Looking Back on the Jan 14th, 2020 Chapter
Meeting
This was our first
meeting of 2020. Guys were ready to get
back to chorus.
Associate director Tony Colosimo did a warm up session and
then director Joe Cerutti got the
rehearsal started.
His opening remarks
included congrats to our chapter quartets – SILVER ALERT and PERSUASION - that competed in the senior quartet contest
at the Mid-Winter convention in Jacksonville, FL, recently. (Stay tuned for a Looking Back report
from that event.)
Joe reports that our coach and arranger
friend, Steve Tramack, is home and
resting after an allergy scare in Jacksonville.
And then to get the
music started, Joe did a quick run
of the five songs the chorus will sing when we host the Whiffenpoofs on Feb. 7th.
The announcement
period started with Mike Kelly
recognizing Dave Welter as the
newest Harmonizer to be elected to the district Honor Club.
Our
next big event is the 46th Annual Alexandria Harmonizers Presidents' Banquet,
Saturday, February 1st, 6:15 -10pm at the Lee Center, 1108 Jefferson
St, Alexandria VA (Note - this is where we held the 2019 President's
Banquet).
Cocktail
hour begins at 6:15, dinner served at 7, and the program will begin
at 8, including installation of our 2020 BHS Chapter Officers,
followed by the presentation of the Chapter's 2019 Chapter Distinguished
Service awards.
Tickets
are $30 per person. Dave Branstetter
will be selling tickets before and after rehearsals and during break.
Dinner
will be catered by Maggianos - so think Italian! Dinner will include
salad, desert, soft drinks, water, coffee and tea, beer and wine.
Plus, in honor of our 2019 trip to Scotland, we are bringing back a
"tasting table" of scotches and some selected bourbons! There
is plenty of free parking. Dress code is dressy casual.
We
will also enjoy a couple songs from our Harmonizer quartet, SILVER ALERT and
conclude the evening with dancing to the music of Riptide, the classic
rock cover band that includes Harmonizers: Chris Huber, Joel Golden, Kellen Hertz, and Joe Cerutti, Sr.
Another event coming
up soon – Singing Valentines –when the chapter sends quartets to appear around
the DC Metro area such as for the Alexandria Mayor and for retirement
homes. Members who are interested in
being in one of the quartets to represent our chapter on at various times
during the Feb. 14th weekend should contact Terry Reynolds right away.
Finally, our next Put
Together Quartet Contest is set for Feb. 11th. Matt
Doniger is organizing another fun contest.
Quartets should start forming soon for either of the two categories - regular or comedy, and should let Matt know
the quartet name and the members singing in it.
After announcements,
the leaders of the BHS Alexandria Harmonizers and its sister organization, AH
Inc. presented a kick off session for the coming year. It was reported that the chapter has
purchased a new Harmo truck, and that financially we are making headway on
improving our income and financial program. A complete year-in-review will be
presented as part of the Presidents’ Banquet printed program and then released
as a Looking Back report.
Members of the AH
Inc. board present for this kick off session included president Bruce Reahm, secretary Bob Faherty, plus Terry Reynolds, Chuck
Hunter, Marie Muscella, Dave Kohls, along with current and past BHS chapter
presidents.
Dave Kohls shared results from recent show
customer surveys and Maria Muscella
spoke about the continuing efforts in strategic planning to include an effort
to measure our progress quantitatively as well as qualitatively.
There are plans to
work toward competition at the Cleveland International in 2021.
The first board 2020
board meeting with new president Stan
Quick was held before the chapter meeting at SRT. Secretary is Chris Buechler, Treasurer is Al Herman, past president is Shawn Tallant, and at large board
members are now Ben Watsky, Clyde
Crusenberry, and Frank Shipp.
The major part of the
work to manage the chapter these days comes from an Operations Team (changes
since last year are marked with an *): executive director, Randall Eliason; membership director, Jacob Broude*; contest director, Nick Murane*; BHS Finance director, Dave Welter; AH Finance Director, Carl Kauffmann; artistic director, Joe Cerutti, Jr.; communications director, Steve Murane; director of shows, Joe Cerutti Sr.; Operations Director, Gary Cregan*; development director, Nick Leiserson*; education director, Sheryl Berlin; volunteer activities director, Robyn Murane; and archivist/historian, Jack Pitzer*.
The second half of
this week’s meeting was a thorough presentation by the music team for 2020.
This information was emailed to all members and included a complete list of
shows and events for the coming year.
Section leaders for
the year ahead are Brian Ammermann
for tenors, Reed Livergood for
leads, Jason Lee for baritones, and Ryan Mextorf for basses.
The plan to conduct
individual interviews with each member was launched this week too.
Joe was excited to announce new songs for
2020 which includes a return of the
“Chorus Line Medley” and the addition of “Something’s Comin” from West Side
Story, and more. He even released song
lists for the holiday shows next year.
The list of coaches
lined up for the chorus included all familiar names – Steve Scott, Cy Wood, David Wright, Cindy Hansen, and Kevin Keller.
The final info from
the music team was a rollout of a flexible rehearsal pilot plan for seven
weeks. “The pilot is an alternative rehearsal approach for learning, coaching,
and rehearsing Harmonizer music across a variety of forums and
mediums/platforms that supports multiple learning styles. This pilot will
utilize best practices, available technology, and experimental techniques for
singers of all generations and abilities.” Here again, this info was emailed to
all members.
Before adjourning on
Tuesday, we bid farewell to Craig Kujawa
who is off to a military assignment for a couple years. He will be missed in
the front row, missed as a stage presence teacher, and missed as conventions
chairman. We sang “ A Place on the
Risers for You” as is our tradition.
Before Craig
left the DC area, he submitted a year-end report of Scrip earnings by the
chapter for 2019. A total of 22 participants
earned a combined total of $1,617.55
for the chapter, which is nearly exactly the average of the prior 4
years. The top earning members were Chuck Hunter ($107.75), TJ Jones ($120.00),
Carl Kauffmann ($168.00),
Ken Ives ($252.25), Craig
Kujawa ($311.95), and the
2019 Scrip Champion is Randall Eliason ($394.75).
Lastly, after about 4-5 years at the
helm, Craig turned over management
of the scrip program within the chapter to Ken
Ives.
In
other January news, this year’s Heat Glow at Jack and Pat Pitzer’s home on Sat. Jan. 4th was a great social
event for the Harmonizer family. Everyone was welcome to attend with their
significant other so the holiday decorated house was jammed full of folks. Everyone brought goodies to share, so all tables
and counters were covered with great treats.
There was some tag singing and there was the annual batch of holiday
grog served. The nite was a great chance for some of the new guys to get to
know more members and to share holiday stories.
The
Heat Glow was started more than 50 years ago as a party for the Harmonizer
family after the chorus sang at the annual Burning of the Greens in
Alexandria. The city would collect all
the Christmas trees from around town and pile them high for a huge fire – sort
of the opposite of a tree lighting event these days. The party has continued
for all these years at different homes.
In other news, there were a good number of Harmonizer folks at the annual BLAST
hosted by the Dundalk Chapter on Monday, Dec. 30th. Sam McFarland reports seeing Mike Kelly, Matt Doniger, Rick Taylor, Tim
Buell, Chris Yates, Bob Hirsh, and
Geoff Berman. Several of those men sang in quartets as part of the program
– there was no contest this year. So quartets sang to entertain.
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 70th year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd
