The Haines A Cappella Women’s Choir has started meeting again after a few months COVID related pause. Nancy Nash, a long time Haines music teacher, started the group in 2008 after seeing her husband Dwight sing in the Men Of Note, a men’s ensemble. She remembered the good times singing in church and college choirs, and was drawn to recreate the experience. With encouragement from friends, she hosted the first rehearsal in her living room and the group has been meeting ever since, with few interruptions. From the beginning Nash set up the meeting to be easy for participants to attend:
“I had in mind that it wouldn’t be a long weekly meeting, it would only be one hour, and there wouldn’t be any homework to do in between.”
They open each rehearsal with a warm up, and often close it with a Meredith Williams song called “I see the moon”.
“And usually when we go out or wherever we are meeting, by 8pm the moon is shining on us.”
Their most challenging performance so far has been of a piece by Brahms,
“The Dances, which have chorus and they are sung in German, and one of our summer concerts that year included those, and that was probably one of our biggest stretch, was to sing this very classical choral music in another language.”
The group has built an eclectic repertoire that ranges from folk to Italian madrigals, Latin religious music to pop and jazz. Nash writes the arrangements for the group:
“I do most of my own arrangements, for one reason is I don’t have to buy music, and , another, turns out I really like arranging songs for three or four part women’s chorus. And I can do exactly what I want with our chorus, and our capabilities in mind.”
The choir has performed at funerals, weddings, and sings the Star Spangled Banner at the first girl’s basketball game of the year. They have sung at the cruise ship dock to welcome visitors, and once at a public hearing at the borough assembly.
“We knew the head of the ferry system was going to be there, and it was a time where we felt there wasn’t enough ferry coverage for Haines, and so we have a song, an Andrews Sisters song from the 40s, and it’s ‘I love to ride the ferry’ so we sang that for him and then we testified, at that time the mayor Jan Hill was singing with us too, so we just marched right into the assembly chambers and did a flash mob there.”
For now the group meets every Thursday at 5 pm at the Haines senior center. Nash extends a welcome to any women who may want to join. As for the required skills,
“Basically if you can talk, talking is a lot like singing, you go up and down, loud and soft, I’ve never felt that I would like to judge people’s singing, so if you show up, you’ll be in.”
