EDGEWATER – “Besame, besame mucho/Love me forever and make all my dreams come true.”
A pause followed the final note. Carol Siegler, the director and self-described “dictator” standing among the seated singers, was silent as she contemplated her thoughts on the performance.
“If they were doing this on ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ they’d put a little more drama in it, and it would be a little bit faster,” she said. “So let’s take it a little faster and put a little more sex in it, come on.”
Lead by Director Carol Siegler, Music Makers practice their songs at a recent rehearsal. (Photo by Chris LaPelusa/Sun Day)
A couple of singers giggled at these instructions and hunched toward each other.
“What’d she say?” asked the first.
“Sex,” the other confirmed.
And so Edgewater’s Music Makers, a singing group made primarily of amateurs, proceeded to belt out an encore of “Besame Mucho,” doing their best to speed it up and add in more sensuality.
The music makers sing “Besame Mucho” at a recent rehearsal. (Photo by Chris LaPelusa/Sun Day)
The Music Makers were practicing for their upcoming show at the Oak Crest apartments for seniors in Elgin. The group performs at senior centers and nursing homes about once every month.
The intention is for the residents of the facilities to be entertained by the music, but the performers often come away on a high note themselves.
“The great part about this is, going into these nursing homes, rehab homes, physical therapy places, the effect that our music has on the residents,” Peter Catsadimas, founder of the Music Makers, said. “They just get all excited, and they’re smiling and they’re tapping their feet and they’re singing.”
Some of the Music Makers’ biggest hits at their shows are more active songs, like “Hokey Pokey.” Catsadimas said the audiences enjoy getting up and moving.
Some songs strike chords for other reasons.
“At one particular program, there were three gentlemen at the back of the room, and when we sang the military songs, they stood up, saluted, and cried,” Catsadimas said.
Though the group’s repertoire is sprinkled with equal parts Broadway, pop, and patriotic songs, nearly each listener is likely to find memories somewhere in the show.
That nostalgia serves the singers as well. Since most of the group has little to no experience singing, their memory of the songs gives them a template to work from, especially when they first start.
Over time, they work with Siegler to develop their voices and technique. Any singers induced into wistful daydreams by songs of their youth would be promptly brought back to reality by the director.
“I had to explain that while this is a democracy, when it comes to this, it isn’t,” Siegler said. “There is the person who’s got the baton or pencil or whatever, and you follow that person; otherwise, it’s just a sing along, and we may as well be in a bar.”
But Siegler, who has a degree in music, isn’t always in conductor mode; she can be seen chatting with members during breaks, and she, like the others, must be flexible to fit the social schedules and winter travels of members.
“Sometimes I feel like a pretzel,” she said.
The group also has a gender imbalance. Nineteen of its twenty members are women, leaving Catsadimas as the sole male performer to anchor the group with lower notes.
Thankfully, Catsadimas has a deep, rich baritone voice and could not blend in with the other singers even if he wanted to. Catsadimas once belonged to a church choir that performed at the Civic Opera House in Chicago.
Yes, the Music Makers lack the seasoned rigidness of traditional choruses. But when the voices of the 20 members adhere as they did on “Besame Mucho” or on their next song – the more upbeat, yet less-sexy “Surrey with the Fringe on Top,” it’s easy to imagine them warming the hearts of their audience.
