Looking Back on the March 29th 2022 Harmonizer Hybrid Chapter Meeting

 Looking Back on the March 29^th 2022 Harmonizer Hybrid Chapter Meeting 

Members were all fired up after the great barbershop contest this past weekend, and after the word was sent to members that director Joe Cerutti had some major good news to share. 

Actually there were over 20 members on the Zoom call this week – it seems many who were at the contest in Wilmington had been exposed to Covid so they joined via Zoom. 

To get things started, Will Cox, director emeritus, did the vocal and physical warm up session.

Before Joe revealed his big news, Jack Pitzer did a brief report of the great success of our chapter quartets at the Southern Division /Prelims contest (as reported in the Looking Back message on March 28^th). 

Then Joe stalled again (to keep up the anticipation) by reporting this week’s Harmonizer Hero Factoid – this one about Mark Klostermeyer.  Seems Mark is one of the 70 Master Certified Picture Framers in the world.  (Joe says you can come to the Harmo House to see a gallery of work by Mark!) Another fact about Mark was that he likes to read cookbooks and so he was given a bottle of Chris Huber’s newest variety of hot sauce as a gift.

Joe welcomed Joel Golden who we have not seen on the risers in a while, and Dennis Ritchey’s mother, MariAnne, who was back to see us all again.

So Joe’s first bit of good news was that we will get to do a performance and sing for an audience and get paid – the show in Rappahannock, VA, on April 9^th which will include a fun bus ride to get to the venue.

The second news alert was that the Harmonizers have chosen the first general manager to work for the chapter – Susan Fitzpatrick – who will formally begin on April 4^th.  Joe thanked the team of Noah Van Gilder, Terry Reynolds, Randall Eliason and Marie Muscella for their extra hours to make this major change happen for the chapter. Susan expects to be at next week’s meeting/rehearsal. 

A third news item was that we have signed a formal community partnership with a local dance group to help with the performance needed to truly present “42^nd Street” in Charlotte.

The third news break was the run down on coaches for the chorus in preparation for Charlotte.  Kevin Keller will be at our meeting on April 27^th.  David Wright will be with us sometime in May. Cy Wood will be at several of our meetings in May and June. David McEachern AND Dr. Jim Henry will be coaches for our pre-International retreat. Great news for sure. 

Members should  make plans to attend the retreat at Mc Daniel College in Westminster, MD, starting with rehearsal on Friday night June 3^rd, then all day Saturday June 4, and finally a wrap up session on Sunday, June 5^th. There will be the usual “Class of 2022” for all those men who have not competed with the Harmonizers at an International chorus contest. (This will be a huge class!)

It was time for the singing to begin and Joe asked the chorus to do performance renditions of “Sing a Song’ and “Help from My Friends” with Turner Arndt demonstrating movements for 
“Friends.” 

There was a business meeting starting with major announcements by current executive director Randall Eliason to inform that chapter of two changes in the Operations Team.  Don Harrington will become chapter historian to replace Jack Pitzer who will continue working on the History Time.  Ken Rub has stepped up to fill the development director position on the Ops Team. The board of directors has officially made these changes.

Ken followed this announcement with a great presentation about the plans for development -  or as he called it – “fun raising.” He asked three chapter members “to come on down” and told them to guess how much money the chapter budgets to provide all services for each current member.  After some guesses, he revealed the number – $1350 per man. (His presentation used a game show format to share the info with the guys on the risers.) He shared that we all need to work to bring in funds.

There are three ways a member will be expected to help: use Amazon Smile for all purchases; buy scrip to pay for housing in Charlotte; and join in the plan with all members for Spring2ACTion (S2A) on April 27^th.  This year Kensuggests each member will work toward raising $250 in S2A. Everyone who makes his goal will earn a slot to attend a crawfish boil at Harmo House. Stay tuned for details about all three options.

Chapter secretary David DesPortes presented a membership renewal card to Noah Van Gilder for his 14^th year, and a 45-year membership pin for Steve White.

Chapter president Noah encouraged all members to wear their Hamro name tags – as a courtesy to new members and guests.  If anyone needs a new pin, speak with membership chairman Jacob Broude. Then Jacob welcomed guests Zak Sandler, Andrew Wu and Cy Shuster.  Will Cox directed the chorus to sing the “Harmonizer Welcome Song.”

Back to singing, this time in small groups to work on “Somethings Comin” with each of the groups provided training by a member of the music team. When everyone reassembled on the risers, Joe thanked those trainers for their work. At that point there was work on “42^nd Street” and “God Bless America.”

An invite was extended for an afterglow at the Harmo House at 3916 Stevens Street in Alexandria. Pizza, snacks and drinks were enjoyed by all.  

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 73^rd year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. - YeEd)

Looking Back on the March 25-26th 2022 Southern Division and Spring Prelims

 Looking Back on the March 25-26^th  2022 Southern Division and Spring Prelims 

What a great weekend for barbershopping in M-AD.  And terrific to see so many Harmonizers in quartets in the competitions that were held in Wilmington, DE, over the March 25-26^th weekend.

This event was a combined Southern Division/Central Division and International Quartet Prelims contest. 

When we arrived on Friday afternoon, there were a lot of our fellow chapter members at work setting up the stage and registration area and posting signs to mark warm up rooms. They are all part of the district Events Team or were there to help – Dennis Ritchey, Sam Whiteoak, Mike Fasano, Carl Kauffmann (who by the way had a bad fall during the set up time and did some damage to his right shoulder – he will get a Dr. visit back at his home this week), and David Welter. Our chapter rented our risers to the district for the weekend. Chapter friends Rob Langston, Krissi Folson and Rebecca Connor helped all weekend too. Mike Kelly was on hand to provide technical support of lights and photos and sound for the contest weekend.

There were over a dozen other Harmonizers who came to support our buddies in quartets, see old friends and do some tag singing. Past district presidents from our chapter including Bill Colosimo, Alan Wile, Bob Eckman and Dennis Ritchey were there.  Several new guys from our chapter were there too including David Breen and Jake Fry. Recent guests at our chapter who were at the contest included Julian LaFlore,  and Harry Bickford who sang in a quartet in the contest. As usual, a good number of family friends were there to support their singers. 

The weekend was fun and a great reunion.  The Doubletree in downtown Wilmington had lots of lobby spaces for tag singers and groups of friends to gather and celebrate til dawn on Sunday.  The two-hour drive up and back was easy enough, and some guys, Ken Rub for one, took the train from DC directly to within a couple blocks of the venue. 

Chris Buechler was on the contest panel for the weekend and Erin Odell Cook served on the practice panel (she had the honor of directing “Keep the Whole World Singing” to wrap up the weekend on Saturday night). The singing on stage began with a wonderful performance as mic testers by BETTER TOGETHER – Anthony and Elizabeth Colosimo with Andrew and Heather Havens.

At the end of the two-round quartet contest, there were three quartets with Harmonizers that qualified to go to the International quartet contest this summer in Charlotte. They are B&B with John Sifuentes, Francesco Logozzo, Lance Fisher, Al Mazzoni; SECRET BEST FRIENDS – although technically not currently a Harmonizer – the bass for this quartet sang with us at two Internationals and we were all surprised to see him after a bunch of years – Will Daniel Simmons; and FIRST TAKE with Alex Corson, Anthony Colosimo, Drew Wheaton, Andrew Havens. They will be joined by RULE # 1 and GQ to represent M-AD in Charlotte plus any other quartets that score at the required level during the second M-AD prelims contest on April 8-9. 

Results of the Southern Division contest had four Harmo quartets in the top four slots: FIRST TAKE, FANTASTIC 4 with Susan Shields, Chris Susalka, Heidi Brown, Dale Bird; BREAKTHROUGH with Mike Fasano, Jordan Zimmerman, Jason Lee, Ken White; and BREAKFAST BLEND with Mike Geipel, Scott Beach, Jerry Candrilli, Vinny Capaccio. Mike Wallen sang in THE ELDERLY BROTHERS quartet also in the Southern Division contest and Lance Fisher sang in JEFFERSON PLAID TIE quartet who competed for evaluation/score only – they were recently named to the list of quartets to sing in the Varsity Next Gen contest in Charlotte.

 

Results of the Central Division contest had two Harmo quartets in the top five: B&B, and TAYLOR MADE with Rick Taylor, Tom Halley, Douglas Beach, Steve Kirsch.

There was a chorus contest on Saturday morning and there were some current Harmonizers on stage for that event singing with other chapters from Southern Division. Co-director for the Patapsco Valley, MD, chorus was John Santora with Tim Buell in the chorus. The Virginians from Richmond, directed by Erin Cook, with Harmonizers Mike Wallen, Mike Geipel, Scott Beach, Jim McConnell and Vinny Capaccio on the risers won the Southern Division Chorus contest. 

Mike Fasano sang with the Queen Anne Co., MD, chorus in the Central Division contest. The relatively new PARKSIDE MELODY treble chorus was the top scoring chorus for Central division and reportedly will go to Charlotte this summer based on their qualifying score.

These first M-AD contests since COVID were a great success – good sized crowd, good contestants, venue was easy for attendees, Harmonizers were very much involved all weekend, and it was so fun to see fellow barbershoppers from other chapters. 

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 that Harmonizers do as leaders and singers. - YeEd)

Looking Back on the March 22nd 2022 Harmonizer Hybrid Chapter Meeting

 Looking Back on the March 22^nd 2022 Harmonizer Hybrid Chapter Meeting 

A great spring day yielded a great evening for singing and the guys came to work on their music! 

After a strong warm up period with associate director Tony Colosimo, artistic director Joe Cerutti took the microphone and praised and thanked the chorus for their excellent show on Mar. 18^th with the Whiffenpoofs.  He was especially happy that the chorus implemented so much of the coaching advice from Steve Scott during the Mar. 15^thchapter meeting. 

Music work this week was all in preparation for the Rappahannock Show on April 9^th starting with “There Must Be a City,” then a longer work session on “42^nd Street.”  Joe did announce that the VLQ will only sing “The Armed Forces Medley” on that show and that those singers would meet for a few minutes after tonight’s meeting. 

Next the music team kicked off the special work process for “Something’s Comin” with sectionals.  When all singers returned to the risers, Joe thanked the section leaders for their work  and preparation.  Next Tuesday there will be small groups working on that song and guys can get a listener to give them feedback. 

The business session this week was a busy one.  Robyn Murane was present this week to give each guy his new white shirt to wear on the show. She will return next week to continue the distribution and collection of payments. A riser crew was requested for after-the-meeting to load the truck for this weekend’s riser rental. 

Jack Pitzer welcomed three singing guests on behalf of the membership chairman: Cy Shuster returning for a third visit; Michael Pugh returning for his third visit; and Andrew Wu for a second visit.  Terry Reynolds directed the Harmonizer Welcome song for the guests. Earlier in the evening, Joe welcomed former chapter board member Marie Muscella. She was present as host accompanying one of the finalists for the chapter’s new general manager. 

Immediate past president Stan Quick presented two more of the chapter’s annual awards. A full report of this year’s recipients will be published in a subsequent Looking Back report. 

Current president Noah Van Gilder presented checks of financial support to the quartets competing this weekend at the Southern Division contest in Wilmington, DE, who have Harmonizer members: B&B with Lance Fisher and John Sifuentes; BREAKTHROUGH with Jason Lee, Ken White Mike Fasano and Jordan Zimmerman; TAYLOR MADE with Rick Taylor; FIRST TAKE with Tony Colosimo and Andrew Havens; FANTASTIC FOUR with Dale Bird; BREAKFAST BREAK with Scott Beach, Mike Geipel and Vinny Capaccio; and JEFFERSON PLAID TIE with Lance Fisher. The chapter cheers for each quartet was our way of giving them good luck wishes in the competition. 

Front row captain Bruce Roehm announced there would be an opening for two or three new men in the front row and those interested should contact him ASAP to obtain audition information.

Singing continued with work on “Sing a Song” and “Circle of Life” with choreography review provided by Turner Arndt. 

An invite was extended for an afterglow at the Harmo House at 3916 Stevens Street in Alexandria to include the March BirthdayGlow with birthday cake and pizza too. Joe recognized all 13 current members who celebrate this month by name and the guys on the risers gave each a one-clap cheer.

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 73^rd year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. - YeEd)