Looking Back on the Aug. 20, 2024 Alexandria Hybrid Chapter Meeting
The Alexandria A Capella Collective met on Tuesday, August 20, at Beth El synagogue on Seminary Road. It was another great night with fantastic singing, great recall of contest stage presence plans, several guest singers and fun sectional duets for “I’m Still Standing.”
Next week Tyler Carpenter will resume engraving the medals Harmonizers earned in Cleveland. He gets it done almost while you wait and only costs $5.
Associate director of the Harmonizers, Tony Colosimo, conducted warm up exercises for the combined ensembles and spent some time to clean up notes in the chapter “Welcome Song.”
Artistic Director Joe Cerruti, was happy with the preparation of songs for the fall show, Sept. 21, at Bishop Ireton High School, (201 Cambridge Rd, Alexandria) featuring five local area quartets and the two AACC choruses. Theme for the show is Homecoming – an evening with family and friends. He reported that show tickets are now on sale. The show will run 6-8:15 pm followed by an afterglow. Chorus call will be 1:30 pm at the school.
Joe asked singers to go to Groupanizer after the meeting to sign up for the three appearances recently added to the AACC schedule: Arts on the Avenue in Del Rel area of Alexandria., Oct.5; Harmonizer sing for a Veterans Honor Flight arrival on Sat. Oct. 19; and a show at Asbury Methodist Village on Sunday, Oct.27. Don’t delay signing up.
The AACC holiday show is set for Dec. 14 and Dec. 15 with afternoon show times, at Fairlington United Methodist Church. Work on the music for that show will begin soon. The music is on Groupanizer and Joe encourages singers to get started on “Here Comes Santa Claus.” New members will obviously want to start on other holiday songs.
Rehearsal August 27 will be at Beth El – which is also Guest Night for AACC. All members should invite a prospective singer – maybe even bring the guest to the venue. Meetings September 6 and 13 will be at AlexRenew.
Following Joe’s announcements, the two ensembles rehearsed their music in separate rooms until time for business.
The business session was brief and Mary Cooper filled in for membership director, Jacob Broude, to introduce guests (Adele Jones, Ian Trent, Neal Connors, Harry Munroe and Trudy Gelfand)! Maggie McAlexander, assistant director of Metro Voices, directed the chapter’s “Welcome Song.” It was good to see Stephen Gudauskas back
After business, the combined ensembles worked on “I’m Still Standing” is sectional duets sessions. Joe and Maggieworked with the AACC leads and tenors; Tony and Samantha Tremack, director of Metro Voices, worked with the basses and baritones. After a period, the director teams switched to work with the other voices. Then the ensembles combined to sing the song with the new techniques they had learned in the sectionals.
For the rest of the evening, each ensemble worked more on their show music before coming back together for a 50/50 drawing and to sing “Keep the Whole World Singing, directed by Zak Sandler. The usual crowd was at the Harmo House for the pizza and visiting and story-telling and tag singing. It was fun to have our new guests there too.
In news outside the chapter meeting: A quartet of Harmonizers sang at the Lee Center in Alexandria on Thursday, Aug. 15, for a group of seniors participating in the Adult Day Care Center program. Carl Kauffmann, EJ Herold, Joel Golden and Cy Shuster sang the gig. Dean Rust coordinated this community service event but got Covid and Cyfilled in for him as bass. Dean reports that this community outreach effort helps us earn the arts grant recently received from the city for FY2025. The quartet sang the “National Anthem,” some Pole Cat songs and some Harmonizer standards like “Keep the Whole World Singing” and the “Welcome Song.” They also helped honor the veterans in the audience and shared info about the AACC chapter. As is often the case, the seniors were singing along with the quartet.
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 76th year of the Alexandria Chapter. - YeEd)
The Chapter Mission Statement Enriching lives through vocal harmony in the greater DC area.
