Vermont ACDA

UPDATE, January 9:

I have selected the music for the Winter semester for the Ladies’ Night Out Women’s Chorus of Rutland VT. The title of the program is “Peace and Hope in 2012” and includes Schubert’s Motet on Psalm 23, Schubert’s “Faith in Spring,” Bach’s “Sheep may Safely Graze”, Mendelssohn’s “Lift Thine Eyes”, Gwyneth Walker’s “Tree of Peace”, arrangements of “If I had a Hammer”, “Hey Jude” Copland’s “At the River”, a Madrigal-”Sweet Content”, “Old Irish Blessing” arr. Agay, “Let there be Peace on Earth” arranged by Jay Althouse and others!

We have a pianist, and a number of singers signed up for the semester,  but still need more women singers of all vocal ranges!  Concerts will be May 8-12  (exact schedule tbd) and rehearsals are every Tuesday starting Jan 24 from 7-9 pm at the Rutland Middle School Music Room.

I am asking all interested singers to contact me so I can hear them sing before placing them in the group. This is not an audition as such, but simply a get-together to share some singing so I can meet all the singers before the season starts!

Please let your friends and singers know about this wonderful semester of music and camaraderie with LNO 2012.
–Lucy Tennenbaum

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Ladies’ Night Out Women’s Chorus is getting ready for an exciting 2012 season, with rehearsals starting Tuesday, January 24. All interested women singers should contact director Lucy Tenenbaum to confirm your placement into the choir. If you haven’t sung for me before, I will want to hear you, but no audition is required—it’s more of a friendly sing along setting, no pressure! The choir has 13 rehearsals in the season, with several performances the first week of May (as yet to be scheduled). We practice at the Rutland Middle School Music room from 7-9pm. Singers must be able to carry a tune and blend their voices. We make rehearsal CDs for each voice part in a sectional rehearsal early in the year, so everyone has music to work with to learn their parts.

Come join LNO and have a wonderful winter and spring of singing and getting to know new and old friends. We have a social time at each rehearsal so everyone has a chance to get to know each other. Making wonderful music together is one of the goals of the group, but equally important is the opportunity to form a community of women singers who are supportive of one another.

Call Lucy at  [802 775 8004 or email lucytune@sover.net ]to set up a get-together to sing, or confirm your intent to sing this season. Hope to hear from you soon.

The Young Singers Chorus of VT is currently accepting new singers! Our spring 2012 rehearsals begin today, Tuesday, January 10 at U-32 High School in Montpelier. There are three different ensembles which rehearse at different points throughout the evening: JR Treble (grades 1-4) meets from 4-5pm; SR Treble (treble voices, grades 5+) meets from 5-6:30pm; and the Mixed choir (mixed voices, grades 5+) meets from 6:30-9pm. Led by conductors Piero and Andrea Bonamico, with pianist Mary Jane Austin and manager Stefanie Weigand, these ensembles will be preparing for the annual Pops Concert which is taking place on Sunday, May 20th at the Barre Opera House.
Don’t hesitate to drop in to rehearsal or email Stefanie to get some more information about joining one of our ensembles!

On Monday, January 23rd, the Mad River Chorale will be starting rehearsals as well and is accepting new singers. This adult, community-based choir rehearses on Mondays from 6:45-8:45pm at Harwood Union HS in South Duxbury. Led by conductor Andrea Bonamico, this chorus is preparing for their spring concert series, which will be taking place in various locations around Central VT on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, May 3-5.
New singers are welcome, just drop by a rehearsal and give it a try!

Here’s a quick listing for the 10 days before Christmas 2011!

Check out the Vermont ACDA events/concert calendar for details about upcoming concerts!

• Christmas with Counterpoint and VSO Brass, Dec. 15-19
• Oriana Singers ~ Bach’s Mass in B minor, Dec. 16
• Vermont Youth Concert Choral, Dec. 16-17
• Social Band, Dec. 17-18
• Middlebury Messiah Sing, Dec. 18
• Mad River Chorale, South Burlington Community Chorus,
  Young Singers Chorus of Vermont, Dec. 22-23

and coming up in the New Year 2012:

• Essex Children’s Choir of Vermont ~ Twelfth Night Celebration, Jan. 7

ACDA members: If you’d like to add your concerts to our calendar, please send info/poster/picture to Jeff Rehbach, ACDA webmaster, at rehbach @ middlebury.edu

The Essex Children’s Choir will present the Twenty-Fifth Twelfth Night Celebration, on ‎Saturday, January7, 2012, at 6:30 p.m., at the Chapel of Saint Michael the Archangel, at Saint ‎Michael’s College in Colchester.‎

Twelfth Night Celebration commemorates the visit of the Magi to Bethlehem with gifts of gold, ‎frankincense, and myrrh, bringing to close the twelve days of Christmas. The message of peace ‎and good will shall ring through a collaboration of artistry in music, dance, and prose. ‎

The message of Christmas will be re-told through choral literature by G.F. Handel, Benjamin ‎Britten, Harry T. Burleigh, John Rutter, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and carols of African-American, ‎Dutch, English, German and Japanese traditions. Joining the Choir in a collaboration of ‎Vermont artistry are Heidi Soons, harp; Wayne Hobbs, tenor; Benjamin Dickerson, baritone; Full ‎Circle, recorder consort; Susan Summerfield, organ; the Wheeler Trombone Quartet; Grady Shea, ‎reader; and the Adirondack Ballet Liturgical Dance Ensemble, Kathy Koester, artistic director, ‎from Plattsburgh, NY . ‎

We invite you to experience the splendor of silver as the Choir fills your senses with its own ‎tradition of closing the Holiday season through the power and joy of music. Donations will be ‎received. In the event of inclement weather, the concert will be held Sunday, January 8th at 4:30 ‎p.m. Please call 863-9161 or www.essexchildrenschoirofvermont.org for more information. ‎

Check out the Vermont ACDA events/concert calendar for details about upcoming concerts!

Here’s a quick listing (* added Nov. 29)

• Bella Voce, Dec. 3-4
• Vermont Choral Union, Dec. 3-4
• UVM Catamount Singers, Dec. 6
• Maiden Vermont, Dec. 10-11*
• Counterpoint, Dec. 10-11*
• Green Mountain Chorus and Barre-Tones, Dec. 11
• Middlebury College Lessons & Carols, Dec. 11
• Oriana Singers, Dec. 16
• Vermont Youth Concert Choral, Dec. 16-17
• Middlebury Messiah Sing, Dec. 18
• Mad River Chorale, South Burlington Community Chorus,
  Young Singers Chorus of Vermont, Dec. 22-23

ACDA members: If you’d like to add your concerts to our calendar, please send info/poster/picture to Jeff Rehbach, ACDA webmaster, at rehbach @ middlebury.edu

Check out our Vermont ACDA events/concert calendar for details about upcoming concerts!

Here’s a quick listing:

• Bella Voce, Dec. 3-4
• Vermont Choral Union, Dec. 3-4
• UVM Castamount Singers, Dec. 6
• Green Mountain Chorus and Barre-Tones, Dec. 11
• Middlebury College Lessons & Carols, Dec. 11
• Oriana Singers, Dec. 16
• Vermont Youth Concert Choral, Dec. 16-17
• Middlebury Messiah Sing, Dec. 18
• Mad River Chorale, South Burlington Community Chorus,
  Young Singers Chorus of Vermont, Dec. 22-23

ACDA members: If you’d like to add your concerts to our calendar, please send info/poster/picture to Jeff Rehbach, ACDA webmaster, at rehbach @ middlebury.edu

Come and celebrate fall in Vermont with Bella Voce this Sunday at St. Paul’s in Burlington!

Bella Voce is directed by ACDA Vermont board member Dawn Willis.

Here’s an opportunity to catch the Curbstone Chorus in its show, “A Cappella Extravaganza III” on Saturday, October 15, at at Rutland Intermediate School (65 Library Avenue) at 7:00 p.m. (all tickets $15).

Details and more info: CurbstoneChorusShowFlyer2011Oct15

Half of the show’s proceeds will go to the Vermont Disaster Relief Fund, administered by the United Way.

Come hear some great barbershop harmony, see a bunch of guys who absolutely LOVE singing, and help our fellow Vermonters! With special guests, The Honeymooners, from the upper Valley of Vermont and New Hampshire.

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Daniel L. Graves
Curbstone Chorus Director and Vermont ACDA barbershop/men’s/boys’ choir chair

http://www.curbstonechorus.org/

Peter Yarrow will join Counterpoint and four other Vermont choruses in the fourth annual Sing For Peace concert on Saturday, September 24, 2011, 7 p.m. at the Ira Allen Chapel on the University of Vermont campus in Burlington.

Hosted by Counterpoint, Vermont’s professional a capella classical vocal ensemble, and the brainchild of its former director, Robert De Cormier, this annual concert draws together some of Vermont’s finest choruses to raise their voices for a just and peaceable world. In addition to Counterpoint, Sing For Peace 2011 will see the return of the Grace Church (Rutland) Festival choir, House Blend, a “democratically-governed party of self-professed singing addicts” from Saxtons River; and Maiden Vermont, a women’s chorus from the Middlebury area. New to the concert will be the Young Singers Chorus of Vermont, from the Montpelier area.

A natural choice for the first guest artist in this annual program is Peter Yarrow. He is a long-time colleague and close friend of Mr. De Cormier. And, both as part of Peter, Paul and Mary, and as an individual, Yarrow has devoted his life and talents as performer, songwriter and organizer to promote a message of humanity and caring, whether it was being in the frontlines in the 1960s’ protests against the Viet Nam war and for Civil Rights and through the political/social issues of each decade since, or addressing more personal issues such as hospice and colonoscopies.

Mr Yarrow is donating his services for Sing for Peace, and the concert will benefit Operation Respect. Yarrow found inspiration to establish this non-profit organization from a song he often performs, “Don’t Laugh at Me” by Steve Seskin and Allen Shamblin. Operation Respect addresses peace at its most intimate person-to-person level, promoting a respectful, safe and compassionate climate for children and youth, so that academic, social and emotional development can take place free of bullying, ridicule and violence. More than 150,000 “Don’t Laugh at Me” curricula, that use music, video and guides, have been distributed to educators free of charge. Under the aegis of Operation Respect, Yarrow has taken his message to school children of Israel and Palestine, bringing them together in song with their families.

The Sing for Peace annual concert series was the brainchild of Robert De Cormier, founder and Director Emeritus of Counterpoint. He has always believed strongly in the power of song and that people coming together to sing can inspire us all to work for peace. He acted on that belief as a high school teacher in New York City, as Artistic Director for Harry Belafonte in the 1950s and for Peter, Paul and Mary since the 1980s, and as leader for more traditional choral organizations such as the New York Choral Society and the Vermont Symphony Orchestra Chorus which he still directs.

In 2008, distressed by the U.S. warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, De Cormier asked Counterpoint, and they agreed, to host the first Sing For Peace in Burlington. On September 27, 2008 at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Burlington, Governor Madeleine Kunin introduced the concert and a special greeting was read from Pete Seeger. The concert featured Counterpoint, Bella Voce, Maple Jam, Social Band, Syrinx, Sounding Joy and the Pumpkin Hill Singers. The tradition was quickly established to include audience sing-alongs and conclude with the haunting round, “Dona Nobis Pacem.”

In 2009, when Social Band was unable to participate again, the Essex Children’s Choir became be part of the event. Proceeds from free-will donations went to Kids 4 Peace Vermont.

Given all of the wonderful singing groups that grace Vermont, it was decided in 2010, that Sing For Peace would invite new choruses and limit each chorus’s participation to two consecutive years. The 2010 Sing For Peace welcomed the South Burlington Community Chorus, House Blend, Maiden Vermont and Rutland’s Grace Church Festival Choir. Proceeds from the free-will donation went to the Center for Peace & Justice, headquartered in Burlington.

After three years of standing room only audiences at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Burlington, Sing For Peace now moves to Ira Allen Chapel on the UVM campus for its 2011 gathering. Robert De Cormier may no longer be Director of Counterpoint, but his passion and commitment will continue to be a driving force as Vermonters once again Sing For Peace.