how they had been a part of the Harmonizer history.
The special guests included
Geri Geis
– artistic director and choreographer during the Gold Medal chorus era;
Cindy Hansen Ellis – choreographer and
presentation coach and performance motivator since 2004 for contests, show and
major performances;
Dr. Rob Hopkins
– arranger of our gold medal ballad “I’ll Be Seeing You” in 1995;
Eric Jackson – the lyricist for the
intro verse of that same ballad;
Majorie
Latzko – wife of
Walter, who
arranged our 1998 gold medal ballad “In The Wee Small Hours” and 28 other songs
for the Harmonizers (she was tenor in the famous CHORDETTES of “Mr. Sandman”
fame);
Richard Lewellen – director
2003-2006 when we performed the contest package with “Lazy Bones” and
“Summertime;”
Mike Wallen – one of
the four associate directors for the chapter including
John Hohl, Terry Reynolds and
Tony Colosimo; and
Scott Werner
– musical director for 30 years who took us to the four gold medals in 1986,
1989, 1995, 1998, and performances for five Kennedy Center Honors programs.
Overall emcee for the show was
Marty
Monson – CEO/Executive Director of the Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS).
The songs the Harmonizers sang for this show were chosen by survey ballot
sent to fans and family.
We sang the top
vote getters and re-learned the music and the stage presence for the major
contest uptunes that had earned gold medals or songs that had been part of
major shows during the past.
The opener was “Great Day” with the applause-earning visual spread to the
sky. This was the first time for the family, fans and friends to see the new
Harmonizer chorus suit with orange tie and pocket stuffer. Then came the
popular “Summertime;” the “Glenn Miller Medley” that we sang in Normandy,
France, for the anniversary of D-Day Landing; and our current contest package
that was used in Orlando in July.
After the intermission, the curtain opened for the Harmonizers again – this
time in their black tux with white vests and bow ties.
They sang the 1998 gold medal uptune
“Steppin’ Out” with lots of uniform surprises like the popup top hats, and
disappearing ascots, and plenty of dancing by the whole chorus.
Next was our always-an-audience-favorite, “New York – New York” which we had
done on the Carnegie Hall stage in the past. As it usually does, this song
earned a standing ovation
Then
Scott Werner was introduced
to direct the top vote getting song – “I’ll Be Seeing You” from our 1995 gold
medal performance. It was the favorite Harmonizer song of all time and has been
sung on many shows and concerts over the years.
For this show it was sung by both Alexandria and Toronto.
The amazing finale for the show was the
Jay
Giallombardo’s arrangement of “American/Canadian Ode to Joy” with both
choruses and SIGNATURE and a guest quartet from TNL. This terrific arrangement
featured a weaving of the American and Canadian National Anthems and
Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” Although there had been a number of standing ovations
during the evening, this last number caused the audience to erupt onto their
feet to scream and applaud.
In addition to all the wonderful music during the evening, the Harmonizers
presented their Award of Harmony to
Joyce
Garrett, music director at Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria.
She was a major force in the chapter’s
efforts to reach out and be sensitive to diversity in a cappella music in our
city.
Both the Alexandria City Council and the
Virginia Legislature passed formal proclamations this year congratulating the
Harmonizers on their 70th anniversary, and representatives of those
bodies presented those proclamations to the chorus during the show.
Over 50 former Harmonizers who did not sing on the show were greeted and
given commemorative buttons to wear for the show for all to recognize them too.
It was a treat to see some long-time members in the hall.
Volunteers helped welcome the 980 attendees to the sold-out event and helped
organize a smooth seating process into the hall for the unreserved seats ($35
each). A limited number of premium seats ($100) were reserved in about the 10th
– 15
th rows.
These folks were
invited to arrive early and celebrate with a toast on stage with the chapter
leadership.
A lobby display coordinated by the chapter’s history committee featured a
tribute to the four gold medal contest appearances with a framed collage of the
photo, the medal and the contest program.
The exhibit also had a collage of items from the earliest years of the
chapter such as the charter and earliest quartet pictures.
There was also a framed autographed CD that
Harmonizer fan, John Glenn, took to space! Finally there was the chorus photo
at Wolf Trap with Victor Borge, and a poster from our trip to Normandy France.
Historian
Martin Banks provided
major support for the audio-visuals developed by
Mike Kelly to introduce the songs
The chapter created a great full-color 40-page printed program for our
anniversary show with coordination by
Casey
Belzer. It was full of chorus photos from over the years; info about
historical milestones, a list of the 44 men who have been president in the 70
years; and many tribute advertisements.
After the show, there was a Platinum Affair for performers and their guests
at the Lee Center a few blocks away.
Ken
Rub organized the great wrap-up event to celebrate – combo music as guests
arrived, hors d’oeuvres passed by waiters,
a fantastic Italian buffet with great desserts, two convenient bars for
wine and beer, and a special anniversary cake.
Director
Joe Cerutti was
emcee for this event and started off the night thanking the producers –
Matt Doniger, Rebecca Conner, Krissi
Folsom, and
Rob Langston.
SIGNATURE sang, TNL sang, Alexandria sang a gospel song and then the choruses
sang together again including the “Anthem” with the quartets.
Shortly after the 70th
anniversary show, The Harmonizers were special guests at Strathmore Music Hall
for a second time in 2018 – this time for the retirement gala of outgoing CEO
of Strathmore, Eliot Pfanstiehl, on September 16th. The chorus was invited
especially to reprise two great songs from “I Am Harvey Milk” which the chorus
did a couple years ago at Strathmore – “San Francisco” and “Friday Night in the
Castro” – complete with disco ball.
Other performers on the show were members of the National Philharmonic
Orchestra, Strathmore Children's Chorus, the YA youth chorus, and a youth
trombone chorus. Director was Rolando Santz.
On
Saturday, October 6, the Alexandria Harmonizers performed for Art on the
Avenue, a multi-cultural arts festival celebrating community diversity through
the arts in the Del Ray neighborhood in Alexandria, Virginia. The Harmonizers
enjoy performing at this annual home town festival, which provides an
opportunity to give back to the community, build our brand and gain new fans.
Over 25 other musical groups performed for some 50,000 visitors strolling down
Mt. Vernon Avenue.
The 2018 fall M-AD contest and
convention was in Reading, PA, at the Santander Performing Arts Center the
weekend of Oct. 5-6. There were two
quartets from our chapter in the line-up –
YOUTH RECLAMATION PROJECT with Mike
Wallen, Roger Tarpey, Hardman Jones, and Vic Owen and SILVER
ALERT with Rich Savage, Mike Edison,
Will Cox, and Steve Murane.
There were sixteen choruses in the
competition on Saturday morning. Terry Reynolds was emcee for this
event. The Harmonizers did not sing as the chapter is taking a trip to Europe
next summer, however several members and former members sang with other
choruses on Saturday. Hershey won the
chorus contest but declined the right to go to International next summer in
Salt Lake City. So the second place
chorus, Hell’s Kitchen NY, will go to SLC.
Bob Eckman,
who was vice president of the M-AD (and is now the president!), was also
inducted into the M-AD Hall of Honor this year. Bob organized displays from many chapters in the lobby area of the
venue and our display (created by Martin
Banks with show flyers on the table and with our Harmo banner hung above it
from the balcony by Robyn Murane)
looked great!
On October 17, as part of our diversity/outreach
effort, we participated in a community chorus/men’s fellowship meet-up hosted
at the Alfred Street Baptist Church. The
Harmonizers, the Alfred Street Baptist men’s choir, and a combined men’s chorus
from Metropolitan Baptist and Woodstream Churches all sang for each other and
then socialized afterwards in the church basement.
October 20th was a great
night at the Washington Hilton for the 31st Annual Humane Rescue Alliance Bark
Ball. The Harmonizers were hired to sing one song for this major fundraising
event and the event organizers hired Steve
Tramack to create an arrangement of Shania Twain’s “From This Moment
On.” The chorus walked out into a sea of
humanity and canines and performed the song! There were more than 1,000 people
in formal attire with their dogs, (some of them were also dressed in formal
costumes). After this fun performance, the majority of the men headed to Duke’s
Counter for a great afterglow.
Our own a cappella group, TBD, with their
director, Reed Livergood, made many
appearances during the year on behalf of the chapter including at the Old
Dominion Boathouse and the Fairfax Country Club.
The 2018 holiday show was a great
success with a large crowd filling the auditorium at TC Williams on King Street
in Alexandria. “The Secret of Christmas” show had a special International
twist. It was the continuation of the
Harmonizer Jack-in-the-Box routine for the first half, but this time “Jack” had
to cope with a Russian operative and his “helpers” who were trying to steal the
secret of Christmas. Terry Reynolds was the usual fun and
over excited “Jack,” Troy Hillier
was “Boris Badenove” and Noah Van Gilder
was the “Fearless Leader” who came to check on the work of Boris and his
men! The “bodyguards” for Boris were our
own a cappella group TBD who sang on the show, and included associate director,
Tony Colosimo, who was often “volunteered” to portray Natasha, Boris’s
lovely wife.
The chorus was dressed as elves or
toys for the first half as they were helping “Jack” conduct a guided tour of
the North Pole and Santa’s workshop for the Russians. And as you can imagine,
the jokes were pretty bad but got lots of laughs none-the-less.
Director Joe Cerutti was Junior, the Music Elf again and was a happy elf
with the chorus’s great singing of the songs. At one point, “Jack” needed to
use “captions” to explain something to the contingent from Russia – so he had
silent Monks come diagram the words for “Hallelujah Chorus” -- a very fun and audience-pleasing routine
that we have done in the past.
For the second half of the show, the
chorus was in red, green or blue sweatshirts with white scarves. Songs for this portion of the show featured
more sacred holiday selections, including soloist Brad Jones for the opening song “Let All Mortal Flesh,” and a trio
of Drew Fuller, Frank Fedarko and Mike Kelly who were featured in our
always crowd-pleasing closing number “Do You Hear What I Hear.”
Guest quartet for the show was
BETTER TOGETHER with Tony and Elizabeth Colosimo and Andrew and Heather Havens. They sang a
set to start the second half. At the end
of their set, they sang about the meaning of Christmas, and their little
children came onto the stage to join them.
TBD sang a Hanukkah song as part of
their set in the second half of the show with Jacob Broude, Troy Hillier, Terry Reynolds, Connor Goss, Brian
Ammerman, Josh Roots, Kellen Hertz, Nick Leiserson, Noah Van Gilder, Clark
Chesser, Josh DesPortes, and Jeff
Burkey.
We continued our long tradition of holding a Put Together Quartet
contest at the December 11th chapter meeting. Matt Doniger was coordinator.
There were 12 quartet entries. Joe Cerutti Sr. was emcee.
Judges were all past chapter presidents – Bob Wells, Brad Jones, and
Mick Stamps. Contest score keeper
was Jack Pitzer. There were first, second or third place
trophies for comedy and regular quartet contestants.
Also in December we continued the tradition of
singing holiday music in restaurants all around Old Town Alexandria for our
annual “Carol Crawl.” We did an impromptu mini-concert on the steps of the
Torpedo Factory and then ended the night with an afterglow at Chadwick’s, our
last stop.
A mini chorus sang at a several senior citizen or
health complex facilities in the Alexandria area on December 15 as part of a
holiday community service effort coordinated by Clyde Crusenberry. We held our traditional Heat Glow at the home of
Pat and Jack Pitzer as our last event for the year.
Membership at the end of the year was 200. Five current members died in 2018 – Dick (and Carolyn) Hall, Austin
Cotton, Jack McKendree, Rob Nutt, and
Alan Kousen. The chapter changed the
name of our Spirit of Harmony Award to the Dick Hall Spirit of Harmony Award. Former members Dick Bodle, Tommy Morris, and
Don O’Connor also died this year.
A final note: during our 70th year the Harmonizers
launched an ambitious fundraising campaign, “70 for 70,” with a goal of raising
$70,000 dollars during the year. When our final year-end fundraising was
tallied, we had exceeded our goal! Our final efforts
during the holiday season were greatly assisted by a very generous matching
grant from Bill and Charli Sowers.
(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 that happened during the 70th year of the
Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd
