Lifetime Achievement Award
The No Nonsense Original — Sylvia Alsbury

By Maggie Ryan, Greater Harrisburg Chorus, Region 19

She is an icon, and an iconoclast. A rebel, and a traditionalist. A collector, and a minimalist. A survivor, prankster, technician and artist. Since the day “Dorothy What’s-Her-Name” finally hauled her into a rehearsal, Sylvia Alsbury has focused her laser-like intellect and razor-sharp wit upon Sweet Adelines International and etched her name into its past, present and future. She’s done it with a laugh and a long, ironic look, squeezing it all between fishing, casinos and bottles of red wine.

The 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award winner is a certifiable original from her spiky gray hair to the striking turquoise necklace that she ruefully admits “began life as a belt.” She has touched every aspect of Sweet Adelines International as a judge, arranger, director, performer, coach and mentor. Across the a cappella spectrum, Sylvia’s influence is as relevant today as it was nearly 50 years ago when she heard her first four-part chord and thought

“This is where I belong. I’ll devote my life to this.”

Sylvia, who didn’t find Sweet Adelines until she was 29, was a piano major at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, laying the groundwork for the innovative and extensive portfolio of arrangements she continues to produce. Along the way she obtained her Master’s in geriatric counseling from the University of Colorado, and found her professional niche in the 1970s and ’80s.

“I worked with crazy old people,” she said with a laugh. “A few of those techniques have come in handy with Sweet Adelines.”

She started with quartets, including a successful run in the AQUATONES in the early 1960s. “We did extremely well,” she said. “We were fifth, fourth, third and second at International and we were ready to go to Houston and win [in 1966], and then my (now ex-) husband got a job in Boulder and that was that. I had kids and a family, and I wouldn’t give that up for anything.

“[The AQUATONES] had a reunion in Boise, Idaho, not long ago,” she said. “We hadn’t seen each other since the breakup in ’65 – almost 50 years. It was extraordinary. One of the husbands made a DVD of our two albums – remember when we called them albums? – and we told ourselves we would have won and how fabulous we were. And it was such [nonsense].”

If there is one characteristic that sets Sylvia immediately apart, it is her nonsense-detecting radar. Whether telling it like it is on judging score sheets (“Ohhhh, you almost had it. But if it’s not there, it’s just not there …”), or her wince-inducing appraisals of the occasionally lifeless performer (“Zzzzzzz …”), Sylvia can be counted on to cut through feel-good platitudes that too often pass for honesty.

But candor alone doesn’t make you beloved. More likely, it will make you lonely. Sylvia’s gift is diluting her frankness with a charming dose of self-deprecating humor.

“Years ago I was making these vocalese tapes, you know, exercises for the voice, and I had this Springer spaniel named Scruffy Ann. I was doing one of those ‘yah-hoo-yah-hoo-yah-hoo’ exercises and Scruffy Ann decided to join in. So people got ‘yah-hoo (howl), ya-hoo (howl) …on their tapes. I just left her on.”

Sylvia, alongside co-director Julie Haller, led High Country Chorus to International gold in 1980. She arrived in Boulder, Colo., in the mid-‘60s to find the tiny Continental Chorus teetering on the edge of extinction. Nancy Bergman paved her way, urging the chapter not to disintegrate before Sylvia had a crack at them.

“At my first rehearsal there were 11 of them,” Sylvia said. “One of me, and maybe three of every part. That was the beginning of High Country.”

High Country, the result of a merger that included Continental Chorus, flourished under Sylvia and Julie’s leadership. Co-directing, still not often seen, was really a foreign concept in the ‘80s. That makes it perfectly, utterly Sylvia.

“My first melanoma came along and I needed help,” Sylvia said. “Julie came out of Continental Chorus and it just worked out very well. We were the first co-directors to win [International]. We shared directing on the same song. I’d do the intro, she’d come in and do the middle, and I’d do the tag. It was choreographed by Jim Massey and it really was something special. It was ahead of its time.”

Gold medal in hand and at the height of her directing career, Sylvia stepped out of the spotlight and back onto the risers.

“She made the transition gracefully,” said Kim Hulbert, San Diego Chorus master director. “She chose her successor, trained her, and sang for her. It was lovely.”

High Country’s legacy ensured, Sylvia left Colorado and moved to the desert. “I had done it,” she said. “I was 50, my kids were out of school and I hated the snow. I moved to Tucson, Ariz. – hot, dry, brown and sparse; my idea of heaven.”

There, she moved into a new phase in her life, a phase that would see dramatic changes for all of Sweet Adelines.

“When she moved into Region 21, she became an integral part of why 21 is the region it is today,” said Kim. “Sylvia, with Bev Sellers and Nancy Bergman, changed the direction of Sweet Adelines. Everything became education-oriented. It became ‘let’s train people to sing good barbershop.’”

Now age 77 (“I went from ‘76 Trombones’ to ‘77 Sunset Strip’”), Sylvia’s restive nature still pushes her out of the mainstream. Her prolific arranging career continues to produce music that Kim calls “iconic, highly singable and intelligent, because the potential for overtones in female voices is always present.”

Such a lofty appraisal might light up Sylvia’s nonsense detector, even though she knows the compliment is sincere. While she’s proud to be an arranger and feels good about its future in Sweet Adelines, she is highly unlikely to describe the process in messianic terms.

“You hear a song and you think, ‘I could hear that with the 11 chords I’m allowed to use [in barbershop]’,” she said. “I put the melody in first and if I feel no one is going to be embarrassed if I sing it, I start.

“A lot of times I rip the whole thing up and toss it in the waste basket. You can only spend so much time trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”

Sylvia’s true love, though, is coaching, especially small choruses. Nearly every summer she offers “Sylvia Alsbury’s half-price small chorus coaching sale.” She contacts directors and builds an itinerary that will take her from town to town for several weeks. In years past she traveled in a motor home, truly a barbershop gypsy. Today she prefers to bunk with chorus members.

“I’m gone about three weeks and I meet a lot of people, and a lot of them become regular clients,” she said. “I love to stay in people’s houses and meet their families. I just love it. They ask me what I want when I visit and I always say a bottle –not a box– of red wine. And for heaven’s sake, don’t put it in the refrigerator.”

Chances are, she’s already making plans for the summer of 2008.

“I didn’t go out last summer,” she said, “and I got bored and poor.”

Small choruses, Sylvia says, have invigorated her as a coach and educator. “My life has been changed because of my work with small choruses,” she said. “It’s a whole different kettle of fish.
“You can’t depend on volume like you can with a large chorus,” she said. “You have to depend on individual talent to make the chorus succeed. The rewards are different, but equal, to directing or coaching a large chorus looking for an International championship. A small chorus gets third place and they think it’s the greatest thing ever.”

It is the rare person who can look inside a person and find her reality. Sylvia has that soul-seeking third eye, and she has trained it on countless Sweet Adelines for nearly 50 years. The results have been nothing less than spectacular.

“A long, long time ago when I was new to Sweet Adelines, she changed my life,” said Kathy Carmody, former International president. “Her legacy will be a lifetime of helping people believe they can do what they think they can’t, and to do it without fear. They can just go forth.”

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