Reading Community Singers Celebrate 100 Years

READING, MA — More than any story you read today, this one should sing. The sentences below are about a group that has been performing since the days when Babe Ruth still played for the Red Sox. One hundred years of song. And not just one voice, belting out the hits while in the shower. This is all about the 100-plus members of the Reading Community Singers, the oldest continuously operating non-audition chorus in the country.

"Ultimately, it's about the joy of singing in a group," said Mark Taitz, president of the Reading Community Singers (RCS). "We can all sing alone in the shower but having a group of like-minded people together, singing under direction and trying to improve your singing ability has a certain attraction for people. I've been singing for 26-27 years, some people have been singing for 40. They just keep coming back because they enjoy singing."

The Reading Community Singers are celebrating their 100th year of performing. The group started in 1919 as the Reading Women's Club Choral Class and at least in name, has been shrinking ever since. In 1937 it became the Reading Women's Choral Class, and in 1971 became the Reading Choral Society. When men were added to their roster in 1995, they became the Reading Community Singers.

The group has performed the national anthem at Gillette Stadium, and in a trip to New York City they sang at the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building and even on the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid. This summer the group will perform in New Orleans. But their base is Reading and they sing at town events like the annual Tree Lighting Ceremony and Martin Luther King Day. On May 18 RCS will perform its Spring Concert at Reading Memorial High School and on June 1 will sing with the Reading Symphony Orchestra as part of the town's 375th birthday celebration. In total, the group performs 10–12 concerts a year, some with its full roster, others with a smaller group.

It's a history worth a party, and Saturday in Danvers they'll gather for their Centennial Celebration Gala with song, dance, and plenty of fun.

Fun is a word you hear a lot.

"It has to be fun and we're blessed with a music director, Beth Mosier, who's been doing this now for 15 years and [accompanist] Joe Beninati, who make it fun," said Taitz. "They not only make it fun but they get the best out of the group.

"Practice is fun. We really do have a lot of laughs. It's serious, I mean we're trying to get a great result, but we're also have enough time to have fun and Beth is a lot of fun. She has a lot of energy. She makes it fun, but it's work."

The group covers all ages, from RMHS senior Antonio Ruiz-Nokes to Alice Webb, whose 80-plus years includes almost four decades with the group. Singers come from 31 towns with 77 women and 31 men. This isn't just a informal group that gets together to belt out a few songs. A non-profit 501c organization, they have a six-member board of directors with meetings, minutes, bank accounts, a scholarship (won by Ruiz-Nokes), a website, and a book.

A book?

Karen German has been a member of the group for 24 years, signing up at an open house held at the Reading Public Library in 1995. With the Centennial Celebration drawing near, the group's historian was "burning the mid-night oil" to finish their book. It's a 50-page look back at the 100-year history of the Reading Community Singers. Using old newspapers, meeting minutes, pictures, and scrapbooks, German and her committee has compiled what resembles a mini-history of Reading.

"It is,"said German. "We're going through all the history materials with a fine tooth comb because its never been done before. As a team, we just love what we're doing."

The book, like the singing, has been fun from the start. It's also shown the determination of the members.

"Absolutely, it's always been enjoyable," said German, who noted copies of the book will be donated to the library. "And we've been through some rough times in the last 24 years, economically, membership wise, and personnel wise in one or two cases, but we're still here. When I hope you read the book you'll discover we were on the brink of extinction numerous times and the Chorus always found a way out of it."

Can you sing? If you're being honest the answer is probably no. But that doesn't mean you can't join the group.

"There are no auditions for our chorus," said German. "We have varying degrees of abilities in music. Some people don't read music at all. Other people are quite adept at it. We have different degrees of singing ability. Some people are a little tone deaf and a little out of pitch, but they're welcome. Ideally, if you can carry a tune in a hand basket you can join the group. If you can't, you blend in, don't worry. There are over 100 of us in the house."

Music isn't the only thing that matters to German.

"It's the camaraderie, and the friendship, as well as the music that's so important. Right now we have the nicest group of people I've ever sung with. Personalities, and their willingness to volunteer ... if we need something done, boom, hands go up. It's just remarkable. When I joined, it was like pulling hen's teeth. Right now it's kind of like the golden age of the group. We're enjoying the volunteerism, the camaraderie, and the friendship."

Behind the group's success is Mosier, the Musical Director for the past 15 years, and Beninati, a Reading High grad who lives in Stoneham. When Mosier started in 2004 there were less than 30 singers. Today there are 108 full-time members.

Mosier was born in Malden but spent 33 years in Wakefield before moving to Reading three years ago. She was the Music Director at the The Unitarian Universalist Church of Reading and after the previous RCS director left, Mosier stepped in.

Among her duties, Mosier orders and designs sets and costumes, hires and schedules band members, helps with fundraisers, advises the board, hires guest artists, and assists with the scholarship program. Five minutes after starting her list she said, "That's a piece of what I do."

You'd think that directing 100-plus reasonably mature adults would be the easy part. Not so.

"Actually older is harder, honestly," said Mosier, who taught public school music for 38 years. "They're adults so they don't quite like to be totally instructed as to what to do. But I'm used to directing big groups."

As for the fun, Mosier agrees with her singers.

"Rehearsal time is just a blast. It really is fun for me. If you chose the music correctly and you teach it correctly, it's just so much fun."

That fun goes back 100 years.

"It's just a beautiful group," said German.

So what do you think? How did the story sound?