Wednesday, August 13, 2025

A shocker at center stage



It was my first spring concert with the Washington Men’s Camerata, at the famous Kennedy Center, no less. I was thrilled walking past signed portraits of famous celebrities who had appeared there over the years.

Two friends from California flew out to see my choral debut there in 2013, Carol Ann Garrick and Nancy Goebner. We posed for a photo at the huge statue of John F. Kennedy. Even our friend, former Sen. Larry Pressler, was there.

Dressed in tuxedos, about 30 to 40 of us enjoyed singing the music from Broadway shows—especially “Maria” from “West Side Story” with great high notes for us first tenors.

Then something even more memorable happened. Another first tenor, Rob Hennings, proposed to his girlfriend, Diana Jean McCord, on stage!

“I did not plan this in advance,” Rob told me last week. “But it was a perfect night. My parents were there, Diana’s parents were there, and I was surrounded by friends.”

The director was Frank Albinder, who could have been a stand-up comic in a second career. An avid Democrat, he would needle some of the Republican Party operatives in the group mercilessly without offending them. It was quite a balancing act.

At intermission, Rob asked the director if he would call Diana up from the audience so he could propose to her. “Frank immediately understood, and I think was excited and happy to call on her,” Rob said.

Diana was reluctant to leave her seat at first but finally yielded. “She is not the kind of person who likes a fuss made over her,” Rob said.

On stage, Rob knelt and took out a ring that he had thought he might use some day. He didn’t ask her directly but inquired if she wanted to start a family. Eventually, she said yes.

Talk about pressure!

The chorus broke into a song, “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” as the audience got more entertainment than it for.

On Jan. 4, 2014, the chorus, including me, sang at the couple’s wedding in Ridgewood, N.J. The couple has a daughter Evelyn, aged 10.

I thought of this terrific incident as I attended the Camerata’s annual sing-along in Washington last month. I had not talked to Rob in years but got ahold of him for this column.

At my first rehearsal, in 2012, I asked a first tenor standing next to me: “Which line are we supposed to sing?”

“Uh, the first line,” he said. “You’ve never sung in a men’s chorus before?”

No, I hadn’t. I may have been the only guy there who hadn’t been in a men’s college’ glee club.

They still existed, though so many had gone co-ed that they had donated their left-over sheet music to the Camerata library. It boasted of having the largest collection of men’s music in the country.

I loved being a first tenor because you got to sing the melody most of the time, just like sopranos.

When I left Washington for South Boston in 2020, the chorus was one of the things I missed most.

 




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