In the area of quartet performances, we ended year 2005 with very little quartet action.

On Dec.21 , 2005 a "pickup" quartet of Bill Amos, Jay Garber, Tom Koch and Mark Pascarella did a short surprise performance at D'lmperio's Restaurant in Wilkins for a 85th birthday celebration family dinner honoring the mother of ______________.

Dec. 14, 2005, the Three Rivers Chorus performed at the Fair Oaks Assisted Living Center in Pittsburgh South Hills to a very appreciative group of seniors. This performance featured a mixture of standard chorus repertoire and Christmas carols [plus some "roll 'em in the aisles" great stories by emcee Tom Koch].

For several years the chorus has performed sometime during the month of December at the Monroeville Mall along with varied performances by other local talent. This year was no exception, so on Dec.17 the chorus traveled to the Mall for this year's performance. However, this year the mall management decided to have all groups perform in the food court-area. Big mistakel The background noise was so great that we could not hear ourselves - the bari's could just barely hear the basses and could not hear the leads or tenors at all. Everyone had a hard time hearing the pitch. We don't know if anyone really heard us [maybe it was best if they didn't]. Next year we will have to give serious thought to this performance if the mall personnel decide to use the food court area again.

Dec.19, the chorus finished out the year with a performance for the McKeesport Garden Club in their building at Renzie Park. The club members seem to really enjoy the performance and as an added benefit for them, several of the chorus members bought pieces of their decorative handiwork.

Assistant Director Lou Vlahos directed the chorus for the preceding described performances.

As of this writing, there have not yet been any quartet or chorus performances in 2006, but several are in the works. I am getting this bulletin issue out a bit earlier than usual for this edition due to upcoming planned vacation time. I will cover any January and February performances in the next edition.

Chorus manager Jay Garber is busy lining up the performance schedule for year 2006. In the mean time, please continue on to the article in the next column of this page where Jay provides a review of year 2005.

Performances ~ The Year In Review
By Jay Garber, Chorus Manager

After a very slow start, the year ended on a rather encouraging note (If you'll excuse the pun). Starting at about the end of summer, my phone was busier than I would have believed possible. I had already forewarned the [chapter] President that I didn't think we could ever reach our monetary budget for the year. For some, as yet unknown reason, the last third of the year remedied a bad situation,

For the year 2005, the chorus sang 24 performances, almost equally divided between evenings and afternoons. I would think that the average attendance was somewhere in the neighborhood of 24 chorus members in the evenings and 18 members in the afternoons. Not good, but not so bad as to compromise our sound.

I'd like to thank the chorus members that initiated contacts within their churches, fraternal groups and social clubs. Those contacts help to make my job easier and definitely helped our chapter treasury.

A "clap of appreciation" also should go out to those who performed the important job of Master of Ceremony during the year (mainly Tom Koch and George Mayer).

Our biggest "tip of the cap" goes to Joe Veltre and Ron Brooks. Their leadership, under duress, was inspirational to us all. We can never take for granted the position of Chorus Director. In a year when illness and job obligations complicated the process, what we learn in rehearsals becomes all the more important, when assorted "arm swingers," such as assistant director Lou Viahos, are called upon to fill in at performances for our front line directors. Thanks to those who willingly obliged when asked and thanks to Joe, Ron and Lou for providing us with the basics.

Another year is in the offing and I'll be in need of the same cooperation from the membership in helping with acquiring leads for performance opportunities. If you're like me, performances, before a smiling audience, is the reason for singing.