Looking Back on the March 11, 2025 Alexandria A Cappella Collective Meeting; Report from DCPS Youth Event
The active AACC ensembles are busy working on their music for the contest cycle starting with the Southern Division competition in mid-March. This week each ensemble did a warm up session of their own.
Artistic director. Joe Cerutti, had the following announcements for all AACC members: (1) The interview process is wrapping up and “take aways” will be coming soon to the chapter.
(2) The Harmonizers will sing the Honors Flight event on April 26. Members should sign up to confirm their availability.
(3) The Alfred Street Baptist Choir folks have invited the Harmonizers to sing at the tribute event for Dr. Joyce Garrett, Aug. 2 at 5 pm in Fort Washington, MD. She was instrumental in the outreach to have the Harmonizers and the men’s choir at Alfred Street Baptist launch their many years of fellowship and musical celebrations. She was honored by the chapter as recipient of the Harmony Award in 2018.
(4) The March 18 chapter meeting will be at Beth El, and the March 25 meeting will be at AlexRenew – it will be an education night with a variety of sessions to learn more about barbershop harmony and the chapter.
(5) There is a good body of information about going to the Southern Division contest – a slide set is in the Water Coolerchannel on Slack. It is especially informative for new members, but even experienced members would benefit from this info. The call time for both ensembles will be 9 am – singers should arrive vocally ready to sing and dressed for the stage. The Harmonizers will go cheer for Metro Voices when they go on stage, then Harmonizers will return to the meeting room to prepare for their stage time. All singers are welcome to attend the Feed Back sessions after the scores are announced (also it is a good opportunity for new members to get a feel for how the judging system works).
(6) Joe also saluted the many quartets that will represent our chapter at the contest in Towson. It’s been a while since the chapter has had so many quartets with current or former members or family members from the chapter. Here is the lineup for quartets singing at the Southern Division/International Prelims contests in Towson, MD, at the University’s Kaplan Concert Hall (8000 York Rd.), March 21-22.
Singing Order:
Fri night mic tester – SURPRISINGLY COMPETENT with Jim Lake
Singing second – MENTAL NOTE with Scott Beach and Mike Geipel
Singing third – BETTER TOGETHER with Elizabeth Colosimo, Heather Havens, Tony Colosimo, and Andrew Havens
Singing fifth – BELTWAY with Rob Santine, Suranjan Sen, Josh Myers, and Ryan Mextorf
Singing sixth – THE ELDERLY BROTHERS with Mike Wallen
Singing eighth – INSTAGRAMPS with Rick Taylor, Jay Butterfield and Steve White
Singing tenth – HARMOHAUS with John Sifuentes, Lance Fisher. Kevin Mendez, and David Breen
Singing thirteenth – FANTASTIC 4 with Chris Susalka and Heidi Brown, daughter of Anne Ermlick
Singing fifteenth – FIRST TAKE with Tony Colosimo and Andrew Havens
Singing nineteenth – HEART AND SOUL with Bob Mattes
Singing twenty third – SUPERNOVA with Tessa Walker and Maggie McAlexander
We will also have some quartets singing in the Northern Division/International prelims contest April 25-26 in New Jersey including LEGACY with Rick Taylor; GQ with Samantha Tramack; and PRATT STREET POWER with Ed Schubel.
The two ensembles then met to work on their contest packages – the Harmonizers used the risers with Tony Colosimoas director and Joe Cerutti as coach; and Metro Voices used the sanctuary space with Samantha Tramack as director and Maggie McAlexander as coach.
Before the two ensembles changed locations with Metro Voices on the risers, chapter executive director,
Stan Quick, conducted the chapter meeting. Announcements included word that Dave Ermlick is under doctor care currently.
The cabaret planned for the evening of the spring2ACTion fundraiser has been cancelled because no venue could be found for the event.
Chapter secretary, Heidi Suckow, with help from Jared Liscinsky, presented membership renewal cards to Mary Cooper, 3 years; Maggie McAlexander, 11 years; Noah Van Gilder, 17 years; and Don Thompson, 32 years.
Mary Cooper welcomed the guests this week. First time guest was Tamara. Retuning guests included Patrick Horne, Shira Perlmutter, AJ Gupta, Leah Bernstein, Michael Snow, and Julian LeFlore. Maggie directed the chapter “Welcome Song.” Editor’s note: a sharp new chapter membership recruitment brochure was available on the admin table at the entrance this week.
Sheryl Berlin thanked all those AACC members who helped with the DCPS youth festival. She had leftover water bottles for anyone who wanted one. (See full report below.)
Becca Williams explained the expected chorus apparel for the upcoming contest: Metro Voices - gray with blue, purple or gray accents; Harmonizers – black with gray and white (no accent colors).
The evening ended with “Keep the Whole World Singing” as the closing number. There was an afterglow at Harmo House.
In other news from the chapter, good to see Tessa Walker’s name on Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS) list of presenters for webinars for music educators. She is doing one on March 13 at 7 pm CST for 60 minutes via Zoom. The topic is “Improving Sight Reading Skills Through Barbershop Harmony.
Friday, March 7, AACC chapter members worked together with the Music Education staff from DC Public Schools (DCPS) for a terrific all-day youth choral festival. The event was at UDC in The Center for Theater Arts and attended by over 80 students with their music educators from seven DC schools.
Members of AACC helped support the event with riser crews (helpers with Gary Cregan); and snacks, pizza lunch and water (donations from members of cash and products coordinated by Mark Oswald and Randy Lazear).
At 4 pm, the youth chorus sang their songs learned during the day for an audience of AACC members, parents and music educators. The show started with two schools (Dunbar High School and Jackson Lee High School) demonstrating a tag they had learned since last year’s festival.
Tessa Walker was clinician for the day and directed the youth chorus and shared her pride and excitement about how well the students had learned their music in advance of the day and had worked hard all day to be ready for the show. THE QUINN TONES quartet (Jake, Julian, Tommy and Chris) was on hand to help Tessa as section leaders and coaches. The quartet sang on the show as well.
Joe Cerutti, emcee for the show, was enthusiastic in his thank you to parents and friends who came to support the student singers. Many members of AACC were on hand for the show too. Some of them had spent parts of the day at the festival as helpers ‘as needed’ with music education, hospitality and set up, take down and clean up. AACC members who helped or attended the concert included Dean Rust, Randy Lazear, Mark Oswald, David Breen, Noah Van Gilder, Maggie Alexander, Carl Kauffmann, Gary Cregan, Sheryl Berlin, Patricia Chow, Ken Rub, Jack Pitzer, Bruce Roehm, Elizabeth Cosh, Michael Berkson, Kevin Mendez, Tony Colosimo, Cy Shuster, and Becca Williams. Students were given a souvenir water bottle to celebrate their efforts for the day.
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.
