Looking Back on the February 18^th Chapter Meeting

For the record, the chapter held sectional rehearsals for all parts on Saturday, Feb. 15^th, in the music suite at First Baptist Church.  A good crowd of 65+ eager singers attended.  Assistant director Will Cox did the warm ups. Associate director Tony Colosimo did the directing for combined work and gave the “assignments” for what the section leaders needed to work on during the 9 – noon event.  Bob Blair made arrangements with the church.  Coffee and brownies were a hit too. Music and performance vp Steve White welcomed everyone to this extra event. Based on good responses to the work day, Steve promised to plan another sectional workout in April.

Tuesday nite’s gathering at Durant was another full evening of singing and work by the leaders and the singers, as well as fun to meet new members, many guests and get a hot cup of coffee!

Chuck McKeever was ready early to teach the moves of “Miller Medley” on the stage at 6 pm and a big class attended. He also announced that he has prepared a written SP plan for that song – look for it to be published soon.

Floor dancers were hard at work in the lobby with choreographer Carlos Barillo.  They were working in teams with some of the men teaching other men the plan for “Miller Medley.”

The previously announced sale of old uniforms and costumes was held in the main hall, including the swap-n-shop table for getting rid of logo shirts from years of barbershopping.  It was kinda fun seeing the look of amazement when new members saw some of the wild uniforms we wore in the past.  And some new guys got a Harmo shirt to wear that nite. Some quartet guys snapped up four of everything for additions to future quartet outfits. Thanks to Tom Kern for the extra work in making the Harmo “yard sale” event happen.  He pledges to take all left-overs to Goodwill!

The Harmo history committee, headed by Martin Banks, did make sure to collect samples of former uniforms for the chapter’s historical collection.  (We are just a few years away from our 75^th anniversary year.) 

Speaking of history – if you have files or photos or materials that help tell the Harmonizer story, offer them to Martin.  And if you are not quite ready to let go of them, be sure to mark them in some way so that your family knows to pass them on to the chapter some day! 

Assistant director Will Cox did the warm ups with a full chorus on the risers. When director Joe Cerutti took reigns, he thanked all those who used the weekend sectional to advantage. He  then jumped right in to work on songs for this weekend’s appearance at SingStrong including a “freshen up” for “Anything Goes” including some revamp for the front row and a chance for about a half dozen men who had not sung with us in Toronto to practice the stage presentation.

After working on “Music Man,” Tony conducted another of his fantastic barbershop craft sessions!

All during the evening, show producer Greg Tepe and Carlos auditioned a steady flow of guys who wanted to try-out as possible emcees for chapter performances.

Operations vp Bob Blair conducted the weekly chapter meeting and continued his push to get men to wear their name tags!

President of the FRIENDS IN HARMONY, Sandy Stamps, announced that sales of scrip cards will resume next week.

Music and performance vp Steve White confirmed plans for another all-section rehearsal later this spring. And he announced a late-breaking request for another Youth Harmony presentation to fill a request from the music teacher at Francis Scott Key to meet their young men’s chorus, at 8 am on Fri. March 7. Sign up online tomorrow.

Shows vp Nick Leiserson announced that the SingStrong folks offered comp tickets for any of our singers who might want to attended other shows during the weekend’s a cappella festival.  Greg Tepe reviewed previously announced details for those singing on the show – 12 Noon chorus call.  Black logo camp shirt, jeans, comfortable shows and no medal.  We will meet in the Orchestra Room at South Lakes High School in Reston.

President Terry Reynolds reported health updates for Bede Bender and Rick Wagner, and told us about FIH members who had fallen on ice recently including Carolyn Hall, Connie Lauther and Jean Wachter.  Take it easy FRIENDS.

Terry asked any members willing to contribute funds to provide Angel Support for members to make the Normandy trip to let him know ASAP.

Finally he reminded us again “It’s Great to Be a Harmonizer” when singing with guys who have earned recognition as did Jeremy Richardson when he appeared on MSNBC recently as an expert witness regarding water quality issues in WV.

Secretary Chris Buechler presented a 25-year membership renewal card and pin to Matt Kahn, and a third Man of Note Award to Dan O’Brien. Other membership renewals went to Frank Fedarko for 12 years; Kevin Kaiser for 14 years; Chuck Powell for 20 years; TJ Jones for 23 years, and Dean Rust for 34 years.

 Go to see TJ up and about and improving after his serious fall in his home a few weeks ago.

Membership vp Jeremy encouraged members to invite any singers they meet during the SingStrong festival to our next open audition on Wed. April 9^th.  Rich Hewitt introduced this week’s guests to the chorus and reminded those involved of an audition tonite for an applicant.  Two of tonite’s guests became applicants before the nite ended.

YeEd notes that the membership team has added a new approach for signing in our guests – a table next to the kiosk has two chairs and forms and pens for the guests to register in order to collect the correct contact info.  Jeremy asked us all to help with welcoming guests – both when not on the risers and when a guest is singing next to us where we can help him with the guest book, or help him with the vocal warm up phrases or make sure he knows about the break.

After coffee break, we worked on the other songs for Sunday afternoon, and then on our new music for Normandy.  Joe displayed approval of our musical progress on the songs and lots of comments from the chorus about these great songs. 

More Harmonizer good news!  MAYHEM has been invited to participate in the 2014 Mid Atlantic Harmony Sweeps  A Cappella Festival at The Birchmere in Alexandria on March 8^th at 7:30 pm.  Let’s get a good crowd there to support them – besides it is a fun place for a Harmo social event. Birchmere is a dinner theater atmosphere, so go early to get food and a good seat.  General admission for $39.10 each. Here is a  link: http://m.ticketmaster.com/event/15004B5CDC9F7C4B?brand=birchmere&SREF=SLfbk-013_15004B5CDC9F7C4B

 

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 of the great things going on each week during the 66^th year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd.)

Looking Back on the February 11^th Chapter Meeting

 The extreme cold on Tuesday nite did not deter attendance nor visitors and guests.  And the stage was packed for the 6 pm choreo review with Chuck McKeever (recovered from his bout with pneumonia).  And 25 or more “floor performers” worked with choreographer Carlos Barillo in the lobby at Durant on their exciting addition to “Miller Medley” package.

Many FRIENDS IN HARMONY members were in the house for their meeting.  Several early arrivals helped decorate cookies for the coffee break period.  Thanks to them for helping.

 

Speaking of coffee break, we could always use salty snacks like chips or pretzels if you have some to share. And how about bringing in left-over napkins from any holidays.  They always get used.

 

Assistant director Will Cox did the warm up vocal exercises this week and surprised assistant director Terry Reynolds with a Happy Birthday just for his day!  Associate director Tony Colosimo held a barbershop craft session for us.  Director Joe Cerutti welcomed two BHS staffers to our meeting from Nashville – both work in IT there at headquarters.  Great to have them.

 

Chapter leaders had a brunch meeting with BHS chief executive officer, Marty Monson, on Sunday, Feb. 9^th at Theisman’s.  He was in the area after the American Choral Director’s Association convention that was in Baltimore, and took this chance to meet with a local chapter leadership team.  President Terry and other chapter leaders plus our director Joe attended

 

Joe had also attended the ACDA convention and got to see the American Boychoir folks again.  Their director was thrilled to see Joe and confessed how much his students wanted to see the Harmonizers again.  Some of their students were “lovin” a look at sample barbershop music in the BHS display booth at ACDA and were heard singing four-part harmony without any urging.

 

Joe and Tony then worked with the chorus on lots of the new songs as well as the several songs we are bringing back into an active repertoire.

 

Operations vp Bob Blair called this week’s meeting to order and reminded guys “to wear those name tags.”  Music and performance vp Steve White asked for more singers to sign up for the major shows coming up in a few weeks, especially the Sing Strong show Sun., Feb, 23^rd.  He also announced that we would not be learning “Behold Man” as had been on the schedule.

 

President Terry Reynolds announced that Dick Hall had called him to wish a happy birthday and that is when Dick reported he is suffering from shingles.  (Dick has called every Harmonizer on his birthday for MANY years and continues to do so.  We all say thanks and get well, Dick.) Then Terry invited Rick Wagner to share his difficult news – that a soft tissue sarcoma was discovered in his thigh, that he will have radiation and then an operation to remove the baseball-sized area.  We are all pulling for Rick. 

 

Terry concluded his remarks sharing about how much our officers enjoyed telling CEO Monson about our chapter – just another example of why “It Is Great to Be a Harmonizer!”

 

Secretary Chris Buechler presented name tags and Harmon history books to two new members – Ed Schubel and Nathan Ritter; membership renewal cards to Steve Szyszka for two years and Jacob George for four years; and a 40-year membership lapel pin for Rick Savage.

 

Rich Hewitt, filling in for Jeremy Richardson, introduced all of our singing guests – several of them first timers. In other news about our own Dr. Jeremy Richardson -- he appeared on the MSNC talk show of Melissa Harris-Perry on Sunday discussing the chemical spill in the waters of WV.  The link is http://www.msnbc.com/melissa-harris-perry/watch/can-we-trust-our-water-systems-144157763516

 

After coffee break with Valentine cookies and coffee, we were back on the risers for work on more of our 2014 package show songs, including putting together the visual package for “Miller Medley” with the floor performers.  Great work by those men.

 

SingingValentine news was announced before we dismissed: after taking a break from it in 2013, the Alexandria Harmonizers will be performing SingingValentines for selected groups on Feb. 14th and 15th!  As a public service, we are offering them free to Alexandria-area seniors facilities, schools and businesses.

Ninamarie Maragioglio and the FRIENDS IN HARMONY auxiliary, in cooperation with quartet promotion chairman Calvin Schnure, organized the event. This is the first year of our "new" SingingValentines plans. Several quartets were lined up to wear the chorus tux outfits and make the presentations.  (All this was planned before the snow storm that hit on Feb. 13^th – stay tuned as to the outcome of the day.)

In other chorus news, our uniform chairman, Tom Kern, has announced the “First and Last Annual Free / Sale / Resale / Clearance Event!”  His goal is to clear out many one-of-a-kind uniform pieces from the past Harmonizer inventory. They will be available free (first come – first served) to a good home…as long as you promise never to bring them back. Some items, mostly brand new in original packaging, will be available for a very low purchase price.

 

ALSO Tom has made an offer to any members who have Harmonizer logo shirts in their closet that no longer fit or are no longer worn – a table will be available for a barbershop logo shirt exchange to sell, swap, or simply donate. Attach a piece of tape with your name on it, put it on display, and see if you can find a new home for your excess.

 

The uniform exchange will be on the Durant stage, Tuesday, Feb. 18^th  starting at 6pm before rehearsal, during break, and after rehearsal. (The choreo session will be in another room.) Items that don’t go home with a new owner will be donated to AMVETS / Goodwill for other people to love.

 

In conjunction with this, the chapter history team headed by Martin Banks has collected a few samples of our chorus outfits from Tom’s warehouse to add to the collection of uniforms we have for historical purposes.  (For our 50^th anniversary we had them all on display.) Thanks too for the history display Martin brought to Durant this week.

 

Finally, there is an all-sectional rehearsal on Sat., Feb. 15 in the choir suite at First Baptist Church, 2932 King St., Alexandria 22302 from 9-noon.  There will be coffee for early arrivals. Bring your music and a pencil as per director Joe’s admonition earlier in the evening.

 

Birthday celebrations for Terry continued at the afterglow at LaPorta’s, 1600 Duke Street.

 

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 of the great things going on each week during the 66^th year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd.)

Looking Back on the February 4^th Chapter Meeting and Recent MidWinter Convention          

Our chapter leaders had to make a call about meeting tonite based on threats of icy roads.  But it was decided to go for it, with the plan to keep an eye on the weather in case it was necessary to wrap up early.  The leaders did suggest guys who live west of Alexandria might need to leave early, tho most stayed til the last note was sung.  The risers were full again and it was a hard working nite.

 

Chuck McKeever’s bad cold has moved into pneumonia and so Carl Kauffmann and Chuck Powell  conducted the early-bird visual review session. Here again there was a large group of us on stage to work on the moves for “Miller Medley.”

 

Assistant director Will Cox did the warm ups this week.  Music and performance vp Steve White coordinated the musical part of the nite since assistant director and president Terry Reynolds was in Vegas. (He and past president Alan Wile coordinated via email and phone about meeting plans and Terry issued a late afternoon call to come to Durant.)

 

When director Joe Cerutti took the reins he welcomed Bruce Roehm back after a military assignment in MT.  Long-time member Jim Gammon was in the house to audition as a Special Forces guy for our Normandy trip.  Then we worked on the new tag for “Armed Services Medley” and worked on “Bring Him Home” with associate director Tony Colosimo carrying the beautiful solo.

 

Then Tony conducted another of his fantastic craft sessions – this one was a review of the many craft maxims we have learned in the last year or so.  He did his review because there are soooo many new members and guests with us these days.

 

For our work on “Miller Medley” the chorus worked on the risers and the floor dancers worked in the lobby.  When we put it all together it was working well, but we all need to keep reviewing and drilling on our own.

 

Operations vp Bob Blair conducted the chapter meeting portion of the nite.  On behalf of president Reynolds, Steve White introduced another new performance maxim – Sign Up – Show Up!  It is so important for each member to get onto the Groupanizer page and indicate your attendance plans for meetings and shows, as well as get your music and stage notes – at harmonizers.groupanizer.com.  Wear you name tag too on Tuesday nites!

 

As music vp, Steve was eager to report too major coaching sessions this spring: Tues. April 1^st with David Wright, and Tues. April 29^th with Cindy Hansen.  Mark your calendars.

 

Steve announced that we have received another request for a youth harmony session from the music instructor at Francis Scott Key Middle School.  Stay tuned for an email.

 

Finally, Steve invited all recent new members to join him for an orientation session after break tonite. 

 

Past president Wile presented gifts to men who did not make it to the recent Presidents’ Award banquet.

 

There is a change in the sale and distribution of scrip cards for the chapter.  Our FRIENDS IN HARMONY have assumed responsibility for it and Ninamarie Maragioglio spoke to us about kicking off the new sales year.  She did offer to fill requests for specific cards, if we let her know to try to get them.  As some of you know, this project can be a major source of income for the chapter. For example, if you are making home improvements, then buy Home Depot cards from the chapter to pay for things.  The chapter gets a significant percentage of profit from sale of the cards and you can use them to pay HD.

 

Membership vp Jeremy Richardson presented a membership renewal card to Brian Miller for 17 years.   Rich Hewitt welcomed a long line of guests – several first timers, some of our Special Forces guys, and visitors from other chapters. The membership team is using a new registration card, created by Rich, to collect info about the many guests when they arrive on Tuesday and stop by our sign-in kiosk.

 

After coffee break, we worked on more songs including “Jersey Boys” that we will need to sing for our A CA Challenge show.  The chorus will not do stage moves, but front row will.

 

Joe was thrilled about the successful rehearsal and the hard work of all of the mem on the risers. 

 

Before we wrapped up, there was a shout out of congrats to Mike Wallen.

 

Our chapter was well represented at the recent MidWinter BHS convention in Long Beach, CA, Jan. 28^th-Feb.2^nd.  Plus our own Mike Wallen’s quartet, YOUTH RECLAMATION PROJECT, captured a fourth place medal in the International Senior’s Quartet competition. Mike sings tenor with Roger Tarpy, lead, Hardman Jones, bari, and Vic Owens, Jr., bass.  The first place quartet was also from our district, FACES 4 RADIO.  Congrats to them as well.  They sang an arrangement of “It All Depends on You” created by our own John Hohl.

 

Here is Dixie Kennett’s report of the convention: The official events began on Tuesday evening with the District Presidents' Council meetings. Bill Colosimo is the moderator. Gary Plaag, Alan Lamson, and Chris Buechler (as parliamentarian) were involved in Society board activities. The keynote address was given by outgoing Society board member John Miller. [It is available online.] Doug Brown from Hell’s Kitchen NY Chapter was elected to fill a vacancy on the BHS board.

Thursday evening there was a kick-off party aboard the Queen Mary. Society past champs and medalist quartets sang as did Seniors quartet champs from past years. The weather was in the mid-sixties, liquid refreshment areas plentiful, and people were roaming, listening to entertainment throughout the evening.

 

The youth choruses owned the stage on Friday. Twenty choruses crossed the boards to thunderous applause. The Friday night show featured a chorus of past seniors’ quartet champs, several past championship quartets, FOREFRONT (current 5th place medalist), MAIN STREET (current 4th place medalist with our coach Tony DeRosa), and the Masters of Harmony chorus – several current and/or former Harmonizers sang with the chorus including Jim Haggerty, Ken Potter, Ray Johnson, and Bill Power.

 

Joe Cerutti in his role as Society Music Specialist for Youth and Chorus Director Development was instrumental in putting the youth contest together and also served as emcee for the Friday and Saturday evening shows. (Unlike prior years, he did the emcee job wearing a business suit rather than the gamut of costumes worn in previous years.) Sean Devine and Ryan Killeen were involved during the convention as staffers for the Harmony Foundation and Mike Kelly did AV work for the Foundation.  Cindy Hansen was show producer for the convention.

 

Reporter Alan Wile sent this word about the youth choruses:  “They were fabulous and  the audience favorite was the Mountain West Voices Chorus from the Provo, UT, Chapter and Brigham Young U (average age of 23.9) that sang and performed the Peter Pan medley. They received a rating of Superior ... and so did the chorus out of the M-AD: East Coast Sound (formally the Tri Star Chorus) from the Montclair Chapter.  David Ammirata, lead of GIMMIE FOUR (the quartet that will staff our chapter’s youth harmony festival this spring) is their director (average age of 22.7).

 

Dixie’s report continues: The Saturday night show began with the "audience favorite" youth chorus. Society medalist quartets including MASTERPIECE (current gold medalist) all entertained. The evening concluded with Westminster chorus singing five songs, ending with one that included all the youth participants singing from the theatre balcony with them -- very moving. And while most people were beginning to make their way home on Sunday morning, Chuck Harner was in the Harmony Foundation board of trustees meeting.

 

Reporters Dixie and Keith Jones, kept track of the many Harmonizers and former members who were there.  The list includes the following names not mentioned above: Terry Reynolds, John Hohl, Sam McFarland, Keith Jones, Tom Gannon, Bob Hirsh, Dwain Chambers, Ross Johnson, Darryl Flinn, Dave Ellis, Mike Geipel and John Rettenmeyer.  Richard Lewellen was a judge for the quartet and chorus contests.

 

In other news for the chapter:  The chapter is looking to have more emcees for our package shows. Carlos Barillo and Greg Tepe are holding open auditions on Tuesday, Feb 18th, during rehearsal, for anyone interested.

Whether you've been an emcee in the past, have done it recently, or have never done it, everyone will need to audition. Candidates will audition in small rooms at Durant one at a time,
Anyone interested should email Greg (gtindc13@yahoo.com) to indicate you would like an audition slot.

 

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 of the great things going on each week during the 66^th year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd.)

Looking Back on the January 28th Chapter Meeting      

This week’s chapter meeting was awesome.  The cold weather was tough for travel this week, but in the end, the risers were full!  Chuck McKeever was under-the-weather with a bad cold and could  not conduct his early-bird visual review session, so some early arrivals had a chance to just visit and get a coffee, work on their music.

 

As usual the set-up guys were at work getting the hall ready. No small task.  Carolyn Hall was at her station as sentinel at the door letting guys in from the back parking lot at Durant.

 

At 7 pm, the welcome-to-the-risers music recording was the gold-medal champs, BLUEGRASS STUDENT UNION.  Assistant director Will Cox did the warm up session and then turned things over to director Joe Cerutti.

 

Joe was eager to see everyone, congratulated those honored last Saturday nite at the awards banquet, thanked again those who have participated in events during the snow and bad weather of late, and reported about his visit with barbershoppers in Germany, “They all send their regards and are eager to sing for us, and with us, during our trip there in June.”

 

Joe also welcomed his fellow Master Director, Jay Butterfield from Lancaster, PA, who is one of the many Special Forces who are going to Europe with us next summer. [Jay and Joe are among the 10 or so Master Directors in the BHS, according to music vp Steve White.] YeEd will report soon a list of other Special Forces members who have already joined the chapter or have come back to Tuesday nite sessions. 

 

And then we were singing and working on the risers.  First off was a review of “Anything Goes” to include some refresher work by choreographer Carlos Barillo for those who needed it and to help the many new members of the chorus since Toronto to get a start on the visuals.

 

There were a number of new faces on the risers as a result of the Open Audition on Monday evening at Durant.  Four men came to audition and three were invited to join us on Tuesday. Great to have these new singers, as well as the many new members of late.  Congrats and thanks to the membership crew who conducted the audition event – associate director Tony Colosimo and assistant director Mike Kelly and Carlos conducted the auditions, Rich Hewitt and Jeremy Richardson welcome prospects and handled the admin details.

 

Next we jumped right into “Something About a Soldier” and director Joe was ecstatic with the chorus progress in this brand new song arranged by Jay Giallombardo.  The chorus had fun singing it for Joe and even more so after some interp work with him on the number.

 

Operations vp Bob Blair conducted the weekly chapter meeting starting off with a plea for all members to wear their name tags!  This is important when we have so many guests and new guys with us on Tuesday nites. This was to have been the nite for a Put-Together-Quartet-Contest, but has been postponed til another time.

 

Bob thanked again Steve Murane and Robyn McQueen for their work in organizing the awards banquet on Saturday nite.   He also offered copies of the Readers’ Digest version of the Harmonizer updated history that was on tables at the banquet. If you’d like a copy, contact YeEd.

 

Ken Fess spoke about some details regarding our trip to France in June.  Payment reminders were  big item on his list. If you cancel after Feb. 1^st, there is a penalty. Next week we can start buying tickets for non-singers who will want to go to our barbershop show in Koln, Germany. And payments will be due for extended trips to Paris, for those signed up. If you want the group insurance for the trip, give your name to Ken Fess. Finally, people can still sign up to go with us until March 1^st.  Of the 220 travelers for the trip, 102 are singers.

 

Here is important uniform information for Normandy singers: show producer Greg Tepe has suggested we consider getting a second white (hidden button that we wore in Toronto) and a second black camp shirt with the logo for the trip.  There will be a lot of shows and not much time to get laundry done in hotels.  Tom Kern, uniform store honcho, wants us to place our orders now vs. later.  White shirt is $20 and the black shirt is $45.  The new tie we will be issued for Normandy, red/white/blue striped, will cost $7.  New members and/or Special Forces for Normandy will also need to speak with Tom about the black suit, red/gray tie, red/gray pocket stuffer, and belt.

 

Music and performance vp Steve White had a lot of info for the us for the months ahead: 

 

Musical leaders in the chapter have scheduled a special Saturday morning 3-hour, all-parts sectional, on February 15 from 9:00 to noon in the music suite at the First Baptist Church of Alexandria (where we do our recording sessions – 2932 King St. Alexandria 22302). This is in response to a need for more time to learn all the new music coming at us.  We’ll work as individual sections, duet sections, and put it all together at the end. To make the most of this opportunity, please add the date on your calendar and get a kitchen pass if needed. Our music team encourages maximum attendance which will greatly benefit the chorus.

 

The Harmonizer-sponsored, A CA CHALLENGE, will be in one of Washington, D.C.'s most famous venues, the historic Lincoln Theater.  This competition for modern a cappella groups will be March 22, 2014, at 7 pm. Fifteen groups applied and six have been chosen as contestants: The George Washington University Vibes, The University of Mary Washington Symfonics, The Noctonals, the Chromatics, Capital Blend, and Word of Mouth.

 

The chorus and our own modern a cappella subgroup, TBD, will also perform while the judges' scores are being tabulated. Steve reports that we will debut “Glenn Miller Medley” with stage presence, as well as “Tribute to World Peace.”

 

The contest will be judged by three local figures in a cappella – arranger Danny Ozment, recording guru Amanda Cornaglia, and a representative from DA CAPO (our own top ten BHS quartet that also won the national Harmony Sweepstakes a cappella competition in 2011).

 

We are awarding a first prize of $1000, second prize is $500, and third prize is $250 (with each other contestant group getting $100 for participating). Ken Rub is coordinating this outreach activity to promote a cappella singing and to introduce other singers to our art form.  Tickets for audience attendees are available now through the Lincoln Theater. The theater is at 1215 U St. NW in DC.  The Harmonizers are expected to help promote and sell tickets.

 

Marketing vp Noah Van Gilder asked chapter members to give some extra effort to promote the A CA CHALLENGE.  He has issued a flyer for our use, and urges all social-media users to promote the event.  In response to a question from the risers, tickets are available from Lincoln Theater’s website. 

Steve asked all of us to be sure we have gotten on the chapter’s Groupanizer site (harmonizers.groupanizer.com) and have indicated our attendance plans. For those who have indicated “maybe” or “no”, your brothers on the risers would love for you to change that to “yes”. We have a large active performing chorus, so even at moderate participation levels we should always have 80+ men in a performance and even more for the major gigs such as the Sing Strong A Cappella Festival on Sunday, February 23 in Reston;  the American Society of  Public Administration Show, Saturday, March 15 at the Mayflower hotel in DC;  the A CA CHALLENGE on Saturday, March 22 at the Lincoln Theater in DC; the  Youth Harmony Festival, April 5^th at Durant; and the Mega Show – CRESCENDO  with the Ambassadors of Harmony, plus gold-medal quartets from their chapter, VOCAL SPECTRUM  and CROSSROADS, on Saturday, June 21 at George Mason.

Steve also thanked all the men who supported the Youth Harmony Workshop last Saturday, Jan 25^th (the same day as our awards banquet), for music students and music educators at Edison High School.  About 30 or our singers attended and helped demonstrate a cappella singing and entertaining, and what barbershop harmony truly is.  Joe Cerutti and Tony Colosimo, both music educators, conducted the sessions using multimedia to show and demonstrate, as well as having the Harmonizers perform.  The reaction of the 100-plus students was huge – especially after the chorus opened with “I’m The Music Man.”  Before the afternoon session ended, the chorus taught the students a tag and they loved it. This event was in response to a request from Melodie Henderson, the music educator at the school.

Continuing the chapter meeting, president Terry Reynolds introduced the recipients of the major memorial awards presented at the banquet on the 25^th: New Note Award – Carlos Barillo; Spirit of Harmony Award – Steve White; Ibbianne & Wilbur Sparks Award – Robyn McQueen and Steve Murane; Harmonizer Honor Award – Nick Leiserson; Oz Newgard Music Award – Greg Tepe; and Harmonizer Memorial Award – Martin Banks.  Terry suggests these folks are another example of why “It’s Great to Be a Harmonizer!”

 

Membership vp Jeremy Richardson presented membership renewal cards to Ross Felker for 3 years; Joe Cerutti Sr. for 3 years; Jeremy Knobel for 7 years; Doug White for 7 years; Lew Klinge for 12 years; Kris Zinkievich for 14 years; Brian Ammerman for 20 years; Mark Klostermeyer for 33 years; Don Harrington for 34 years; Keith Jones for 36 years; and Rick Savage for 40 years.

 

Jeremy also announced that the next Open Audition event will be April 9^th so we could help future guests plan ahead (and so guys who learn about us at some of the major shows in the months ahead can move into membership sooner). Rich Hewitt welcomed guests present and introduced them to the chorus.

 

After coffee break time, we worked on the new tag for the “Armed Forces Medley” which Dan O’Brien created.  It is a welcome improvement to a piece the chorus has sung for years. A teaching quartet helped us learn this first-look at the tag. 

 

Next we worked on “World Peace” which we will actually sing with Ambassadors of Harmony at our Mega Show on June 21^st.  We also reviewed moves Carlos taught us for “Miller Medley” too.  No doubt Chuck McKeever’s pre-meeting session next Tuesday nite will give a refresher too.

 

In other news related to the chapter:  YeEd reports that Doug White will be gone all of February but back to sing with us after this new job training! Some noticed that TJ Jones was in the hall this week with bandages and an arm braces – he fell recently in his home and is on the mend!  Great to see Martin Banks at events recently after getting a new pacemaker this winter!

 

Mike Everard reports a quartet reunion in December with guys who sang in FRIENDSHIP FIRE COMPANY. Seems this is an annual pre-Christmas event when Mike Riordan and Mike and Doug Smith get together for lunch.  Their tenor, Steve Martin, visited by cell phone.  Their quartet entertained with us on a lot of shows in their heyday!

 

Great to see the story about American Boychoir singing on our holiday show on page 28 of the Jan-Feb 2014 Harmonizer magazine.  Plus good to see our MAYHEM guys in the district quartet champs article, along with former Harmonizers George Azzam in Seneca Land district and Mark Rodda in Carolinas district.

 

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 of the great things going on each week during the 66^th year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd.)