The Prairie Singers, a history

In a choral group, the people that lead make all the difference.

The director of a choir has a consistent and strong impact on every member of a choir, no matter what its size. The director and singers interact at every minute of every event in their lives, from rehearsals and meetings to concerts. If the director and singers are not on the same page musically, the organization fails.

So it is with the Prairie Singers, Sun City’s only choral group and oldest performing arts organization. The Singers began on December 31, 1999, at a piano-side conversation between the late Bob Hornig and Art Fitzgerald. Its first public performance was led by Peter Davis in December 2000. Davis has gone on to become a prominent leader and director in the Sun City Theatre Group. Starting in 2001, the organization has performed 31 public concerts in Drendel Ballroom and Huntley High School. Fitzgerald remains active today with the Sun-Tones, a traveling ambassador affiliate group of the Singers.

This week’s 32nd Prairie Singers performance, with a theme of “Sway With Me,” will be presented this Sunday, May 22, at 3 p.m. at Huntley High School’s Performing Arts Center. The theme is taken from a Spanish marimba dance number called “Sway,” a jazzy, south-of-the-border song that evokes romantic images of a couple on a dance floor. Lyrics include “Like the lazy ocean hugs the shore, hold me close, sway me more…stay with me, sway with me.”

The Prairie Voices and Sun-Tones, affiliate groups with the Singers, also will perform at Sunday’s concert.

The Singers is not a professional organization, although some of its members have professional-level musical skills. The group’s bylaws, as directed by the Sun City Community Association, do not permit any pre-conditions for choir membership. If you like to sing, you’re welcome. As a result, some members learn about singing as they go along. The group is an educational organization, as well as a performing one.

This spring’s concert, with 65 singers, will be led by Bill Leggee, the group’s fourth director, and the first one ascending to the position from within the organization. Bill joined the group in the spring of 2006, and has performed many times as a soloist and an administrative officer. He holds a bachelors degree in music education from Olivet Nazarene University and a master of music in Voice from the American Conservatory of Music. He taught choral music and English for 10 years at Morton Township High School in downstate Illinois and taught K-12 vocal music and 6th grade to 9th grade English for 24 years in the Huntley School District 158. Bill’s late wife, Kathy, taught third grade in Huntley; the Leggee Elementary School next to the high school is named in her memory.

Gary Hillquist, a retired school band director who lives in Elgin, directed the Singers from 2001 to 2008. During this time, the ensemble grew rapidly to more than 110 members, and established itself as a genuine performing arts group. Nancy Cross, director of choral music and musical performances at Huntley High School, was the group’s director from 2008 to 2014. She brought a disciplined, educational approach to the group, stressing technique and articulation.

Leggee has brought a relaxing sense of humor, a strong knowledge of the group’s limitations and abilities, and a solid sense of how the group should sound when the baton comes down.

“I was a member of the group for eight years before I came on as director,” Leggee recalled recently. “I was asked by several members to take over, and I initially said no, mostly because I hadn’t led choirs for many years, and I had never directed a senior group like this. But eventually, I thought it would be a real special experience. I decided I wanted to be a part off a process in getting them to make progress in music, and get beyond their own limitations.

“I didn’t know if they would accept me, my original approach was to say to myself, ‘they are not a professional organization, but they treat it like a professional one. They have decided to act like professionals as much as they possibly can.’ I have found that I can teach them some techniques, but I don’t have to always reach for perfection. I don’t need to do that, in order to get the sound I want from them. I have often been amazed at the sound that they produce.”

It takes the Singers 13 weekly rehearsals, plus sectional sessions at the homes of section leaders, to prepare a concert. The group performs two concerts in a year, a Christmas holiday event in December, and a spring concert in May or June. Resident or guest dancing groups or individuals perform with the group to provide a visual enhancement to the music. Members receive a CD recording of the upcoming concert numbers, and are encouraged to listen and sing to them privately at home.

If you asked Singers members who is the most important volunteer contributor to the organization, the answer would be unanimous – Dennis Quinn.

“Dennis has done more for this organization than anyone else,” is a frequent comment from singers.

Quinn, the group’s fourth president, has performed numerous behind-the-scenes tasks such as developing and organizing the group’s musical library, producing rehearsal CDs for each member, purchasing equipment and music, developing storage facilities, creating and maintaining historical records, performing as a concert soloist, working on volunteer committees, and serving as a leader in the choir’s bass section.

Quinn, along with past president Jeannie Buhlman, also played a lead role in the creation and success of the Singers’ two affiliate groups: the Prairie Voices and the Sun-Tones.

“Jeannie had a dream about that when she was president in early 2004,” Quinn said. “The Singers started to receive requests from residents to bring their music to other locations. Jeanine’s dream was to develop a representative group of singers who would become traveling ambassadors of the larger group. She called several other active adult communities to find out how they did it. In March of 2004, she proposed her idea to the Prairie Singers and asked for four volunteers to start up the group. Margaret Kasak volunteered to be the music director, Lynne Ruby raised her hand to be accompanist, Joan Riffner accepted the responsibility for advertising, and I signed up to become the business manager. We discussed what the group should be called, including The Sunsetters, the Troubadours, the Sun-Shiners, and my favorite, The Prairie Warblers,” Quinn said. “Fortunately, we agreed on being called the Prairie Voices.”

Buhlman herself has her own unique take on all of this.

“I was just trying to figure out what I was going to do with all of these new singers,” she said. “We just wanted to take our show on the road.”

She also loves to tell the story about her campaign to sell herself because of her tenor voice.

“When Margaret Kasak was forming the Voices, she said I couldn’t sing tenor because all the low-voice parts belonged to men,” Buhlman recalled. She later went on to become a frequent soloist with the Singers and Voices.

Quinn served as the Voices business manager and bass singer until 2015. He also continues as the leader of, and singer in, the Sun-Tones, who also have been a traveling ambassador group for more than a decade.

In the past 12 years, the Voices have presented more than 250 performances throughout the Chicago northern and northwest suburban area, at nursing homes, churches, schools, grocery stores, senior clubs, outdoor gazebos, municipal celebrations, Sun City groups, and even prisons. The group has also performed a number of memorial tributes at funeral homes and churches. The current Voices director is RD Holloman, who is also a long-time member and current president of the Prairie Singers.

“These affiliate groups have never taken anything away from the Prairie Singers, but have served as a complement to the bigger group,” Quinn said.

Joan Riffner is another volunteer who has given many hours of her time to make both the Voices and Singers successful. She is one of the original 50 members of the Singers, has become the groups’ historian, and has served a long-time as a narrator at the converts and gigs of both the Voices and Singers.

Carolyn Kleen was the group’s second president and played a large role, along with Hillquist, in developing the chorus as a performer at public concerts. She also is a member of the original 50, and has served as a frequent soloist and choreographer. Other past presidents have included Gene Rhodes, Ken Pohlmann, Dwight Esau, and Bobbi Vinton.

Up to 25 chorus members, as well as a few non-members, also serve as volunteers for the many administrative and logistical tasks that go into a large-group concert. They take care of such things as ticket sales, publicity, wardrobe selection and fitting, videography, stagehands, ushers, to name a few.

The chorus is accompanied by instrumental groups when performing, and occasionally sings to recorded music. Director Hillquist recruited instrumental groups when he was director. Since that time, the Singers have been accompanied by instrumentalists led by Donna Bressler, former director of the Sun City Concert Band; Betty Kamps, director of the Sun City Encore string group, and currently Steve Fornek, who has brought his own jazz band to Sunday’s concert.

The Prairie Singers have one bottom line, however – they just love to sing.

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