Golden celebration: 50 years of singing for Northborough Area Community Chorus

NORTHBOROUGH — A group of students taking a "singing for pleasure" adult evening education class more than 50 years ago with the late Anthony J. Volpe at Algonquin Regional High School in Northborough found the class lived up to its name.

As Volpe once recalled in an interview, he had taught this adult education class before, but this particular group of 12 to 16 students really clicked, and so it was decided to form "a little choral group."

In 1972 The Northborough Area Community Chorus gave its first performance, a spring concert titled "Songs of Spring." Volpe conducted.

The chorus is still finding pleasure and joy in singing.

NACC's spring concert scheduled for 3 p.m. May 1 at Algonquin Regional High School in Northborough will commemorate its 50th season. The concert is titled “Yesterday and Today.” Tickets at the door are $5.

"Tony (Volpe) would say good music is good music. People love to do it," said David L. Rose, the current director of NACC.

Volpe died in 2020 at the age of 89 but had only stepped down as director of the chorus two years earlier.

Rose had been the piano accompanist with Volpe for almost 25 years, but stepped away from the chorus himself at the same time Volpe conducted his final concert in 2018.

Elinor Armsby led NAAC before she retired following the 2021 Christmas concert.

Rose was persuaded to come back, this time as director. His piano accompanist for "Yesterday & Today" is Mark Bartlett.

Rose earned a master’s degree in 1983 from the New England Conservatory of Music, and has taught, played, conducted, music directed and been a part of the music team for countless shows with theater and music groups. He is also a banker.

"Yesterday and Today" will be his first concert conducting NACC.

"They needed somebody," he said of the chorus. "My wife has always been involved with the chorus. I know everybody. It's new to me to direct the chorus, but I love it."

Return to in-person rehearsals

Mary Sullivan has been a member of the chorus for 28 years.

"We've stayed alive as a group," she said.

"We had an interim conductor (Elinor Armsby) — that was a life saver for us. David (Rose) — he's wonderful. He's so professional, but he's kind, he's supportive and extremely talented musically."

During the pandemic, NACC kept going with virtual rehearsals and performances, Sullivan said.

But for "Yesterday & Today" the chorus has returned to in-person rehearsal sessions at Algonquin Regional High School.

The singers have been rehearsing wearing masks. A decision on whether they will be wearing them for the concert had not yet been made at the time of writing.

NACC will have several guests on May 1, including Saint Mary's Children's Choir from Saint Mary School in Shrewsbury (director Jan Capello). The concert will begin with the United States and Ukrainian national anthems. Guest singer Lena Karpeii, who is originally from Ukraine, will sing the national anthem of Ukraine with the chorus. Karpeii has been teaching the chorus how to sing the national anthem in Ukrainian, Rose said.

The program features a number of songs the chorus has performed over the years from musicals (including "All That jazz," "Jesus Christ Superstar," "If I Were a Rich Man'' and a medley from "Into the Woods"), movies ("Moon River," “Evergreen,” “Can You Read My Mind”), popular musical numbers (including "Yesterday Once More" and "Mona Lisa"), and much more.

For a chorus that spans 50 years, there are inevitably members who have passed. Rose said they will be memorialized during the May 1 concert.

Volpe's final concert as director had included one of Volpe's original compositions, set to the Robert Frost poem "A Minor Bird."

"Yesterday and Today" will feature a reading of the poem, followed by a performance Volpe's arrangement.

Volpe, who lived in Westboro, had been a director of music in public schools in Spencer, Northborough, Southborough and Medway before retiring.

He attributed the initial success of the Northborough Area Community Chorus in part to its first piano accompanist, the late Virginia Hays. "She was so good. She had a following," Volpe said.

The little group's membership quickly soared.

NACC puts on two concerts a year — during the holidays and the spring. Volpe was always coming up with new themes for the concerts.

Volpe "was such a nice guy, so talented. He had I dare say thousands of students in the area," Rose said. "Such a love of music he wanted to share with everybody. I can't fill his shoes, but I can at least try and do my part."

'Rebuilding mode' for NACC

NACC membership has numbered in the 60s, but there was a falling off with the pandemic. There will be about 40 people singing in the chorus on May 1.

However, people have been coming back to rejoin and in some cases join up for the first time as the chorus goes back to in-person again.

"We're in rebuilding mode," Rose said. "A lot of people are coming back."

NACC has a number of older members, but younger people continue to come in to the chorus as well, including alum from Algonquin Regional High School.

"I love it. I've loved to sing since I could talk," Sullivan said. With NACC, "I have such a lot of really nice memories."

Members of the chorus come from communities such as Hudson, Marlborough, Northborough, Shrewsbury and Westborough.

Westborough Community Chorus continues celebration

It is a testament to the popularity of community singing and choruses in this area that another group very nearby has also been celebrating 50 years of singing.

The Westborough Community Chorus was founded in 1971. It celebrated 50 years with a holiday concert performed Dec. 4 and 5 last year, and the celebrations continue with "Golden Jubilee" at 8 p.m. April 30 and 2 p.m. May 1 at the Sarah Gibbons Middle School, 20 Fisher St., Westborough. The chorus will perform such diverse numbers as "Shenandoah," "Dancing Queen," “You Raise Me Up," “The Greats of Paul Simon" and many more. Tickets are $12 for adults; $10 for seniors and children. For more information, visit www.westborocommunitychorus.com.

In 1971, the late Faith Newark, a music teacher and minister of music at Evangelical Congregational Church in Westborough, was approached by Westborough residents who had recently sung in a chorus during the town's 250th anniversary celebration and didn't want to stop there. They expressed interest in forming a chorus of their own, and the Westboro Community Chorus was created with Newark as its director. Like NACC, the chorus usually performs two concerts a year.

Keeping ticket prices low

Concert-goers will have some choices to make in a couple of weeks.

"They are completely different ensembles, but I have many friends who sing with the (Westborough Community) Chorus," Rose said.

Both choruses are happy to be performing live again.

"The pandemic unfortunately affected us all in so many different ways," Rose noted.

"The (NACC) chorus never stopped but it made it very difficult. Now we're in touch with more people," Rose said.

Another point of pride for Volpe was that NACC had held the price of tickets to $5 for many years. The very first concerts had started off at $1.50.

Tickets for "Yesterday and Today" will be $5, Rose said. That's no doubt how Volpe would have liked it to be.

"People say, you know, you should raise the tickets. But we don't want the cost to be a barrier. I feel the spirit of Tony watches our concert, so I feel we should keep keep it $5 a ticket," Rose said.

As for the music, "This is gonna be really terrific," Sullivan said.

"David (Rose) is so upbeat, and makes us perform in a way that makes the audience happy to be there. We feel with all that's been going on we all need a little bit of uplifting," she said.

For more information about the Northborough Area Community Chorus, visit www.nacc.net.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: 50 years of singing for Northborough Area Community Chorus