LI choral members rediscover the joy of singing in retirement

After three decades of leading the North Fork Chorale, Lois Ross has made it clear that neither time nor turmoil — like a broken pelvis in December — has made her consider putting down the conductor’s baton.

Ross, 82, has recovered and will once again lead the group, which was established in 1936 and she joined about 50 years ago, when it takes the stage at Southold First Presbyterian Church May 17. The chorale’s spring show will feature tunes such as “Be Our Guest” from “Beauty and the Beast” and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

“I would fight tooth and nail if someone tried to take my place,” Ross said minutes before a rehearsal last month. She will keep developing repertoire and shaping up her group “as long as I can stand up and wave my arms — and as long as I feel as though I still have something else to say. I haven’t run out of ideas yet.”

Ross and her fellow singers “who grew up singing in groups,” be it in school, church or elsewhere in the community, and continued that passion throughout their adult lives, are “a dying breed, literally,” she said. Chorale groups of all stripes are grappling with aging and dwindling ranks, including those whose members don traditional red-striped barbershop quartet outfits. Four decades ago, the national Barbershop Harmony Society counted around 36,000 members singing barbershop style music in affiliated chapters throughout the nation, including on Long Island, according to Brian Lynch, the organization’s public relations manager. Nowadays, the nonprofit has just over 14,000 singing members. 

Long Island’s singing groups tend to have far more singers in their 80s or 90s than those born in the '80s or '90s. While these folks are eager to hit the stage and share their love of the art with audiences wherever they find them, they said they often struggle to secure and retain younger recruits in the thick of professional and familial duties.

“Everybody is so busy these days,” Ross said. “The general person that I get who comes up and wants to join the group, the first words out of their mouth are, ‘I just retired and I always wanted to sing and I’ve never had time to do it before.’ ”

Classical or barbershop

Long Islanders eager to burst into song have the choice of two types of singing groups.

Groups like The North Fork Chorale or the Sayville-based Bay Area Friends of the Fine Arts Chorus sing in the Classical style. Their choruses welcome men and women and organize their singing parts as follows: sopranos up top singing the melody, followed by altos, tenors and basses. These singers are also accompanied by musical instrumentation. For Ross, this means a single piano accompaniment, while the Bay Area chorus is bolstered by a string arrangement or even by its entire symphony orchestra.

Nassau and Suffolk counties are also home to multiple a cappella barbershop singing groups. The second-highest voice, known as the lead, is tasked with belting the melody. The tenors above and baritones and basses below flesh out the sound. Members of these groups either sing as full choruses or in quartets.

Some groups are paid to perform at venues like nursing homes or libraries and occasionally larger outdoor festivals. Others host performances for their communities at churches.

“It’s heaven,” said Jim Johnson, a member of the Long Island Harmonizers, a Syosset-based chapter of the national Barbershop Harmony Society. “When you see the smiles on the people’s faces that we sing to, what’s better than that?”

‘It keeps us young’

As a Catholic school fourth grader desperate to get out of going to Mass, Johnson found salvation in the choir loft.

“I didn’t have to kneel, I didn’t have to pray,” said Johnson, 70, of Floral Park. “I was hanging out with my friends.”

Johnson said he felt “lost” before joining the Harmonizers two years ago. For two decades, his singing was confined to the car, as finding a chorus close enough to join while working and raising kids proved difficult.

“I joined one in Queens 25 years ago, and they disbanded because they couldn’t find members,” he recalled.

Johnson’s predicament was hardly isolated. His fellow crooners remembered a Southampton chapter that folded around 20 years ago. In the '80s the national Barbershop Harmony Society counted around 820 chapters, according to Lynch. That figure has dwindled to around 590.

For many who sing, the disbandment of their group would mean much more than the loss of a creative outlet.

“It gives you purpose, it gives you motivation, it keeps your mind really busy,” said David Lance, who has sung with The Harbormen Chorus, a Selden-based chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society, for nearly 20 years. “It keeps us young. It keeps us active.”

“We’re close-knit;, we take care of one another, take care of each other’s families,” added Lance, 78, of East Setauket. “One member might pass away, we always sing for their services.”

Finding the time

Lance said his group and many other singing groups across Long Island find their ranks loaded with older members “because we’re retired, we have the time.”

Younger folks typically have an on-again, off-again love affair with singing, members said. Time for their hobbies and passions elude them while working, raising children or caring for aging relatives.

“I didn’t sing for a number of years when I was teaching because frankly, there was no time,” said Donna Smosky, 77, of Coram and the president of the Bay Area arts group for the past two years. She joined the group 22 years ago. “I was delighted when I retired and had time to start to sing again, and little by little I got more involved with BAFFA.”

After around a decade singing with the The Island Hills Chorus, a Hauppauge-based chapter of Sweet Adelines International, composed of women’s barbershop groups throughout the United States and Canada, Laura Riffaud needed time away to care for her children. She still remembers the bond she shared with the women 10 to 30 years her senior in her quartet.

“It was so wonderful to have those multigenerational friendships,” Riffaud, 64, of Huntington, recalled. “You get very close to your quartet members. It’s an emotional relationship.”

Riffaud said she never lost touch with her “best gals” and returned to The Island Hills Chorus a decade ago. She is currently the group’s director.

“I think singing is an extremely emotional experience, and when you make music with someone, there is really love involved,” Riffaud said. “It’s so unifying and there’s such a sense of beauty when you create something together.”

Recruiting members

Many singing organizations pine for younger members looking to perform and take the reins of their organizations. While the national Barbershop Harmony Society reported a steady recoup of members since 2022, the Long Island chapters cannot say the same.

“They stayed away because of COVID and then they never transitioned back,” Johnson said.

“They moved to Florida,” added Mike Stoltz, a member of The Harbormen. The Long Island Harmonizers and The Harbormen decided that with membership down, they would join forces for recruitment drives and other events.

Because barbershop groups grew steadily for so many decades after World War II, “recruiting wasn’t part of what the organization did,” Stoltz, 69, of Smithtown, said. “It was word-of-mouth.”

Attracting young people to barbershop is particularly difficult, as they may find it “corny,” Johnson said. But the task is not impossible.

To shore up its ranks, the Barbershop Harmony Society has allowed women to join since 2018. The Long Island Harmonizers found their first — and so far only — female singer in the form of Johnson’s daughter. In recent weeks, The Harbormen decided to follow the Harmonizers’ lead and are pursuing female recruits.

“It’s so unique, and very few people do it,” Johnson said of barbershop music. “It’s a dying breed that we’re trying to keep alive. It’s part of America. We’re trying to carry it on forever.”

Some groups, like BAFFA and the North Fork Chorale, still do not feel the need to actively hunt for new members. When Ross or Smosky stumble across someone who they discover has a passion for song, they point them toward their troupe.

“We’re not worried about it dying out because we’re doing well and we’re growing,” said Smosky. “We just hope to keep attracting.”

As long as new recruits continue to show up, the North Fork Chorale should celebrate its centennial in 2036 and — if they are lucky — more milestones in the future.

“Why not?” Ross asked rhetorically, adding “I don’t think I’ll make it to 100 years and beyond,” with a laugh. “Maybe if somebody younger took over.”