Celebrating 25 Years of Singing — Founders of the Magnolia Chorale

At the December concerts, you heard the Chorale's Founding Singers introduced and their remarkable achievement honored.  To remind you, our founders have created a small, independent arts organization in Seattle's competitive environment that has survived--and thrived--for 25 years.

Think that is an overstatement?  Consider this:

• There are, by conservative count, 161 singing groups like ours between Bellingham & Olympia. Almost 40%—that's 64—are in the boundaries of the city of Seattle itself.
  
• In the 4 neighborhoods around us—Queen Anne, Fremont, Wallingford, Ballard—plus Magnolia, of course, there are, conservatively, 14 such groups.
  
• In that 25 years, we have had 6 music directors and 3 accompanists.
  
• The environment of our organization is such that a previous Music Director has enthusiastically returned, and our current accompanist has been with us for more than 10 years.
  
• Speaking of the Chorale's environment, our members consistently invite singing friends to join our merry band.  In our winter 2013 season, 10 new members joined our group, bringing the percentage of newbies up to 19%!
  
• Rather than focus on a single type of choral music, we've done it all: classical choral music, jazz, gospel, swing, medieval, blues, and we've sung in languages from Swedish to Swahili.
  
• We've traveled, joyously singing all the way from Canada to Europe.
  
• We've reached out to our immediate community, supporting merchants and churches alike, and we've brought beautiful music to retirement communities around the city.
  
• Our organization is financially sound, always a challenge for small organizations or any ilk and almost impossible for arts entities, and this is  largely thanks to the Founding Singers who saw the Chorale through thin financial times and, with remarkable dedication, led it to firm footing.  
  

And, oh yes, our Founding Singers have also practiced during 6,500 rehearsals, for a combined 13,000 hours and then performed in, cumulatively, 1,000 concerts!

So thank these folks when you see them, won't you?

Bill Parker
Bill Zachary
Ken Schubert
Linda Norby
Liz Roach
Lucia Schubert
Marlys Seeman
Pat Gaffney
Randi Mezich
Roger Seeman


Front: Marlys Seeman, Lucia Schubert, Liz Roach, Randi Mezich; Back: Pat Gaffney, Roger Seeman, Ken Schubert, Pat, Bill Parker, Bill Zachary