On a Tuesday morning, April 12, 2016, about 35 eager and enthusiastic singers showed up in the crystal ballroom of the Merion in downtown Evanston for something that none of us had ever done before: a non-auditioned daytime choir designed for older adults, with professional music staff. Amy Wurtz was at the piano. Jonathan was at the music stand. Sandy, a first alto, was in the tenor section because we were short on tenors. In her additional role of unpaid Operations Director, Sandy was also in the back of the room, aided by Jonathan’s mom and aunt Geri, helping people sign in and sign up.  Jonathan‘s mom, who was 80 years old at the time and had not sung in a choir since the age of 15, also sang tenor, although a year later, her voice would get back in shape and she’d be singing soprano, as she did in high school.

And what was this “something”? It was an organization that at the time we were calling Encore Illinois. Sandy and Jon were coming off an incredibly difficult year of 2015, during which in rapid succession they had dealt with the deaths of Sandy’s mom and Jon’s dad (three weeks apart), then in subsequent months the loss of their cat, Jon’s stepmother, and finally Jon’s full-time job in music publishing. Oof!

Sandy and Jon went on a much-needed head-clearing vacation to Hawaii in early January 2016. After a week or so of rest and perspective, Sandy turned to Jon and said, “If there is any lesson that we can take from our difficult year, it’s that ‘life is short”.  It seems like we’ve been given an opportunity to do something that can make a difference in the world; what do you really want to do now?” Jon immediately said, “I want to bring that older-adult choir thing to Chicago.”

What Jon meant by “that older-adult choir thing” was that, back in 2012, he and Sandy had met the people from Encore Creativity in Washington DC, after they had bought 800 copies of his composition, “Jingle Bells Hallelujah Chorus,” which Chicago a cappella had premiered the year before. Jon was still serving as artistic director of Chicago a cappella rewarding yet very part-time work, not enough to make a living on, but enough to have developed a solid reputation for musical quality. The plucky couple thought that they could leverage that reputation, along with Sandy‘s organizational skills (plus a boatload of hard work and goodwill), into making this new thing happen.

With help from the founder of Encore, who had helped to plant new choir locations around the country during the previous few years, Sandy and Jon learned about the Encore model, which made it very easy to get started. They borrowed music from Encore’s lending library (free except for shipping) and came up with the idea to do a six-week pilot. The bold idea was for the pilot choirs to learn five songs in six weeks and then put on a show. Tuesday morning was the timeslot for Evanston, which sang in the Crystal Ballroom at the Merion, and Wednesday morning was the time for the Hyde Park choir at Montgomery Place, in the beautiful East Room (with a wonderful piano) that overlooks the lake.

So, this is where it all started! Word-of-mouth worked its magic back then, just as it does now. Singers came from the Chicago Bar Association chorus, who lived in Evanston and on the north side. The Chicago a cappella fan network got activated; Jon recalls, “I think Matt Greenberg even said yes to out putting an ad in CAC’s February concert program to recruit singers, once we realized this thing was actually going to fly.”

Encore Creativity’s business model meant that Encore Illinois could incorporate as an Illinois nonprofit and yet be grandfathered under Encore Creativity’s 501(c)(3) status.  In true kitchen-table startup mode, Sandy served as the fledgling nonprofit’s first board president. This wasn’t Sandy’s first board rodeo; she had been a board member and board chair at Chicago a cappella in prior years. She, along with Aunt Geri and Chrissy Murray (Sandy’s and Jon’s unofficially adopted daughter and dogwalker) made up the initial board of directors who signed the articles of corporation with the Secretary of State. The organization officially came into existence on January 29, 2016.

But April 12^th and 13^th of 2016 were truly the founding days of gathering our choirs—the first times that the singers got together to do any singing. The sound in both groups was very good from the beginning. Some of the founding singers, including residents at the Merion, were completely hilarious. Hattie Buell, a retired music teacher, could play virtually any song from the American Songbook in any key, even though she claimed she couldn’t read music very well. Eduardo Schoua and Irving Lerner were both about 100 years old and did one of the funniest “sort of” soft-shoe routines that Jon had ever seen. There was just a lot of enthusiasm, and everyone had a lot of fun.

One of the big catalysts for making the choir take off in Hyde Park was the energetic and enthusiastic Joy Rosner, one of the most aptly named people on the planet. Joy was the very first person who signed up for any of our choirs. Jonathan had known her from his involvement in music at KAM Isaiah Israel, the synagogue where he grew up, and Joy was a longtime member of Kol Zimrah, the Jewish community chorus of the Chicagoland area, which Jonathan had also conducted on a few occasions. Once Joy heard that this thing was coming to Hyde Park, she was a one-woman networking powerhouse.

The six-week pilots would prove to be successful. Word began to spread, and the pilots expanded beyond those first two. Evanston and Hyde Park continued with summer pilots (six weeks again), while Gold Coast and Hinsdale got their first pilots. With the help of wonderful people like Phyllis Mitzen, who introduced our choirs to Gloria Bowman at The Clare, and friends at The Community House in Hinsdale, those two areas would get their own new choirs, for total of four choirs doing six-week pilots in June and July.

Those of you who have had success in meeting a need in the community will know how Sandy and Jonathan have felt for the past 10 years. They are grateful for the 1684 singers who have sung with this organization since its inception, and the many thousands more who have come to cheer their beloved singers on in concerts.

And it all started ten years ago!