Looking Back on the June 24, 2025 Alexandria A Cappella Collective Chapter
Attendance was great this week despite the 100 degree heat in the area; and there was lots of enthusiasm, and proof that members worked-at-home on the music!!
Both ensembles worked on a lot of songs in preparation for future performances as part of the Ireland trip and for the fall show.
Associate director of the Harmonizers, Tony Colosimo, lead a warm up session for the combined ensembles of AACC. Then artistic director, Joe Cerutti, welcomed everyone and thanked all those who had attended last week’s sing in Old Town. He also thanked Ashley Merryman for the top-notch sign that was used to tell audiences that this was the AACC
Future chapter meeting locations were confirmed: there will be no meeting on July 1 in Alexandria while many members and families are in Denver for the Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS) annual contest and convention; the meeting on July 8 will be at AlexRenew; and the meeting on July 15 will be at Beth El Synagogue.
On July 29, AACC will be singing in Old Town Alexandria and passing out recruitment flyers for the next Capital Force youth ensemble.
All singers of the Collective are reminded to register and make payment to attend the annual retreat scheduled for July 18-20 at McDaniel College in Westminster, MD. Online registration began on Wed. June 4. (Registration and payment is due by July 1.) It is also important for one person in each group of attendees to make sure coordinator, Craig Kujawa, knows who is planning to share room/suites.
The annual retreat is a great opportunity for serious work on the music, plus a chance for members to meet and socialize with each other and get to know more names to go with the faces we see each week. The two coaches for the weekend will be Darin Drown from Denver, CO, and Cy Wood, our frequent performance coach from Ohio. There will also be a ceremony to present the 2024 distinguished service awards for the Collective. Great food, relaxing housing on campus close to the meeting space, casual dress, a modest drive up into MD, and always fun.
The AACC black t-shirts are available for pick up if you ordered one, or for purchase if you still need one. Just $10 each. Get your shirt from Terry Reynolds by contacting him so he can bring one to the chapter retreat.
To start off the singing this week, Joe worked with the combined ensembles on “Parting Glass” arranged by Steve Tramack. Note that there was a recent Slack message for anyone interested in auditioning for solo spots in that song. See Tony Colosimo for details.
Before the ensembles went to their own rehearsal space, Joe took time to recognize the six quartets from the chapter that will be singing in the BHS contest in Denver. It is exciting that our chapter, and our Mid Atlantic District (M-AD), have qualified a record number of quartets for this year’s contest season. (The contest sessions will be Live Streamed and Ye Ed has heard of several members who might be hosting a watch party.) The chapter proudly supports the following competitors in Denver (listed here in singing order) – Singing 4th – HARMOHAUS with John Sifuentes, Lance Fisher, Kevin Mendez, and David Breen; Singing 16th – SUPERNOVA with Maggie McAlexander and Tessa Walker; Singing 21st – FIRST TAKE with Andrew Havens and Tony Colosimo; Singing 25th – LEGACY with Rick Taylor; Singing 28th – BELTWAY with Rob Santine, Suranjan Sen, Joshua Myers and Dan Krackhardt from NY filling in for Ryan Mextorf who celebrated the birth of a new child for their family in recent weeks; Singing 60th – GQ with Samantha Tramack.
Singing 1st in the Next Generation Varsity Quartet contest is THE QUIN-TONES with Julian Leflore. Julian is also directing the True North Chorus from Delaware, singing 34th in the chorus contest.
Other quartets from M-AD include BEST WISHES, GIMME FOUR, SECRET BEST FRIENDS with former Harmonizer Will Daniel Simmons, SMOKE RING, and PRAT STREET POWER with former Harmonizer Ed Schubel. Other M-AD choruses in the contest include Parkside Melody, Voices of Gotham, Sirens of Gotham, and East Coast Sound.
Great cheers for all of our competitors in Denver!
Back to this week’s chapter meeting report: Tessa Walker spoke to the chapter about helping spread the word to high school students about the upcoming formation of another Capital Force ensemble as part of AACC. She will help create forms and flyers for the project that will be part of sing outs in coming weeks including two specific events, Aug 23rd and Sept 6th, that will be dedicated to finding new youth singers.
Chapter secretary, Heidi Suckow, with help from Jared Liscinsky, gave out membership renewal cards to six AACC members – Hannah, Carey, Jacob, Tyler, Craig and Ken Rub with the longest member renewal with 34 years. Members continued the tradition of one clap for every year!!
President, Craig Kujawa, was wearing a number of leadership hats at the meeting. One as chair for the gift card sales effort/fundraiser. He recognized several members who are helping the chapter reach its goal for the year and presented them Starbucks gift cards.
As president, Craig announced a major change in the chapter’s weekly 50/50 drawing program. For many years, half of the money went to a member with a lucky ticket, the other half went to the M-AD Endowment Fund. (The chapter has donated nearly $19,000 to that fund.) Alan Wile, who manages the drawing, proposed a change where a member still gets some of the proceeds and the Endowment Fund gets some but then after a set total to M-AD, the remaining funds go to the chapter. Stay tuned for more details as it is repeated in the weeks ahead. (BTW – Alan was not at the meeting this week and was missed by all – he was helping to care for his older brother.)
Membership director, Jacob Broude, announced this year’s Class of 2025 – to carry on a long-standing tradition of forming a class of the new members since the last class was recognized.
Each member of the class was presented a red bandana that they are expected to wear at all times – rehearsals and gatherings of the chapter. The bandanas were created by Tyler Carpenter and have both the Harmonizer and the Metro Voices logos on them. Jacob and Tessa gave each class member his or her bandana.
The AACC Class of 2025 was announced with the following members from Metro Voices -Hannah Drobac, Adele Jones, Annie Ermlick, Katie Raimondo, Nerissa Yiu, Christine Pan, Holly Perdue, Heid Brown, Shira Perlmutter, Leah Bernstein, and Diane Morrical; and the following members from the Harmonizers – Brendon White, Suranjan Sen, Ian Trent, Rob Santine, Josh Berenhaus, Alex Edwards, Tanner Perdue, Rob Stark, Brigham Blackhurst, AJ Gupta, Patrick Horne, Michael Snow, Jackson Byrd, Maumen Alshea, and Devin Turner. That large class will likely have a great skit prepared for the Retreat weekend finale show!! They will also be eager to always have their bandana or “face some consequences” according to old timers!!
Jacob also welcomed this week’s guests – Don Medor was back, and Alaine Forte was back after having been to the sing out last week. First time guests were Matthew Derouse and Robert Della Bernard. Peter Wilson from the Saratoga Springs, NY, Chapter was in town, and Greg Tepe came by to see everyone. Great to see Duncan Peacock back on the risers this week too. Jason Lee directed the chapter welcome song.
At this point the two ensembles met in different rooms; however, president Craig met with all new members to discuss leadership support needed for the chapter.
The Harmonizers used the larger room with risers. There were words of appreciation to Joel Golden who helped prepare a useful video of the visual plan as taught by Cy Wood recently. Similarly, there were thank you messages to Turner Arndt for preparing written descriptions of the moves and presentation points for “Come Follow the Band.” Tony directed the rehearsal and Turner kept the chorus “on task” for the visual plan.
At some point, Metro Voices moved to the risers for their work including some chorus lineup placements. Reporter Annie Ermlick reports that they worked on “Somewhere” with assistant director, Maggie McAlexander. Samantha Tramack, their director, directed the work session on “Where You Lead/Together We Can.” Finally, Tessa Walker started teaching choreography to Metro Voices for their uptune – “World Here I Am.”
The Harmonizers dedicated their rehearsal time to cleaning up the rhythmic aspect of “Africa.”
All singers wrapped up the evening with “Keep the Whole World Singing,” directed by David Breen. A good crew made it to the Harmo House for afterglow tag singing, pizza and snacks, and lots of visiting and story-telling.
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.
