BRATTLEBORO-The Commons met Brattleboro Women's Chorus Director Becky Graber at her home recently to talk about the chorus's upcoming spring concert, her long career, and what this repertoire means to her. Here's an excerpt of the conversation.
Victoria Chertok: Tell me about your early career. How did you start the Brattleboro Women's Chorus?
Becky Graber: I moved to Brattleboro in 1977, straight out of college. There was a folk music scene that was welcoming, and one of my first jobs was working in the kitchen at the Chelsea House Folklore Center, so I got to hear concerts every weekend!
I met Peter and Mary Alice Amidon early on, and Karla Baldwin. All three became good friends.
Karla and I worked together on musicals at the Brattleboro Center for the Performing Arts and later at the Putney School. Peter and Mary Alice and I pulled together some performances and also founded the Christmas Street Band in 1978.
Brattleboro was a fun town, a wonderful home; I loved that the arts were so participatory.
I taught music and piano lessons in the West River Valley and at the Grammar School in Putney, and I also took over for the Suzuki piano teacher at the Brattleboro Music School.
I was on the staff of Camp Allegro, the Brattleboro Music Center's day camp, for over 20 years.
For 11 years, I worked at New England Youth Theatre as musical theatre director and teacher.
V.C.: What did you study in college?
B.G.: I went to Colgate University thinking I would major in something "more practical" than music, because I'd done so much music already, but I found that without music, I didn't feel like myself.
So I studied a broad range of subjects, and I was one of two music majors the year I graduated. I got to do a lot of accompanying and performed the student concerto.
Later, I went to Lesley College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for my master's degree in the creative arts in learning, and my student job was in the storytelling center.
During graduate school, I moved to the Seacoast near Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where I worked in schools and began a career as a storyteller.
Our daughter, Sarah, was born in 1990 and our son, Jacob, was born in 1993. When I moved back to Brattleboro in 1992 with my husband, Tim Ellis, I was a traveling storyteller, which didn't seem to fit that well with parenting two children.
V.C.: How many women sang in BWC in the beginning?
B.G.: We had about 55 women and girls by our first concert in December 1996. Later on, there was a time when I had a limit of accepting 120 singers and people had to be on a waitlist to join us. Today, we have 108 singers from ages 25 to 90!
V.C.: What was it about Ysaÿe Barnwell's teachings and her music that drew you in?
B.G.: I had a good friend and mentor, Carolyn Parrott, who directed the Songweavers Women's Chorus in New Hampshire. I went with Carolyn to a Ysaÿe Barnwell workshop, "Singing in the African American Tradition."
The power of the music embedded in the history and Ysaÿe's teaching style (in a circle, by the oral tradition, no written music used or in evidence), I was inspired to start a chorus of that style here in town.
My friend Mary Alice was just letting go of a women's singing circle she'd started, so I wrote to those people and others I knew, and the BWC was born.
V.C.: You teach the Chorus using the oral tradition - by ear?
B.G.: I love the style of teaching people by ear. It does take a lot of time to learn music. I've always made recordings for people to listen to and learn from. That format has changed from cassette tapes to CDs to now an online choral app.
V.C.: How do you choose repertoire for your concerts?
B.G.: After many years of being music director at NEYT and musical theater director at the Putney School, organist and choir director at Second Congregational Church in Londonderry, Vermont, and music teacher in many places, I started to work toward gathering up the songs I've created for women's chorus and putting them together in a songbook, All I Need Is Here, which was published in 2022.
All along, the thread of the Brattleboro Women's Chorus has been grounding and sustaining me, connecting with a community of inspired and inspiring women who come together weekly to raise their voices together.
I love finding songs that speak to me and sharing them with others.
V.C.: What was your inspiration for this Mother's Day concert?
B.G.: This concert was inspired by the great debt I owe to Dr. Ysaÿe Barnwell. She inspired my teaching style and the way I look at community music making. She generously shared the songs that she had grown up with and arranged them beautifully for community singing.
I attended her workshops, in which groups of mostly white people came to learn from her. She taught us the songs and the history of the songs.
I was so grateful for her education, and it has taken me years to learn how to do the music and the history justice.
I originally thought we might title this concert "Thank You, Ysaÿe." But then I realized it was a deeper and wider project - much more to do with the whole question of how an almost-all-white chorus can sing music composed by Black composers in a respectful way, honoring the history and the music.
It has been a meaningful journey for me and for the singers.
V.C.: I heard you say that the Black Lives Matter Commissioning Project was also an inspiration.
The project aims to commission eight new songs from Black composers for community choirs and singing groups.
Say more about that.
B.G.: The Black Lives Matter Commissioning Project was one of the first choruses to sign on and support this wonderful effort by several people in the Natural Voice Network in England, a group which I belong to.
"Say Say Yes," "Let Time Be Your Friend," and "Better Day" - the concert title song - were all part of the commissioning project.
V.C.: What else would you like our readers to know?
B.G.: We are seeking to recognize and share the genius, the beauty, the breadth of music we've learned - created by Black composers. And who better to help us than our local supremely talented vocalist, Samirah Evans? And a very talented backup band and crew!
I have loved working with Samirah toward this concert, taking our time selecting the music and the flow of the order. She will be singing four songs with her band and four songs with us, and the chorus will sing nine songs on our own (some a cappella, some with the band).
Victoria Chertok covers arts and entertainment in Vermont for The Commons. She is a classically trained harpist and received a B.A. in music at Bucknell University.
This Arts item by Victoria Chertok was written for The Commons.