Looking Back on the Feb.7, 2023 Alexandria Hybrid Chapter Meeting
The Alexandria Chapter meeting this week was just for the Harmonizers. Metro Voice will meet on Thursday at the Harmo House. Looking ahead, the Harmonizers will not meet at Scottish Rite Temple (SRT) on Feb. 21 but will gather at the Harmo House on Thursday, Feb. 23.
Associate director, Tony Colosimo, welcomed the singers on the risers and lead the warm up session. A few members who lived in DC arrived late – likely because of the many street closings in DC for the State of the Union address.
Artistic director Joe Cerutti and assistant director Terry Reynolds were in Florida at the Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS) Midwinter Convention. Tony will go there on Wed. and sing with his medalist quartet, FIRST TAKE, on Friday at the convention. He will also be directing the “Every Member Chorus” in Daytona Beach with Katy Dane from Austin, TX. Our chapter will have some
representatives in that chorus – reportedly, Mick Stamps, Gary Mankin, Ken Fess, Rick Wagner, and Bede Bender that YeEd has learned about.
Turner Arndt coordinated this week’s meeting for Terry, and Tony kicked off the rehearsal. This week’s plan was to do small group work on “Sit Down You’re Rockin the Boat.” Tony took a minute to explain the purpose of the small group work and explained the octet singing exercise that would be held after the meeting for those who wanted to get personal feedback.
He thanked the men who joined the smaller ensemble of Harmonizers who sang at the SRT in DC on Feb. 4. Some of the singers mentioned the great food too! Former community representative on the chapter board, Paul Dolinsky,orchestrated this performance at their installation banquet in exchange for fees when the chorus used their auditorium in December.
Before starting the actual singing, membership director Jacob Broude announced that Stephen Gudauskas was our newest member, and presented Stephen his own black casual camp shirt. He joins the bass section!
The first song to work on was “New York New York.” Next the riser singers worked on “Sit Down” and part of the time Tony has them sit on the risers and take notes for their music. He set the stage for work in small groups in order to strengthen understanding for the underlying rhythm. Then it was a short work period on “I’m the Music Man.”
There were nearly 60 singers on the risers by the time the chapter business session began which was monitored by communications director Steve Murane. Chapter secretary David DesPortes presented a membership renewal card to congratulate Doug White for his 17 years.
The chapter will be sending out quartets to do Singing Valentines as public thank you messages to organizations and friends of the chapter on Feb. 14. The project coordinator, Dean Rust, needed one more lead and Bob Blairvolunteered. We will likely hear more about those quartet appearances on that Tues. night.
Jacob welcomed two singing guests and Will Cox directed the chapter welcome song – Ian Kelly for a return visit, and Matt Gordon for his first time.
After the business work, singers were assigned to small group work sessions in various places in SRT with music team leaders Ben Watsky, Lance Fisher, Ryan Mextorf and Turner Arndt.
When the groups returned to the risers in the auditorium, Tony had them review and put it all together to confirm what they had worked on.
Bob Blair also won the 50/50 this week. There was no formal afterglow this week.
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 Chapter. - YeEd)
The Chapter Mission Statement Enriching lives through vocal harmony in the greater DC area.
