Apollo Club
Apollo Club marks 100th birthday with a concert for the ages
By Jefferson Robbins
Wenatchee World staff writer
Thursday, May 13, 2010
There’s an Apollo Club of Boston, formed in 1871, and the Apollo Club of Chicago, born a year later. There’s one in Minneapolis that’s 114 years old, and Apollo Clubs in Brisbane, Australia, and Marske-By-the-Sea, England, that are 125 and 122 years old respectively.
“There’s another one in London that’s only about 67 years old,” said Bill Patrick, 78, a longtime East Wenatchee, Washington math teacher. “They were workers in a de Havilland Aircraft factory, and they decided to make a choir out of it. They’re spring chickens.”
The Wenatchee Apollo Club, in which Patrick has sung off and on since 1960, enters the triple-digit ranks this year. Founded in 1910, the male chorus has serenaded NCW and the wider Northwest almost continuously ever since. The group celebrates its centennial Saturday at the Wenatchee High School auditorium, closing out its season with its annual “Home” concert.
There’s no relation between the Wenatchee club and choirs elsewhere with similar names. “Apollo,” for the Greek god of music, art and medicine, was a popular handle for men’s choirs in the late 19th century and after. The Reverend F. Stuart Hyatt, then pastor of the Wenatchee Episcopal Church, selected the name when he founded the choir with its 13 charter members, and directed it for just a year before relocating to Florida.
The baton passed through 22 directors across the decades, with a pause during World War II, before it came to rest with orchardist Tim Meyer, the current leader. Meyer had already headed church choirs throughout the valley when he was invited to take the reins in 2005, but he felt the weight of history.
“As far as standing in front of a group of singers and leading them, it wasn’t a case of not knowing what to do,” he said. “It was just a case of going before a group of gentlemen that all happen to be about the same age as your father, and telling them, ‘I know how you should sing this song.’”
The Apollo Club is light on regimentation, though. None of the singers are trained performers, although their accompanist for the last nine years, Terri Rappé, teaches music professionally. Anyone is welcome at their Tuesday rehearsals, which start up each September. Meyer, who studied music at Wenatchee Valley College under Dick Lapo, likes to assess newcomers’ vocal range by asking them to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
“You’ll find a guy that sings bass in the first three notes, because he’ll either resonate, or you’ll hear him going aaagghhh,” Meyer said. “... The end of the song is way up there, and you’ll see the guys who can do that effortlessly, and for other guys, it’s really a stretch. In just a few sentences, you can find where a guy needs to sing.”
The choir’s longevity may rest with its directors. After Hyatt’s first season, O.B. Brown steered the choir from 1911 to 1927. Arthur Newman and Harold Smith revived the group after its World War II dormancy, and local music educators like Earl Norwood, Lapo, Gene Huber and Dan Jackson took it on at various points in subsequent decades. Ed Sand led the group for 36 out of the last 50 years, including a 15-year stint from 1990 to 2005, and remains active as a member.
“In my opinion, Apollo Club exists today because of Ed Sand,” Meyer said. “... Forty years is a long time to have that kind of commitment.”
Some of the rank-and-file singers have committed for even longer periods. Gerald Christie, the longest-singing member, first raised his voice with the choir in 1948, not long after his service in World War II earned him a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. Choir membership expanded and contracted over the years; in Meyer’s term, participation has grown from roughly 48 singers to 70 this year.
Neither the Apollo Club’s membership nor its age might have grown so high without the fellowship it offers.
“I can feel down in the dumps during the day, and I go into practice and I’m higher than a kite,” Patrick said.
“Whatever stresses are in your life sort of go by the wayside, because it’s really sort of hard to be actively singing and still carrying a burden, whatever it is,” Meyer said. “... Gentlemen making good friendships when they get together, and the joy of just opening up and making some music — it’s really just that simple.”
Members
John Richard Nichols, 1911, 1917.