July 25, 2006

 

Dear Choir,

 

The month of July means many things here in the Carolinas; warm summer days, trips to the beach, a slower pace, reconnecting with family. It is also a time that I traditionally reflect on the past year for Concert Singers and to think of the year ahead.

 

For those of us who have around for a while, it seems hard to believe that we have completed 15 years of concerts. We have had many successes, a few failures big enough to brag about and many, many wonderful musical moments together. As part of our observance of the 15th year, we’re putting together a display of photos, news articles, and programs from past years so let me know if you would enjoy being part of that.

 

A review of the 2005-2006 season shows that it was one of our most unusual in many ways. It was our most prolific as we produced eight concerts that utilized four ensembles and a group of soloists. From an artistic standpoint, it was a banner year that included some new initiatives such as the program at Regency Park, which was a resounding success and some great a cappella music from the Chamber Choir and Cary Voices Unlimited. The year was a disappointment in the area of attendance, though we did well with the Regency performance. In hindsight, we tried to do too much during the year and will scale back to a five-concert season in 2006-2007.

 

As is customary in this annual letter, I’d like to outline some organizational issues and some challenges that lie ahead in the hope that we can work together to meet them. They are as follows:

 

Monday Night Schedule Change - During the last two years, we packed the Symphonic and Chamber Choirs into one long (OK…VERY long) evening. This has at times short-changed the Symphonic Choir on needed rehearsal time and forced the Chamber Choir to rehearse when they are tired. There were times with both groups that we had to end just when we would hit our stride. I’ve therefore decided that we will only have Symphonic Choir on Monday nights from 7:30 – 9:30. Rehearsals for Chamber Choir or any other special ensemble will be scheduled as needed. This will allow both groups to continue to grow artistically and return us to our original schedule.

 

Rehearsal Venue Change

If you’ve only been with us for the past couple of years, you probably are not aware that we rehearsed at the Herbert C. Young Community Center at 101 Wilkinson Avenue in Cary until Spring ‘04. I am pleased to say that we will be returning to Herb Young this fall. It is a superior rehearsal space for us with a larger room, higher ceiling and a better parking situation. We have free use of the parking garage there so you won’t be facing that uncertainty which should help us get everyone to rehearsal on time. This move was caused by the completion of construction of the expanded Town Hall campus.

 

Men’s Sections

At a chorus committee meeting back in March, I told the group that for the first time in our history, we were short enough of men that we may have to put a limit on admission of new female voices to the Symphonic Choir. The goes against everything in my philosophy about admitting new members who have the ability to sing at this level, but we cannot ignore the widening gap between men’s and women’s voices. The answer, I believe is to find more men. Please understand that I am not advocating adding warm bodies to balance our gender gap. We want men who can sing well enough to contribute to the group. It is interesting to note that we rarely have more than 2 or 3 singers who actively participate in another Triangle area community chorus. There are plenty of singers to go around. There are hundreds of people who want to sing and are doing so in one of those groups. We currently have 113,000 people living in Cary alone and we frequently draw singers from other communities as well. There must be more than the 40 or so active men that we have in the group. We will certainly promote through the media, but our best talent spotters are our own members. If you are a member of a church choir that have some men that you think can help us and would enjoy being a part of the group, invite them to contact us. Assure your church directors that we avoid rehearsing on the traditional church nights of Wednesday or Thursday to avoid conflicts with church groups. More than 50% of our members are active singers in houses of worship. I think that with your help, we could add another 20 men.

 

Membership in Small Groups

I’m trying to simplify our audition process when it comes to identifying singers who wish to sing in the Chamber Choir or Cary Voices Unlimited. In the interest in doing so, I ask that you contact me directly by email at speakman@concertsingers.org to express interest. I may ask you for an audition for this depending on how much I know about your voice and musical ability. Both groups require a higher level of skill than the Symphonic Choir and there are limited spaces depending on openings and balance.

 

Symphonic Choir kicks off on September 25th

The Chamber Choir was invited to sing at the American Choral Directors State convention in Greensboro on September 23rd and will reprise some of the music they sang last season. So that we rehearse enough to be ready for this performance, we are using September 11th and 18th for Chamber rehearsals.  We typically start the Monday after Labor Day, but will start this year on September 25th.

 

2006-2007 Concert Season

This coming season has been especially challenging to work out, and even now I am still unsure how events will play out.  We are currently negotiating with potential partners and I must emphasize this plan is, with the exception of reprises of Holiday Pops and American Celebration, very tentative.

 

Fall/Winter Season

Sat. November 18 – Symphonic Choir in Psalms--Sacred Bridges of Faith

Sat. December 2 - Symphonic Choir with Triangle Wind Ensemble in Holiday Pops in Cary

Spring Season

Sat. February 10 - Cary Voices Unlimited with Charlie Chiklis and the Moonlighters in Let’s Swing! (dance follows)

Sat. March 31 – Symphonic and Chamber Choirs with period instruments for J.S. Bach’s Easter Oratorio and other works

Sat. May 26 - Symphonic Choir with Triangle Wind Ensemble - Koka Booth Amptheatre - Thompson – Testament of Freedom and other works (An American Celebration)

 

A Note About Attendance and Participation

It is worth mentioning that membership in Concert Singers of Cary has an expectation that you will participate in all of the Symphonic Choir Concerts. We know that it doesn’t always happen that way. Family and employment issues have a way of making demands on us that we do not anticipate. What we do expect, though, is a clear line of communication, well in advance when possible from each member when things arise that require you to miss a concert. We had a 25% drop-off in attendance between the Haydn/Palestrina concert and the Memorial Day event that we did not anticipate for a concert that was announced the previous summer. This is unacceptable. We are a performance-driven organization and need committed singers who will not walk away unannounced when something more interesting comes along. Please make note of this when you make a commitment to be a member of the organization. If we limit dropouts to issues related to job and family, our dropout rate will be in the low single digits.

Here endeth the sermon…

 

CD Recording Update

I received the recordings from our session with Triangle Wind Ensemble last month and will work on the editing process this summer. With luck, we’ll have it ready by our Holiday Pops concert on December 2nd. I’m very pleased with how things turned out, especially given the unusual logistics that we faced.

 

Board of Directors

We are still in the process of filling the final spots on our Board of Directors and would love to have some singers who would like to be a part of it. The board will have a limited amount of meetings during the year and will be responsible for developing fund raising sources or the donation of services that we would otherwise pay for. I realize that this is a very specialized need, but I’m hopeful that we might have 3-4 singers from our membership of nearly 200 who would be able and willing to participate in this.

 

I Offer My Heartfelt Thanks To the Following People: 

Diane Villwock for her outstanding and energetic leadership over the last three years, Brian Wong for his fine leadership of the Chorus Committee last year, Bob Johnson for his many hours as treasurer and for bringing our finances to a professional level, David Lindquist for his unbelievable energy and dedication to the organization, and to other members of our Board of Directors and Chorus Committee and other organizational units who took care of many day-to-day details, including Simon Bate, Michele Bergeron, Dave Britt, Joy Cox, Karen Davis, Colleen Ferski, Phil Ferski, Scott Hansen, Barbara Johnson, Barb Klimala, Myra Michot, Jan Mott, Kathy Payne, Ken Scott, Eleni Steadman, Roberta Thomason, Geiselle Thompson, Rick Wiles, and Melody Zentner.

 

I hope that you are having a wonderful summer and return to us fully energized in September. I am spending some time with my family in Philadelphia and a few days of leisure in the Boston and New York before things get busy in August. As always, I look forward to another year of exciting concerts together!

 

Sincerely,