Looking Back on the August 4, 2026 Alexandria A Cappella Collective Chapter Meeting
Even though it is “summer vacation season,” there was a good attendance of AACC singers at Fairlington Presbyterian Church for rehearsal this week.
Jason Lee, assistant director of the Harmonizers, led the warm up session for the combined ensembles. He incorporated “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” for his drills for proper vowels.
After the warm up, artistic director Joe Cerutti led the combined AACC chorus rehearsal of “I’m Still Standing.”
Next Joe gave a thorough report of a long list of major “good news points” about the great Alexandria chapter!
He started with the news that four members were certified by the Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS) as official judges for contests – having completed their training and evaluations recently at a BHS school in Denver. Congrats to Renee Tramack – singing category; Maggie McAlexander – musicality category; Tyler Carpenter and Terry Reynolds – administrative category!
Also four members will be retiring as official judges after years of service: Chris Buechler, Alan Lamson, Joe Cerutti and Tony Colosimo.
Joe was excited to report on the successful Harmony University held recently in Denver, CO, with 100 attendees from all over the USA and other countries including Japan, Columbia, Canada, England and Sweden (those are the counties he could mention off the tip of his tongue). Both Joe and Samantha Tramack were faculty.
Certainly the chapter is overjoyed to celebrate having a gold medal quartet member as part of the weekly meeting – Samantha from GQ (a first in the nearly-80-year history of the Alexandria chapter). Joe encourages all members to attend the celebration event on Monday, Aug. 24, at 7 pm, somewhere at Towson University (where the quartet got its start). He did suggest that the planning committee is eager to hear from any current or former members who could make a donation to help support the event. Let Joe or Becca Williams know if you can help with that. There is an RSVP form in Slack for folks to use so the committee has an idea of how many will be there to cheer and congratulate the quartet. The celebration will be a joint celebration with the Parkside, PA, chapter.
The success story of GQ was noted by the Mayor of Alexandria, Alyia Gaskins, and she addressed the news in a letter to the quartet and the chapter. The mayor acknowledged the super accomplishment for a quartet to have won the gold medal, and shared her pride as mayor by adding her accolades. Mayor Gaskins also expressed her congratulations for the success of the entire AACC chapter including FIRST TAKE that earned a fifth consecutive top-five medal, the Harmonizers for earning their 22nd chorus medal, and to Metro Voices for making an incredible debut as one of the top 20 barbershop choruses in the world.
Looking ahead, the Aug.11 meeting will be at AlexRenew, and the chapter guest night and rehearsal on Aug. 25 will also be at AlexRenew.
The outdoor sing originally scheduled Aug. 4, will be moved to Aug. 18, so stay tuned for more details and the exact location.
The chapter will perform an outdoor performance on Thursday, Aug. 20, at Nottaway Park, 9537 Courthouse Rd., Vienna, VA 22181. It will start at 7:30 pm. Arrival time will be about 6:30 pm. Uniform will be the AACC t-shirt or any black t-shirt. Each ensemble will sing and then they will join together to wrap up the performance.
Singers will be allowed to step off the risers for some songs during the performance if needed. In the past, these sorts of outdoor concerts were well attended by chapter member families and friends. Sometimes folks have organized picnic dinners or gatherings in the area before report time.
As a reminder, the chapter has accepted the invitation to sing Thursday, Feb. 4, at the Barbershop Harmony Society (BHS) Midwinter convention in Virginia Beach. Members should stay tuned about possible bus transportation to Virginia Beach, and other details.
The music team sent word to the members via Joe that work on holiday music will begin in September.
Jacob Broude welcomed this week’s guests and reminded members that there will be a guest night on Tuesday, Aug. 25. The goal is for each member to bring a singing guest. The annual guest night events are always fun and a great chance to entertain prospects, plus a chance to help newer members sing the repertoire. Thanks to Maggie McAlexander for creating and sending out via Slack a couple attractive flyers that members could download and post in efforts to get more prospects to attend guest night.
This week’s guests included Elizabeth Halford, Matthew Dacanay, Danny Ameduite, Jonathon Meyer, and Mattfrom the Ambassadors of Harmony who was in town for work. Terry Reynolds directed the chapter welcome song.
The two ensembles worked separately on their music. The Harmonizers worked more on “The Barber of Seville.” – first in sections led by Joe for the tenors and baritones, Jason Lee for the basses, and Matt Ambler for the leads. Then Joe pulled the sections together and did a lengthy session on adding more color to the performance in addition to accuracy. He also organized a “push out” quartet for extra drills (there were enough new members present that Joe had to explain how a “push out quartet” works. A good problem to have to solve!).
They also worked “I’m Just A Bill” with Zak Sandler and Terry Reynolds reading through the narration.
Meanwhile in the basement room of the church, Metro Voices director, Samantha Tramack, and assistant director,Maggie McAlexander, used the second half of the meeting to continue preparation for their show songs.
About 9:15 pm the two ensembles regrouped and worked on “Defying Gravity,” “Parting Glass,” and “We Are One” which Zak Sandler directed.
After the 50/50 drawing, chapter leaders welcomed Rob Stark and Christine Pan back from their travels - first to give Rob his medal from St. Louis since they departed for their trip right after the chorus contest in July; and second, since it was also Christine’s birthday, Joe invited her to direct “Keep the Whole World Singing.”
In other news related to the AACC: Tessa Walker submitted a call (in announcements in Slack) for someone to fulfill an administrative role for Capital Force youth chorus, the third active ensemble in the Alexandria A Cappella Collective. It is a voluntary position and generally is tied to that ensemble’s concert season. The volunteer does not need to be an AACC member and might be a friend, spouse or partner of a member. Chat with Tessa if you or someone you know might be interested.
Tyler Carpenter will continue to engrave new Harmonizer medals or to make a replacement name tag at next week’s chapter meetings. Members can bring their medals and give them to Tyler as early as possible at the meeting place so he can do them all. There is a small fee for the engraving.
YeEd received a note from former member and quartet promoter, George Azzam, reporting that his quartet, CHORAHOLICS, will be singing at Carnegie Hall in New York City on Nov. 24 as part of a large choir event.
At this week’s meeting, YeEd presented chapter history books to several recently added new members of AACC – both the 50 year history and the 75 year summary. If you have not gotten the set of history books, let Jack know so he can bring them to you at a coming meeting. Everyone is entitled to have the set.
Finally, cheers for the dozen or so fellow AACC members who are classroom teachers in the area (several are music educators). They will be reporting back to their schools soon to get classrooms ready and lesson materials set for the next school year.
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 78th year of the Alexandria Chapter. - YeEd)
The Chapter Mission Statement Enriching lives through vocal harmony in the greater DC area.
