Looking Back on the March 17, 2026 Alexandria A Cappella Collective Chapter Meeting
There was a lot of “wearing of the Green” for the March 17th meeting for AACC at Fairlington Presbyterian Church, in Alexandria. A good crowd of singers and guests was present and ready to work on their music and choreo.
Maggie McAlexander, assistant director of Metro Voices, conducted the 7 pm warm up session for the AACC singers. As part of the warm up exercises, she refreshed the singers for one of her fun tags, “Little Alligator” and then used the “We Sing Late at Times” warm up exercise.
Artistic director, Joe Cerutti, then reviewed plans for the Capital Force end-of-the-season concert that will be Sunday, March 22 at the George Washington Masonic Memorial, 101 Callahan Dr., Alexandria. Riser crew is needed at 1 pm; AACC call time is 2 pm in the Cafeteria; and the show starts at 3:30 pm. It is free to the public but donations will be collected. Joe reviewed “Parting Glass” for AACC on that concert; Robert Stark and Christine Pan will sing the intro for this song on that concert. Each ensemble will sing their own songs as well. Family and friends are all welcome.
Samantha Tramack, director of Metro Voices, led the AACC singers in their review work for “We Will Be One” in preparation for that concert. She had the chorus start out in sections in the four corners of the room, then onto the risers. AACC t-shirt and jeans is attire for this one.
Terry Reynolds presided over this week’s business session. Chapter meeting March 24 and March 31 will be at Fairlington Presbyterian Church (FPC). Chapter president, Craig Kujawa, along with chapter secretary, Cy Shuster, held a special chapter election to fill an opening on the board of directors. Charlyne “Chuck” Miller was elected by a unanimous vote as member-at-large.
On Thursday, March 19, the AACC chapter will support a day-long choral festival for schools in DC. This is a major, annual event for the chapter in cooperation with music educators in the DC School system. Joe also reported on this event and offered to collect donations from AACC members to help cover costs of snacks and waters for the student signers. Everyone is invited to the 4 pm program demonstrating the youth singing a couple barbershop songs. The festival will be at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, 3500 R St. NW, DC 20007 – parking might be a challenge so allow time - enter the main entrance. This program was kicked-off a few weeks ago with Melody Hine coming to DC and meeting with music educators and their students in advance of this one-day choral festival.
Jacob Broude, chapter membership director, welcomed returning guests Renee Tramack, Tracy Albarracin, andSarah Lott. A youth quartet attended this week’s meeting after a recent Harmony Explosion event with Tony Colosimo and David Breen. The quartet includes Isaac Teberen, Danny Ameduite, Ivan Diehl and John Mark Magpantay. They accepted the invitation to sing a song for the chapter – “Like a Wink and A Smile” – which earned a standing ovation from AACC members. Owen Lyons has become our newest AACC member and received his name tag this week. Members sang the chapter welcome song for this week’s guests.
At this point, the two ensembles began work sessions on their music in separate spaces in the building.
The Harmonizers concentrated on their contest song, “Harmony” with Cy Wood coaching the visual plan for the chorus and the six “Harmonists” out front. He had been in the DC area for a few days which allowed him time to have a work session with those six men to teach them several special routines that they will use during the set. They had clearly been working on their part of the visual plan as well as their musical part. The Harmonizers worked until past 10 pm to get in all of the plan from Cy.
Annie Ermlick reports that Metro Voices worked on their contest songs, reviewed their songs for the Sunday show; and did a recording for “Me and the Sky” to submit to section leaders. For some extra fun, director Samantha Tramack taught them the BOSTON COMMON tag for “If There’d Never Been an Ireland.” Plus they worked on choreography for “Me and the Sky” created and taught by Maggie McAlexander.
It is exciting to recognize the many AACC members working to compete at the Southern Division contest and convention, March 20 and 21, at the Towson University Center for the Arts in Towson, MD.
Terry Reynoldsrecognized each quartet and invited their AACC members to come up front for recognition.
For anyone who wants to attend: the Friday night first-round for quartets starts early –3:30 pm – with 30 contestants. The chorus contest starts at 9:30 am on Saturday morning – here again there will be AACC members appearing with other choruses (neither the Harmonizers nor Metro Voices will be competing). The quartet finals on Saturday night will begin at 6 pm.
The list of quartets with AACC members includes: BELTWAY with new lead, Kevin Mendez singing with Rob Santine, Josh Myers and Ryan Mextorf; SIDE HUSTLE with Tanner Perdue, Matt Darouse, Ian Trent and Cooper Schwartz; MENTAL NOTE with Scott Beach, Jerry Candrelli and Mike Geipel; SENTIMENTAL with Rob Santine, Lance Fisher, Josh Myers, David Breen; INSTAGRAMPS with Rick Taylor, Jay Butterfield and Steve White; FIRST TAKE with Tony Colosimo and Andrew Havens; BREAKTHROUGH with Mike Fasano, Jordan Zimmerman, Jason Lee and Ken White; GQ with Samantha Tramack; BETTER TOGETHER with Elizabeth and Tony Colosimo, and Heather and Andrew Havens; and SUPERNOVA with Maggie McAlexander and Tessa Walker.
BELTWAY and SENTIMENTAL each sang one of their contest songs before the meeting ended and Cy Wood led “Keep the Whole World Singing.”
A good-sized crowd was at the HarmoHouse for afterglow and pizza, chats and tags.
ATTN AACC Members: do you have architecture, construction and/or home repair experience. Joe has offered for the chapter to convert the garage under HarmoHouse into dry and secure storage for the chapter’s historic collection – uniforms, photos, show scripts, board minutes, trophies and other memorabilia. If you or a family member has some experience, please speak with Jack Pitzer sometime soon. Need to take a look at the space and see what needs to be done to convert it and decide if it is indeed a good idea. Currently we are paying for a rental space at really high monthly rates and this would help us reduce that cost.
Finally, talk with fellow AACC members about Harmony College East, June 18-21, at McDaniel College in Westminster, MD. It’s a great weekend of coaching and learning, singing and meeting, sharing and having fun. Bill Colosimo and Sheryl Berlin are deans for this Mid-Atlantic District event. One way to learn more about the weekend is to participate in a Zoom session Sunday, April 12 at 3 pm. EDT, at this Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/2099589492?pwd=d2xYV0k4NWJ4SzJSMGZ3aGRoR2VrUT09
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 77th year of the Alexandria Chapter. - YeEd)
The Chapter Mission Statement: Enriching lives through vocal harmony in the greater DC area.
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