Thomas Beveridge, Artistic Director of New Dominion Chorale Photo by Shirley Ruhe.
Thomas Beveridge plays his first song he composed for piano at 10-years-old.By Shirley Ruhe
Tom Beveridge sits at his Steinway piano with sunlight filtering through the corner window. He has agreed to play his first composition for piano, composed when he was 10 years old.
Beveridge always knew what he wanted to do and now decades later he is still immersed in the classical music he learned from his father who was a professional organist and choirmaster at St. Paul’s at Columbia University in NYC. “I grew up playing piano with my father, probably started when I was five or six. I was a professional singer at the age of eight at the St. Thomas Church on 5th Avenue where I was a soprano soloist in the boy’s choir.”
He says he sang wherever he went to school and majored in music at Harvard where he was in the Glee Club. “I published music for women’s voices and chorale at the age of sixteen.” Now he has composed 700 works with half of them his originally created arrangements.
In 1960 Beveridge’s life took a different direction when he says he got what looked like a draft notice. “At that time most married people were exempt but then the Vietnam War hit, and that wasn’t true anymore. I sent the envelope back with address unknown written on the outside.” But he joined the Army to avoid the draft “and it was so amazing I spent 20 years.” He says, “Everybody thought I was crazy but it was such a nice job with the U.S. Army band. I got to write a lot of music and do a lot of professional singing.”
After the Army he lived in New Hampshire for a couple of years and then headed to D.C. where he filled a newly open position in the small McLean Chorale Society. “It was a non paying position but it was my introduction into this world. Then I moved 34 years ago to form the New Dominion Chorale.” And he hasn’t stopped since then.
In addition to the New Dominion Chorale for some years Beveridge explains he was doing six jobs at once including teaching voice, directing a chorale at George Mason University, serving as Chorus Master of the Washington National Opera. But now he is happy just focusing on one job as Artistic Director of the New Dominion Chorale. Beveridge says he has about 150 regular members of the group, and his programs feature professional soloists as well as contracted professional orchestras.
He explains the Chorale is run very nicely by a talented group of volunteers who comprise the Board and also sing in the group. Emily Roudebush, the current president, says it takes a lot of energy and a considerable amount of time to organize the rehearsal space, design the graphics for the advertising and maintain the website as well as ticket production and sales. But there is a dedicated group of volunteers.
Beveridge is busy finalizing the program for “Gloria, Gloria,” his Dec. 15 holiday concert at St. Luke’s Catholic Church in McLean where his group performs many of the three concerts they have every year with others performed at the Schlesinger Center in Alexandria. The program focuses on familiar music from Puccini’s Gloria to selections from Handel’s Messiah to familiar carols in new arrangements. “I don’t like to bore the audience.”
Beveridge says he generally starts formulating a program a year ahead of the performance. He explains, “I’m a total classicist. I don’t change my attitude over time. People come because they want to sing what I do, and they attend because they like to hear what I do.”
He comments that the group has really become a community who like to gather and talk at the rehearsals. Dave McCord, a resident of Arlington who has been singing with the New Dominion Chorale for 10 years says, “We talk about everything from fashion to sports. The breaks are probably the most fun.”
The New Dominion Chorale is a non-audition group. Beveridge says after Covid the participation has diminished a little and he has had difficulty finding bass voices. And also after Covid he no longer requires attendance at all weekly rehearsals. But it works. Beveridge says, “I find if people want to sing, they generally know how to sing.” He remembers with a smile that he did have to get rid of a couple of people.
“I had an enormous man with a big voice but he was a dyslexic singer. Whenever the note went up, he sang down. Finally the other members of the Chorale came to Beveridge and told him he had to do something about it. “I pulled him aside and offered to give him free private lessons but when I explained the dyslexia to him, he never came back.” And he remembers a woman who was a totally deaf soprano. “I would see her singing standing to the side of the group, and finally the group told me it just wasn’t working.”
Susan Dawson, an Alexandrian who sings with the group, says she has been singing in the area for 50 years. “We really needed a non-audition group like this in the area; so many people are competing with each other. This is just perfect.”
McCord says,”Having Tom as a composer himself is a plus. I am singing things I never dreamed I could sing. In all my dreams I never thought I would be able to sing Beethoven’s 5th. But it was great.”
AD Reilly, another longtime Chorale member from Arlington adds, “It’s extraordinary what dedicated non-professional singers can do with this kind of leadership.”
Beveridge says of all his compositions over the years, he hopes his legacy will be Yizkor Requiem, the oratorio which he wrote in 1993 as a memorial to his parents. It is a juxtaposition and intermingling of the Jewish and the Christian memorial traditions which are combined throughout the piece. The oratorio has been performed many times but perhaps the most prestigious is the recording by St. Neville’s Academy in the Fields in London conducted by Sir Neville Mariner.
Roudebush adds, “I really appreciate it is such a gift to work with Tom who does it all as a singer, composer and conductor. His pieces are challenging but so creative in emotional heart.” Rodebush says she joined in 2012 after her husband died, “and I wanted to sing again. A handful of people have been singing with the Choral since it began 34 years ago. That shows the level of commitment.”