Looking Back on the April 23^rd Chapter Meeting 

After a good crew reset the risers and all the equipment we need for the rehearsal and meeting , we started at 7 pm with assistant director emeritus, Will Cox, doing the warm up exercise.  Our associate director, Tony Colosimo, was in Sweden judging the contest for the Society of Nordic Barbershop Singers (SNOBS).

Prior to the start of things, there was a lead rehearsal with section leader Reed Livergood and a voluntary visual coaching session with Chuck McKeever.

When director Joe Cerutti took over from Will, he asked members to respond to the survey about possibly singing at the Midwinter in Jacksonville in 2020.

Then Joe introduced our coach and friend, David Wright, from St. Louis and the Ambassadors of Harmony. David has often been our coach in preparation for contests, as well as an arranger for our chorus.

David worked with us the whole first half of the meeting on “We Kiss” – one of his arrangements that we sang at the Orlando International contest.  He, along with Joe, helped the chorus make huge improvements to an already great number.

Before the chapter meeting portion, Joe invited Mario Sengco to share his recent visit to Harmony Hall (BHS headquarters) in Nashville.  Mario is coordinator of the youth ensemble of the Washington Gay Men’s Chorus called “GenOut” and was with them on a musical tour to Nashville.  That trip included the visit to Harmony Hall where the young singers were coached by staff members Steve Scott and Donnie Rose.  The high school students were thrilled with the great musical experience. Congrats to Mario for his work with these high school singers.

Communications director Steve Murane conducted the meeting.  He reminded all that there will be another voluntary extra rehearsal with Joe on April 29^th  this time at Convergence Lab space.  This is the second such session and there were comments about how helpful the first one was.

Executive director Randall Eliason did the promised drawing for the $100 gift card drawing for the guys who submitted prospective lists for Spring2ACTion. Ike Evans won!

President Shawn Tallant recapped all the many men who are on the mend for health reasons.  Everyone seems to be improving.

Secretary Chris Buechler presented membership renewal cards to Litic Murali for 5 years, Dean Sherick for 7 years, Mario Sengco for 9 years, Joe Cerutti for 18 years, and Tom Frederick for 26 years. He also reports that the following members have renewed even tho they don’t attend meeting regularly: Don Johnson for 50 years, Dick Newton for 35 years, and Jeff Taylor for 27 years.

Jack Pitzer welcomed guests for tonite: Alexa Bowe, guest of Aaron Simoneau, who had been with us at the Virtue Feed & Grain party; Tracy Mextorf, Ryan’s sister; Howard Wachspress, member of Mt. Vernon Harmony Heritage Singers; Luqman Fulmer, first time guest who is a student at George Mason in music; Tom and Nick Frederick; and Scott Beach, returning guest from Palmyra, VA.

After a break, SILVER ALERT sang for us as part of the announcement that they will be singing at the Mid Atlantic District International Prelims in Allentown, PA, this weekend.

Then it was back to work by the chorus – a quick run of “Anything Goes” so guys could make a recording to submit to their section leaders.  Then back to finish “We Kiss” with David, and  wrap up the nite with a solid work session on “I’m The Music Man” which David wrote and arranged (originally for the Dallas Vocal Majority Chorus).

Before we closed for the nite, Joe reported that our own Paul Grimes has been named a winner of a Lou Perry Scholarship to Harmony University in Nashville this summer. Paul’s arrangement was for “Let Me Sing and I’m Happy” by Irving Berlin from the 1932 movie “Mammy.”

Joe thanked David again for a great work out for the chorus and suggested the guys could thank David by joining in the fun at Ramparts for an afterglow.  It was a good crowd and fun over there.

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 70^th year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd

Looking Back on the April 16^th Chapter Meeting 

Spring has sprung so the pollen is thick and many Harmonizers are fighting it as part of their singing health.

But the chorus climbed up onto the risers for a warm up session conducted by associate director Tony Colosimo. 

The front row had worked in the cafeteria from 6-7 pm.

When director Joe Cerutti took the helm, he welcomed education director Sheryl Berlin and the chapter members applauded her work in coordinating our Youth Harmony Festival.  She offered left over YHF tee shirts for $10. 

Joe welcomed Tom and Emily Kraus and their three children – Ben, Ryan and Morgan.  Tom helped start TBD and was a front row guy before their jobs took them to Rochester NY.
Joe also welcomed Bob Wells, Sam McFarland and Mark Klostermeyer who are recovering and able to get to the chapter meeting.

He reminded all of us that our coach David Wright (who has often been the major coach at our pre-International retreats) will be with us next Tuesday nite.

The coaching session with Cy Wood for the Memorial Day weekend will be on Sunday afternoon, May 26^th to continue development of the visual  plan for “Brotherhood of Man.”  He will also work with the front row that weekend, then stay in town to be at our chapter meeting on Tuesday, May 28^th.

Major music work in the first half of the nite was on that same song with Bruce Roehm as visual coach (each major song for 2019 will have a specific visual coach within the chapter.) Tony was director for the song.  

As part of the evolving effort to provide small group learning opportunities, our quartet SILVER ALERT (Savage, Edison, Cox, and S. Murane) taught the chorus a tag – “I Will Dream of You Til I Die.”

Secretary Chris Buechler coordinated the collection of Social Security numbers and such for all singers who will appear on the show for the Supreme Court on June 3^rd. Chris also presented a membership renewal card to Dennis Ritchey for 27 years.

This was the last chance to turn in payment for the Scotland trip to Brad Jones.

Executive director Randall Eliason reported on the Spring2ACTion effort – final count is creeping close to $20,000. Next week there will be the drawing for the gift card for anyone who turned in their prospect list to Randall. 

President Shawn Tallant asked for a volunteer to coordinate a tee shirt distribution effort for the trip to Scotland. A logo is being developed.

He also reported several items regarding our fellow members: that Steve Szyszka had heart surgery today and he had called to say he was doing great; that Ken White’s dad, Orville, died on Sunday - he and Ken sang together when Ken was a teenager; that Clyde Crusenberry is having a foot operation; that Bob Wachter is up and on the mend; that Alan Wile is recovering from his heart surgery and accepting text or email messages; that Mike Vlcej has done well after his heart surgery in PA; and that Chris Huber will be out of his foot boot soon. 

Jon Frank welcomed a guest of Gary Cregan.

After the break, Joe had the chorus sing the tag again they learned earlier in the evening.  Then he spent a chunk of time reviewing the results and information he gathered during the interviews with each of the Harmonizers. Joe shared the big realizations he gained from the interviews.  He reminded us of the importance of the Harmonizer Handshake Award that we had during the 1960s and perpetuated by Dick Hall.

Joe shared some of the “take-aways” he gained – more small group work; chances for more individual feedback; chapter business sessions too long (not a new issue with the Harmonizers!);a major split about 50-50 on drilling reps of songs vs. not drilling; and our new location is not Metro accessible and local traffic is making it lots harder to arrive by 7 pm on Tuesdays.

After this session it was back to work on music for the second half of the nite, including a good chunk of time on “Anything Goes” with Joe and Chuck McKeever.

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 70^th year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd

Looking Back on the April 10^th Spring2ACTion 

The Harmonizer’s participation in the City of Alexandria’s Spring2ACTion was another success.  This one-day event is designed to help local non-profits raise donations through a well designed program.  Over $2 million was raised by the 162 participating nonprofit organizations such as the Harmonizers and our friends the Alexandria Singers.

Our campaign netted $18,958 dollars from fans, family, members and supporters with a major matching gift from chapter leaders and board members of about $9,000. We had 310 donors which ranked the Harmonizers as the 9^th highest number of donors .  Our net total net ranked 32^nd among all groups.  And we won the extra $500 as highest number of donors for the “power hour” from 3-4 pm on that day!!

Major thanks must go to executive director Randall Eliason who made it easy for chapter members and their supporters to donate during that day.  He also organized a fun evening at Virtue Feed & Grain in Old Town when many members and fans gathered to watch the finally tally for the day come across online.  We also sang for the guests at the restaurant and must acknowledge the percentage of restaurant contribute too.

We also welcomed a reporter from The Alexandria Gazette who was on hand at the party in Old Town and filmed some impromptu quartet singing.

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 70^th year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd

Looking Back on the April 9^th Chapter Meeting 

This week’s meeting and rehearsal was jam-packed with singing and business matters.  Everyone was ready for a good workout too with our coach Cy Wood who had come to our town after his work day in Ohio.

Before the chorus arrived, Cy worked with the front row from about 6 pm. There was also a chapter BHS board meeting, and a lead sectional.

Associate director Tony Colosimo started the music work off with another one of his moving and growing warm up sessions.

Then president Shawn Tallant recognized Julie Rizzo and presented her a Meritorious Service award for all she did as a community board member of AH Inc., and helping launch serious fundraising efforts in the Harmonizer world. (She was out of the country at the time of the Presidents’ Award  Banquet.)

Then director Joe Cerutti welcomed back Adam Afifi, Chris Huber as one of the newest members wearing a boot after injury or surgery, and Sam McFarland after knee surgery. Huber HJ





Joe sincerely thanked those men who worked so hard last Friday for the Youth Harmony Festival and he paid tribute to Sheryl Berlin who made the festival a huge success. 

He announced that we would not be working on “For Good” for the next couple of weeks to give guys more time on it at home, and instead asked the guys to be prepared with “The Impossible Dream.” He also suggested again that if anyone needs help with preparation of their music, they should speak to their section leader.

Joe welcomed Society board member Jeremy Albright and member of the Dallas Vocal Majority.
Then he went to work on “I’m the Music Man,” followed by a short time on more visual instruction and review for “Anything Goes” with Chuck McKeever and Joe as a team.

Tony stepped up to the plate to direct and kick off the working session on “Brotherhood of Man” with a once thru the music, and then Joe officially welcomed Cy who worked most of the rest of the nite on an exciting, Broadway musical plan for “Brotherhood.” 

There was a brief change before the chapter meeting time when we were recording “Heart of My Heart” for someone  - well, it turned out to be the chance for Casey Belzer to step out of the chorus and sing the last few lines of the song to Lacey Patrick and propose to her with a ring. She said “Yes” and the place erupted in cheers for them both.

Then things settled down for the actual meeting with Steve Murane in charge. Members were asked to get onto Groupanizer to confirm their intentions for travel trip to Seneca Land District, singing for the Supreme Court (note that there will be important data collected for entrance for all singers due by April 23^rd); or the extra rehearsals for those who wish to attend and work on the 2019 songs on 4/18, 4/29, 5/16, and 5/30.  There will be a bass sectional on May 11^th.

Plan to celebrate National Barbershop Quartet Day on April 11^th.

Final payments for the European trip are due to Brad Jones next Tuesday, April 16.
Executive director Randall Eliason then announced that Gary Cregan will assume the duties of  Operations Director for the chapter and thanked Mike Edison for his years of service prior to this shift in assignments.

And Randall coached everyone in how to participate fully in Spring2ACTion tomorrow such as using FaceBook and other social media, and of course making some kind of a donation in our power hour from 3-4 pm.  Plus plan to come down to Old Town to Virtue Feed & Grain at 6 pm to celebrate our successes, get some refreshments and watch the tally on the screen as we wrap up another important event for the chapter.

President Shawn Tallant reported that Alan Wile has been absent recently because he had heart surgery about a week ago.  Alan is home and recovering and can take emails or calls and cards.  We missed him at chapter!

Shawn also reported the good news that the chapter received a check for over $4500 from Harmony Foundation International representing our Donor Choice proceeds from donations made designating the chapter as recipient between June and December, 2018. Good work Harmonizers.
Secretary Chris Buechler presented membership renewal cards to Jerry Jayjohn for 2 years; Duncan Woodbury for 7 years; Tyler Carpenter for 8 years; Nick Leiserson for 9 years; Cy Wood for 9 years; Johan Westberg for 14 years; Calvin Schnure for 24 years; Sam McFarland for 32 years, and Chuck Hunter for 47 years. 

After the break, our TBD guys sang “Make Me Loose Control” and Jacob Broude shared on their behalf that TBD desires to keep the chapter abreast of their work and efforts on the behalf of the chapter.

Calvin Schnure welcomed another singing guest for the nite - Kevin McKenzie’s friend Jim Zoller,

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 70^th year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd

Looking Back on the April 5^th 2019 Youth Harmony Festival

The Harmonizer’s 2019 Youth Harmony Festival was another great success with amazing energy and great singing and fun for all.

A couple things were different this year, The location was in our new chapter meeting place, the Scottish Rite Temple on Braddock Rd., which gave space for the male and female youth choruses to practice, plenty of space for snacks and break time, a big area for meals, and then a performance theater space.  

And our chapter’s new education director, Sheryl Berlin, made it all happen to contact music educators in the area far in advance for this Friday event! (She thanked Ike Evans and others for helping reach local music educators including a couple of our own members who brought students.)    

But the big difference was the number of students – 124 registered with 84 women and 40 men.  (after bus failure, and a school schedule mix up, there were about 100 actual attendees). The youth attendees were from 12 schools representing Maryland (Montgomery County (6), Frederick County (1), and the Homeschool Harmonizers north of Baltimore (1)) and Virginia (Prince William County (1), Fairfax County (1), and the City of Alexandria(1) ) and one representative (Frank Shipp's grandson) from North Carolina!  The participants ranged from 6th to 12th grade. Our own Micky Robertson also participated.

We had several music educators present -- Karisa Leoni (Sligo MS, Montgomery Co.), Stephanie Baker (Northwest HS, Montgomery Co.), Casey Belzer (George Washington MS, City of Alexandria), John David Maybury (Loiederman MS, Montgomery Co.), Kris Zinkievich (Blake HS, Montgomery Co.), Jen Newgent (Homeschool Harmonizers, Timonium, MD), Heather Smith (Elementary music educator and parent, representing South Lakes HS, Fairfax Co.). The music educators met as a group during the afternoon with festival staffers.

Associate director Tony Colosimo was emcee for the day and welcomed students, parents and fellow educators, and he served as clinician for the men’s youth chorus.  Katie Taylor from NY state (a three-time Harmony Queen and high school music educator who often is clinician for student events) was clinician for the women’s youth chorus.  Plus we had two outstanding teaching quartets to help coach, encourage, and sing with the students.  And both performed at the kick off session, sang tags with the students all day, and then did full show sets on the evening show for family and friends.

HOT PURSUIT quartet from the Atlanta, GA, and Cleveland, TN, is the current SAI Rising Star Champions with Michaela Olson, Tessa Walker, Melody Hines, and Candra Rice.  

SIGNATURE quartet from Florida is the current 2018 International silver medalist BHS quartet.  They have been with us before and helped recruit attendees at our area schools too. Quartet includes Paul Saca, Danny Cochran, Will Rodrigus, and Dan Waltz.

As a special surprise, THE QUINTONES quartet from NJ came down for the day and helped with the men’s chorus since they too are still students. Their quartet was named winner of the first ever Next Generation Quartet Contest at the mid winter convention in Nashville. They are from our own district and it was great to have them interact with local student musicians.  The quartet includes Chris Cranford, Julian LeFlore, Jake Lapp, and Tommy Hunter.

Learning track materials for the students had been previously distributed and school groups started arriving about 8:30 am for registration.  Tony started off their day with a great youthful warm up and got them laughing and already cheering – especially when the guest quartets were introduced and sang a song for the attendees!

During the day there were men and women rehearsals, sectionals, combined chorus work, tag singing,  and of course snack and break time!  (YeEd reports that they can demolish a table of cookies and chips in no time!  Thanks to all the contributions from Harmonizers for this aspect of the day.) The evening pizza feed made quick work of the 39 pizzas too!

Rob Barnovsky and Mario Sengco were the chief organizers, purchased lots of supplies and foods for the day and helped coordinate the operations.  But a lot of other members were there for the day helping to haul, move, carry, go get, and check on: Matt Doniger, Jerry Jayjohn, Frank Shipp, Casey Belzer, Randall Eliason, Jack Pitzer, Ellen Dellert, Dean Sherick, Walter Page, Gary Cregan, Shawn Tallant, Ben Roberts, Dennis Ritchey, and Carl Kauffmann. Some of this work included riser movement and sound set up. Krissi Folsom was photographer for the event. 

For the evening show, the Harmonizers started things off with a set of “America,” “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” with Ben Roberts as soloist, and “Blow Gabriel Blow” with the full stage presentation. Director Joe Cerutti welcomed the parents and families of the students and recognized their support of music in the lives of the young people. 

Our own a cappella group, TBD, sang on the show, and all three of the guest quartets! TBD included Josh DesPortes, Noah Van Gilder, Nick Leiserson, Jacob Broude, Terry Reynolds, Clark Chesser, Connor Goss, Brian Ammerman, Jeff Burkey, and Kellen Hertz.

The youth went wild with applause and standing ovations for the quartets and chorus!  They clapped and cheered and participated with the groups on the show.

The youth attendees sang on the show too and were a huge hit with the crowd of parents, friends and supporting Harmonizers.  Students completed a survey online (thanks to Dave Kohls) and were given a red Festival t-shirt to wear for the evening show.

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 70^th year of the Alexandria Harmonizer Chapter. —YeEd