Looking Back on the September 18th 2022 Harmonizers Sing at Wolf Trap
(Thanks to Steve White who served as reporter for YeEd back stage with the chorus at the Wolf Trap event on Sun. Sept. 18th.)
This event was labeled “a community-powered singing celebration” titled Joyfully Together.
The Harmonizers shared the program with seven other groups: Children’s Chorus of
Washington, Duke Ellington School of the Arts Concert Chorale, Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington and GenOUT, The Heritage Signature Chorale, Towson University Singers, The Washington Chorus, and the Washington Performing Arts Gospel Chorus. All of these singers combined to perform two numbers as a group – “We Are Love” and “United in Purpose. ”
The concert opened with all singers on stage for the first group song – YeEd guesses there were about 200 singers – from little kids to some 80-yesar-old signers. Emcee for the concert was Eugene Roberts, artistic director of The Washington Chorus. He also directed the combined choruses. When he introduced the Harmonizers he saluted our coming 75th anniversary – which drew an applause from the audience. And he mentioned our formation of Metro Voices.
The audience loved the Harmonizers!! When the chorus swelled to the final cord of the tag for “Bridge Over Troubled Water” they cheered and applauded wildly. Then when Tony Colosimo started “Circle of Life,” the audience cheered and screamed! Especially the younger generations. We had our rhythm group for this song and lots of color and staging!
Here is the back stage report from Steve: “The Harmonizers, just 38 strong, gathered in the Filene Center’s newly renovated artist’s rehearsal/dressing room space in at 1:00.
Tony ran a quick 10-minute physical and vocal warm/up followed by 10-minutes with Joe who provided some rah-rah and a brief run-through of the two songs, “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” and “Circle of Life.” The sound from this — the smallest in many years — was incredible thanks in part to our many new guys and the focus of everyone in the room. Artistic director Joe Cerutti was ecstatic!
We were then called to stage for a 20-minute sound check. Wow, what an impressive venue, one we’ve performed on twice before … the 25th Wolf Trap Anniversary Gala and the 80th Birthday Celebration for Victor Borge.
We then went back to the dressing room where there was food and drink available and the men finalized their uniform preparation.
Shortly thereafter we were called to the stage with the other choral artists and an incredible Metropolitan Opera singer to run through one of the two commissioned choral pieces, “United in Purpose” (music by Rollo Dilworth).
We then went back to the dressing room. Joe assembled an impromptu put-together quartet with Tony Colosimo, Steve White, Jason Lee, and Mario Sengco to sing for the group of youth that Mario, coordinates called GenOUT. It didn’t take long for a large crowd to gather around them from the Washington Gay Men’s Chorus and several other choruses in the hallways and a rousing applause.
At 4:30 we were called back to the stage to run through the other commissioned piece, “We Are Love”. We stayed onstage until the start of the event at 5:00.”
Our chorus wore the blue suit pants and vests and orange tie. No medals. Singers from other groups wore bright colored t-shirts or outfits and even tennis shows. Our friends from 17th Street Dance appeared with the Washington Gay Men’s Chorus.
For those of us in the audience, it was a great show!! And it worked great to get the free tickets when we asked for those seats saved for Alexandria Harmonizers.
At the end of the show, all of the directors of the eight ensembles were recognized and each was given a large bouquet of flowers.
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 for the great things going on each week during the 74th year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. - YeEd)
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