Distaff Singers to dedicate concert to Oakland

Oakland Tribune, Oct 30, 2007

THE DISTAFF SINGERS, a community women's chorus 40 singers strong, will perform "A Tribute to Oakland" on Saturday at their annual concert in the Skyline High School auditorium. The 4 p.m. event is a benefit for the group's music education scholarship program.

On display in the auditorium lobby will be photos and programs of the group dating back to 1937, when they called themselves Mothersingers. First organized by moms and teachers affiliated with Bay Area PTA chapters, the chorus was led during its first years by longtime choral director Nancy Pauline Turner, a trained singer who enjoyed a statewide reputation. The history files say it was a time, right before the war, when community choruses of high caliber could be found in many towns and cities. The East Bay's Mothersingers group was among the best known.

Turner set the tone for the participants, who needed only a love of music and singing to belong, says current member Pat Bracewell, who is in the midst of final rehearsals for this year's concert. A local writer with a strong bent for historical subjects, Bracewell was impressed with the longevity of the singing group and has viewed the scrapbooks detailing the yearly concerts and the venues where the chorus has performed in the past. The original group numbered 200 and performed at hospitals, lodges, and nursing homes. Files indicate the group may be the oldest continuous community chorus in the East Bay.

"We currently rehearse in the multipurpose room at St. Theresa's School," Bracewell says.

The Distaff Singers last performed at Skyline in 1987. The singers have also performed at Woodminster Amphitheater, the Oakland Municipal Auditorium, Chapel of the Chimes, the Morcom Rose Garden, and Knowland Arboretum, to name a few.

A look at the scrapbooks reveals that Turner was an inspirational leader whose participation was tragically cut short when she was killed in a plane crash over San Francisco Bay in April 1953. Ida Altenbach, the group's accompanist, stepped in following the sudden loss of Mrs. Turner, and more than ably kept the ladies together, focusing on continuing to raise funds for musical education, the file say. Altenbach's tenure as director lasted 40 years.

In 1963, the group's name was changed to the Oakland Women's Chorus. In 1970 they became the Distaff Singers, suggesting, says Bracewell, a blending of voices the way threads are woven to make cloth.

The group's current director is Tina Harrington, a second- generation Oaklander with a music degree from UC Berkeley. She also teaches chorus at the College Preparatory School in Oakland.

"Tina, along with members of our board, selects the music we will do, and comes up with a theme for the concert," says Bracewell, who joined three years ago after seeing a notice in the newspaper that the group was seeking new members. "Our theme this year is Oakland. We are having quite a time incorporating 'all things Oakland' into the program. Several of the songs are set to familiar tunes, but with Oakland-related lyrics inserted."

One number, a vocal and dance tribute to such disparate places as Lake Merritt, Adams Point, Fairyland, Trestle Glen, Fruitvale, and the Port of Oakland, is performed in a catchy repetitive fugue format that must be seen to be appreciated.

Skyline High, this year's concert venue, is the city's sixth high school and was formally dedicated in December 1961. The search for the location of the 35-acre campus site took more than four years and started in 1957, the files say.

The school buildings, designed in the then-popular International Modernist style by the locally prominent Warnecke and Warnecke firm, cost more than $3 million to build. Father-and-son architects Carl I. Warnecke and John Warnecke were responsible for a number of other public buildings in the area during the 1950s and 1960s, including Oakland International Airport's Terminal 2 and the city's main library.

In 2002, Skyline's auditorium underwent extensive renovations, funded in part from contributions from actor (and Skyline alumnus) Tom Hanks. "We thought it would be appropriate to include a tribute to Mr. Hanks in the program," says Bracewell, who was asked to come up with the lyrics to that particular selection.

Examples of scholarships awarded by the group during the year include $1,500 to Oakland Youth Chorus and $1,000 to the Chipman Middle School Instrumental Music Department in Alameda. Previous awards have been made to Franklin elementary, Hawthorne elementary, Castlemont High and Archway School, all of Oakland.

For further information on the Distaff Singers, visit http:// www.distaffsingers.org. Tickets to the concert can be ordered through the Web site. Skyline High School is at 12250 Skyline Blvd. Tickets cost $15 for adults, $12 for students.