Every year there are many people who thoughtfully donate their time, talents, and treasure to the Chorale in many ways. We have office volunteers, event production volunteers, volunteer Board members, volunteer action committee members, donations of services in-kind, plus all of our singers who are volunteers. Our singers give over 25,000 accumulated volunteer hours annually in rehearsal and performance time alone (that doesn't include their drive-time which is also quite significant).  They come from all over the Tampa Bay Area, from as far North as Crystal River and Gainsville, South to Venice, East to Orlando, and of course West to St. Petersburg and everywhere in-between. Their backgrounds are diverse from students, to lawyers, to doctors and school bus drivers, teachers and professional singers, police officers and military servicemen and women, all with a profound commitment to artistic excellence and the creation of great choral music. Their contributions are stunning and we are deeply grateful for each and every one of them.

This year, at our Member Appreciation Event on Saturday (June 10), we were pleased to recognize a handful of members that truly stood out this season.

Please join us in thanking the following individuals for their priceless contributions in support of The Master Chorale's mission: Advancing the art of choral music by performing great works of the past, commissioning and performing new literature and sharing the joy and power of choral music with new and existing audiences and singers.

Tracy T. Tringali
​Principal  |  Taylor White Professional Placement & Consulting

One of our great achievements this year was hiring Tom Barker as our Development Director and Tracy was instrumental in that search process with her expert professional executive placement experience. Tom's position is critical in our organization's growth. Tracy's name will be listed on our Board Member of the Season perpetual plaque in The Master Chorale's office.​
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Tracy is a singer in the Chorale and has developed a top notch reputation in the Tampa Bay business community throughout her 25 years in the area. She is an Accounting graduate of the University of Illinois, and was a practicing CPA in both Illinois and Florida prior to her entry to the executive recruitment industry in 1989.

Tracy worked with a large Tampa-based national search firm before launching her own successful executive placement firm. She focused on accounting and finance permanent placement and interim consulting support, contract recruiting, and retained search in various disciplines, including human resources, marketing, and operations. She has been lauded for her quality career coaching, as well as professional resume writing services.
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Tracy is a graduate of Tampa Connection, and has held numerous leadership positions with Plant High School PTSA, Coleman Middle School PTSA and Mabry Elementary PTA. Tracy loves people and music, and is a member of the auditioned Master Chorale of Tampa Bay, which performs with The Florida Orchestra.

Brian was recognized for outstanding service in writing and research.  He has spent countless hours writing thoughtful "From the Risers" blogs for the Chorale, creating engaging content and stories to go along with our major masterwork performances.  He also spent many hours of research in support of our Artistic Director search committee as one of our singer representatives.  Brian's name will appear on our Volunteer of the Season perpetual plaque in The Master Chorale's office.

​Brian has been a singer in the Chorale for over 10 years and is a retired expert in quality control and operations management, having worked for companies such as Mosaic, Sparton Electronics, and Coca Cola, to name a few. He is an experienced executive with extensive leadership and management experience.

Craig was recognized for his outstanding service in the creation of marketing and fundraising video content as well as photography for our youth initiative and other community events such as our BIG SING.  Craig is always making wonderful connections with people and is always a positive force for the Chorale.  You can see a sampling of Craig's work supporting the Chorale here... and here... and we ALWAYS appreciate his excellent sense of humor, an example of which you can see here.

Craig has been a singer in the Chorale for over three years and is a highly qualified broker for buyers and sellers of commercial and residential properties for RE/MAX. 

Deah McReynolds has been our Ensemble Singers and Education/Outreach Conductor as well as our Soprano Section Leader this season.  Deah is also the Artistic Director of Lumina Youth Choirs, offering passionate young singers the opportunity to explore and experience the power of music in their lives.

Deah was recognized as our MVP of the Season for her outstanding artistic leadership in outreach and education, particularly in support of our new Youth Initiative. Deah created the curriculum and led our outreach singers in 11 in-school music education presentations in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties for nearly 700 2nd-5th graders in Title I public schools.  She also programmed and partnered with our guest conductor Doreen Rao and brought her Lumina Youth Choir singers along to present an interactive student concert with our Ensemble Singers for elementary students at the Palladium Theater in St. Petersburg. Together these youth initiative events reached a highly diverse group of nearly 1,000 children. David Tagliarini, Pinellas County Performing Arts Staff Developer had this to say about the in-school presentations: "...there was a perfect balance of performance, entertainment, engagement, and education – a difficult balance to pull off!"

You can read more about The Master Chorale's Youth Initiative here.

Deah also programmed and led our Ensemble Singers in our very first BIG SING (where the audience is the choir) presented in downtown Tampa at the Portico as part of Tampa's Fourth Friday events on April 28th. Keep an eye out for future events like these!

Deah did a wonderful job conducting and leading our Ensemble Singers through our Making Spirits Bright concerts and our special performance of The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses with The Florida Orchestra.  

We are incredibly grateful for Deah's expertise, grace, and naturally gifted musicianship.

​The Master Chorale's 39th season includes four powerful concert collaborations with The Florida Orchestra, an inspiring educational program that will engage more than 1,000 students in Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties, and engaging community sing events. Performances with The Florida Orchestra will include Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana," Handel's "Messiah," Verdi's "Requiem," and a Celebrate Broadway concert series. 

Stay tuned for our full schedule announcement and information about our Summer Sing and Master Chorale Auditions, both taking place at the University of South Florida School of Music later this summer.

by Brian Hathaway

​Yes, Mahler is in the middle, book-ended by two Requiems.  The first is Maurice Durufle’s Requiem, a flowing piece of music based upon Gregorian chant.  The Master Chorale just completed a series of concerts with The Florida Orchestra featuring this French gem, an intimate work of about 40 minutes’ duration. 
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The second bookend is Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem, a work of considerable scope and drama written by Verdi primarily as a concert piece to honor his friend, poet Alessandro Manzoni on the first anniversary of his death.  It is dramatic and grand in scope with a performance duration of about 85 minutes.  The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay will perform this work on April 23rd in Sarasota with Gloria Musicae and the Sarasota Orchestra.

​​In the middle, we have Mahler in a work of no small proportion.  I have three recordings of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 ("Resurrection"), and they all have performance durations of about 90 minutes.  The choral portion comprises about 16 minutes at the end of movement 5, but heavens, what music it is!  We will perform Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with The Florida Orchestra in only three weeks, on March 17-19.

It was several years later that I got a copy of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2.  The experience literally blew me away and quickly became one of my favorite symphonic works.  The lyrics, first encountered in “Urlicht”, another song taken from “Das Knaben Wunderhorn” in movement 4 pulled at my emotions: “O red Rose!  Man lies in direst need!  Man lies in deepest pain!  I would rather be in heaven!”  The Alto solo was in stark contrast to the power of the orchestra and caused a sense of peace to wash over me.

However, it was the fifth movement that held me transfixed, with a quiet choral entrance that builds to a final powerful climax.  As I read the lyrics from Friedrich Klopstock’s poem while I listened I found they spoke to my soul.  “What has come into being must perish!  What perished must rise again!”  I was so profoundly affected by these lyrics with their message of hope that I read them as part of the eulogy at my father’s funeral when he passed away in 2006.

​Now eight years after my first experience singing Mahler’s Second, I can approach it with the special joy that comes from combining with The Florida Orchestra and my colleagues in The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay to create a truly unforgettable musical experience.

by Brian Hathaway

by Brian Hathaway

​This is a tale of three friends named Mike, Brian and Ludwig.  It is a tale that transcends time and space, a tale of mortality and immortality.  It is a tale of things that last and things that don’t, of joy and sorrow, but mostly it is about friendship through music.  Let me start at the beginning.
 
I had just graduated from high school and as a boy from upstate New York was faced with changes my life.  For the first time in my life, I was going to be away from home for an extended period of time as I began my freshman year at the SUNY at Buffalo.  At the same time, my friend, Mike Debatt was facing a similar situation.  The boy from Brooklyn was away from home too as a part of that same freshman class.  We met each other when we joined the AFROTC Program.  As classmates, we got to know each other well and discovered that our interests intersected in many ways.  We both ended up as Political Science majors, and we both loved classical music.  Within two years we were roommates in an apartment near school.
 
As we shared that apartment, we also shared our interest in music.  Even with our meager resources as college students, we grew our collection of classical albums.  The real cherished albums were produced by either Angel Records or Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft, or DGG.  They usually had the finest orchestras and the greatest selection of repertoire.  Among the many composers we listened to, one of our favorites was Ludwig van Beethoven.  There were times when the three of us would gather in that apartment, Ludwig, Mike and me, sharing in some of the greatest music of the last two centuries.
 
In 1970, the focus on Ludwig van Beethoven became quite intense, as Beethoven’s 200th birthday would fall on December 16th, 1970.  I was always able to remember Ludwig’s birthday, as mine was one day earlier on December 15th.  On that day, we all gathered in the apartment and I was given several gifts to open.  I will never forget Mike’s gift.  It was a DGG boxed set of Beethoven’s nine symphonies, performed by the Berlin Philharmonic.  I was ecstatic! Beethoven’s birthday was going to be very special that year.
 
We spent many hours listening to that wonderful set.  Beethoven’s famous symphonies like the “Eroica”, the “Pastoral” and his monumental 5th were a joy to hear, articulated by one of the great Beethoven interpreters of that age, Herbert von Karajan.  Of all these symphonies, one stood out above all others, Beethoven’s 9th.  In a stroke of genius, Beethoven included a choral finale in the fourth movement based upon Schiller’s poem “An die Freude” or “Ode to Joy”.  The joining of orchestral and choral voices during the finale was a revolutionary step, but the product is simply amazing and unforgettable.  Ludwig, Mike and I became fast friends, cemented in a common love of Ludwig’s amazing 9th.
 
In less than two years, our friendship entered a new phase.  We graduated from college, accepted our USAF commissions and went to different parts of the country.  Mike went to Navigator Training in California.  I went off to Illinois to Aircraft Maintenance Officer Training.  In a way our lives intersected again, as we both ended up in the Strategic Air Command, Mike as a B-52 crew member in Georgia, and I as a Maintenance Officer in New Hampshire.  We still got together on a few occasions.  He was in my wedding party and I was in his.  We maintained contact with letters and phone calls as time went on.  We both ended up separating from the USAF and moved into civilian jobs.  Mike moved to Rhode Island and went into the investment community.  I moved to Saratoga Springs, New York and went into manufacturing.
 
Living in Saratoga had a neat benefit.  The Saratoga Performing Arts Center was only four miles from my home and was the summer home of the New York City Ballet and the Philadelphia Orchestra.  While there I had the chance to visit our friend Ludwig.  The Philadelphia Orchestra was performing Beethoven’s 9th!  I had never seen Beethoven’s 9th performed live and couldn’t wait to go to the concert.  What an experience!  As I sat on the lawn on a gorgeous summer night, I looked at the heavens above me while I was transcended by Schiller’s words and Beethoven’s music; “Ahnest du den Schopfer, Welt?  Such ihn uber’m Sternenzelt.  Uber Sternen muss ehr wohnen.”  Yes, I felt the creator, knowing that He dwelt beyond the stars.  O Freude, what joy!
 
As the years went by, our respective lives changed yet again.  I moved to Florida many years ago and began feeding my love of music by joining our church choir and singing.  Mike moved into management with his company and accepted a position as Branch Manager in Albany, New York, my hometown.  We had an opportunity to visit while we were on vacation in New York about fifteen years ago and had a chance to reminisce and share our friendship.
 
In 2005, I had yet another opportunity to visit with Ludwig.  The Florida Orchestra and The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay were performing Beethoven’s 9th.  Lynn and I went to the concert and savored that wonderful music yet again, but with a slightly different feeling as we knew several of the orchestra members and had friends who sang in the Master Chorale.  During that concert, I told myself that, should my schedule permit, I would love to be a part of the Chorale.
 
In late 2005, the lives of Mike and I intersected again.  Mike had been diagnosed with a brain tumor.  As he and his wife Jan sought treatment from doctors throughout the northeast, they were given the news that the tumor was inoperable.  They came to the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, where surgeons felt that they may be able to excise the tumor and offer Mike a chance to recover.  The surgery was scheduled for November.  Mike and I made tentative plans to meet for dinner once the surgery was complete.  Unfortunately, the surgery did not go as planned and complications set in.  The next time I saw Mike at Moffitt, he was in a coma from which he would not recover.  I did my best to support Jan and her family as she faced difficult decisions.  Mike was placed in a hospice facility in Dade City.  I made several trips to the Hospice to see Mike.  My last trip was the night before he passed away in January, 2006.
 
A year later in April, 2007, we all returned to the Dade City Hospice for a reunion.  Mike’s family had made a donation to the facility and was awarded a plaque to honor their contribution.  Lynn and I went to the reunion, where we met Mike’s former B-52 crew.  I decided to honor Mike by singing a song called “Eternal Father Strong to Save”, which asks help from God in caring for those in the military.  We all shared our memories of Mike, and I recounted the story of the Beethoven boxed set he gave to me which I still own and treasure.
 
In August of 2007, I learned that The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay was holding auditions for new singers.  Since my work schedule had changed and would permit me to attend rehearsals, I signed up to audition.  We were told to bring a favorite song to sing as part of the audition.  I selected “Eternal Father, Strong to Save”.  I was pleasantly surprised to hear from the Master Chorale that I passed the audition and was now a member of the ensemble. 
 
At the end of my third year in the Chorale, I learned that we were scheduled to perform Beethoven’s 9th in 2011.  Once again, I was ecstatic.  I would now have the opportunity to become even more intimate with Ludwig’s beloved 9th.  Since then I have had the honor of performing Beethoven’s 9th two more times, once with The Florida orchestra and once with the Cleveland Orchestra in Miami.
 
Oh, by the way, the last building I see before I turn into the USF School of Music parking lot on the way to Master Chorale rehearsal each week is the Moffitt Cancer Center.  Having spent so many hours there visiting Mike, I think of him every time I see it.
 
This week, we are in final rehearsal for the opening concert of The Florida Orchestra’s 2016-2017 season, featuring Poulenc’s “Gloria” and Beethoven’s beloved 9th Symphony.  150 voices are prepared to join with the Florida Orchestra and soloists as we put life into the notes printed on a page.  Under Maestro Michael Francis’ direction, we will combine our preparation with Dr. James K. Bass and Brett Karlin to create a memorable event for all in attendance to hear. 
 
I know it will be both memorable and emotional for me.  As I stand on the risers, my mind will go back to that apartment in Buffalo, the DGG boxed set, and a pair of friendships going back more than forty years.  Ludwig went on to be with the Creator centuries ago.  Ten years ago, Mike joined him.  I know that they are both watching and will be at that performance with all of us on that stage.
 
As for me, I will sing for Mike:  “Einem Freund gepruft im Tod”

by Brian Hathaway