Vintage Harmonies
Whether during their two annual local concerts or trips out of town, the Vintage Singers have been pleasing audiences since 1978.
Story by Erin Wilds Photos by Thomas Boyd
A Quick Musical Quiz:
Do you:
Enjoy singing, especially as a voice in pitch-perfect, multi-part harmonies?
Like a challenge, both physical and technical?
Work well as part of a dedicated team with a common goal?
Enjoy making beautiful music with friends?
Look forward to helping bring to vivid life choral arrangements — new and old, classical and popular — under expert direction in some amazing performance settings and venues?
If so, Donna Spicer might like to talk to you. Spicer is director of the Vintage Singers — a 27-member, Roseburg-based chamber choir that has been a familiar sight and sound in the region since the late 1970s.
In the group’s four decades, its extraordinary harmonies and arrangements have been seasonal traditions in the Umpqua Valley with both its annual shows — a spring concert in May at Centerstage on the campus of Umpqua Community College; and Twelfth Night, performed in early January as a coda to the holiday season.
"You still have the afterglow of Christmas, but at a much less stressful time," says Spicer of the latter concert, which the singers debuted in 1979 and was performed this year in early January at Roseburg First Presbyterian Church.
The Vintage Singers formed as the Umpqua Chamber Choral in 1978 under the direction of the late Stephen Biethan. In the early 1990s, the group performed at Carnegie Hall in New York City. In 2008 and 2011, the singers traveled to the International Choral Festival in Missoula, Mont.
Spicer describes the Missoula festival as akin to a weeklong choral Olympics, with concerts and performances at multiple venues throughout the area. Some members of the group have also had the opportunity to travel to Europe to tour with the Roseburg Concert Choral.
“When you make music with people you enjoy, it just keeps your batteries charged. It’s like a vitamin pill for your soul.” —Donna Spicer
Individual members typically are in it for the long term and represent a diversity of occupations. Singers are both older and younger and the group welcomes any adult willing to audition.
And, yes, there are auditions.
Spicer, retired Roseburg High music teacher, reviews candidates for their vocal range, pitch and overall vocal quality. Candidates need not read music, but Spicer says music literacy enables a singer to see beyond the notes, particularly when the group is singing in German, French, Italian, Spanish or another language, as it often does.
Director Donna Spicer leads the Vintage Singers
Keeping the vocal sections balanced is critical to the group's composition, however. That means even candidates who pass the audition might have to wait for a vacancy in their section.
Vintage Singers are part of the Umpqua Community College music department, which provides some funding, access to the college music library and the ability to call on the prodigious composing expertise of Jason Heald, the college's music director.
As a group, the singers are supportive of one another at both rehearsals and performances. Offstage, they’ve rallied around when a member or spouse has faced a medical issue or personal tragedy. Spicer says the group support is valuable.
“When you make music with people you enjoy, it just keeps your batteries charged,” she says. “It’s like a vitamin pill for your soul.”
Every Vintage Singers performance is designed to make the music touch the audience in such a way that it can be both heard and felt. It can be emotional for the performers, too. At the Twelfth Night performance this year, one member told Spicer of feeling goosebumps and becoming choked up during every concert.
“When you’ve rehearsed for three months, you only have one opportunity to make it come alive — to go beyond notes and diction and blend and interpretation to touch people deep in their souls,” Spicer says. “That’s why we do it. It’s transforming.”
