OUR HISTORY

The formation of the Music Club as a recognized Chartered Club in SCG occurred in 1998. The first Board of Directors was elected with Pat Martin as president.

The Grand Singers community chorus and Grand Sounds band were formed. Both groups participated in the first SCG Veteran’s Day Celebration. In December, the Grand Singers gave their first concert sung by 41 resident singers. At intermission there were selections by the Grand Sounds band.

Bill Fedor volunteered to follow Pat Martin as Music Club president. Many Music Club members participated in the Drama & Comedy Club’s first Variety show in February. That fall the Music Club produced the first Celebration of Music which became the annual keystone musical variety concert of the Music Club. 

It was decided that the Grand Singers would schedule two annual concerts, one in the spring and a Holiday Concert in December. The Music Club membership grew to 78 registered members. 

A Good Neighbor Council was initiated to make local charitable donation recommendations.  The first donation was a contribution to Dysart Schools for musical instruments. This laid the foundation for the formation of the Glendale Community College Endowment Fund which was initiated by Jim Flom. That Endowment Fund has grown to about $94,500 from Music Club donations and has been used to provide scholarships for students majoring in music at that college. The annual recipients are invited to participate in the Music Club’s Classical Concert which is held in March.

In January of 2003, the first MC “Showcase” was presented. The original intent of these shows was to provide performance opportunities for MC members who were not able to participate in the Celebration of Music or some of the other shows. These events have become an integral part of the annual productions of the MC, and usually are held in January and May.

The “Sonoran Sounds” women’s chorus and the “Chorale”, an auditioned subset of the Grand Singers, were started by Jim Flom in 2004. The women’s chorus subsequently changed their name to “Desert Divas”. The “Chorale” remains an integral part of the current Grand Singers Chorus.

Following its initial foundation, organizational structure definition, and mission commitment, the Music Club settled into a phase of long-term expansion in several ways. More subgroups were added as members initiated new subgroups expanding the available musical genres to include Doo Wop, Country, Rock ‘n’ Roll and much more.  

By this time the Grand Singers had reached physical capacity because they were performing on the Sonoran Plaza stage which had a fire code maximum of 65 persons. The decision was made to buy portable chorus risers to be placed on the floor to accommodate additional singers and also allow for expanded band accompaniment. The first Grand Singers concert on the new risers took place in December, 2005 for the annual Holiday Concert. As a result of this physical concert reconfiguration, the Grand Singers quickly grew to 130-140 members.

In 2006, Marilyn Duea became the Director of the Grand Singers with Donna Mills as her Assistant Director. This choral leadership was together for 10 years, during which the reputation of the Grand Singers rapidly increased and became one of the finest community choral organizations in the area. Pamela Weir was selected to succeed Marilyn Duea as Director and Sherry Bennett became Pamela’s assistant.

As the number of performances for the Music Club increased, ticket sales became somewhat cumbersome because this task was mostly manual and long lines to buy tickets were unavoidable. In 2008, a joint effort among the Performing Arts Clubs and CAM resulted in the implementation of on-line sales through a ticketing agency called “Ticket Turtle”. This was a giant step forward, because it not only allowed on-line credit card sales for the show patrons, but purchasers could also reserve specific seats. No more long queues for buying tickets!

Another significant change in the role the Music Club played in the SCG performing arts was the introduction of Cimarron Center performances. The CAM Activities Department brought in some professional entertainers to perform in the Cimarron Club room, which was coordinated by Ken Pierick of the Music Club. In 2008, at the request of CAM, the Music Club took over the sponsorship of the venue which was later renamed the Cimarron Nightclub. It very much lived up to the Nightclub name because less than 90 patrons could be seated and the entire venue had that “up-close-and-personal” feel.  

In 2014, Didi Nielsen took over responsibility for the Nightclub. She successfully expanded the venue to 10-12 shows per year by contracting more professional entertainers to add variety and increase the entertainment value for the Nightclub patrons. Later on, the Cimarron Nightclub experience was expanded to include 3 or 4 shows a year at the larger Sonoran Plaza venue. Those shows were known as “The Grand Cabaret”. Both of these show types used table seating to retain the original Nightclub atmosphere and were very well received by community patrons. The Nightclub continued until the end of 2022 when Didi retired.

An important subgroup of the Music Club was initiated by David Durham in 2015. The concept of the Acoustic Instruments Group (AIG) was to allow acoustic instrument players/singers to get together and “jam” a couple of times a month. All were welcomed regardless of experience or talent level in a no-pressure environment. In addition to providing members with fun, bi-monthly jam sessions, the AIG has been an important source of new Music Club members and several sub-group bands have also been formed by AIG members, including the “Salty Dawgs”, “The CBD Project”, “Gold Rush”, and “Silver Linings” bands.

In 2016 the Music Club revived the “Hootenanny” sing alongs of years past. These audience participation events were very popular; one was held in the spring with a largely 60’s folk music flavor while the December show concentrated on Holiday songs. The Hootenanny shows have since been expanded in musical scope to the most recent sing alongs labeled “The International Pop Festival” and “Singing With Santa”.

The Music Club continued to increase the number of shows and, in 2017, also expanded the performance areas to include the beautiful outdoor Amphitheater as a venue. These outdoor shows were appropriately named “Music al Fresco”.

The series of shows named “Manly Love Songs” was conceived by Dale Buhl in 2007. The basic theme centered around a bunch of slightly “ne’r do well” guys who gathered at “Morrie’s Tap” to let off some steam and share some great (well, maybe…) music. 2018 saw the 6th and last in this ever-popular series.

Two local Music Club members approached the Music Club board in 2019 with proposals to produce and direct musical shows they had written. One was written by Joyce Greenberg and the other by David Durham. These shows were titled “Committee of Eight” by Greenberg and “The Cruise” by Durham. These were departures from the normal shows sponsored by the Music Club since everything was original, but received great response from Music Club audiences.

And then came the pandemic in 2020! On March 13, 2020, all rehearsals and performances in our community were shut down by COVID-19 concerns. The remainder of 2020 and well into 2021 were spent writing plans for rehearsals and performances which would comply with the current government guidelines. Musicians are naturally creative and want to perform. Pamela Weir and some of the Grand Singers initiated remote video recordings and blended the voices to make a choral audio.  They also held “drive-by” concerts, conducted outdoor rehearsals and rehearsed in areas other than the Sonoran Plaza and Cimarron Center, where social distancing requirements could be met. The idea was not only to entertain but also to help preserve interest and unity in the Grand Singers as an entity. The Salty Dawgs held outdoor “driveway concerts” to benefit local businesses through this difficult time. A new band, “Gold Rush” entertained at the outdoor amphitheater in Grand. So, the bands and vocal groups in the Music Club found ways to comply with social distancing and other requirements and entered 2022 with much pent-up audience demand and an eagerness to get back to playing and singing in a normal environment.

That almost worked, but an unfortunate outbreak of the virus occurred in January leading to rescheduling several shows from spring to fall in 2022. However, the Music Club patiently did the necessary things, and the first actual show of 2022 was the May Showcase -- a tribute to blues music -- “Out Of The Blues”. The remainder of 2022 was hectic, because the shows in the fall which were already on the normal schedule were joined by the shows that fell prey to spring cancellations.

Finally! 2023 arrived with a more normal schedule. The Music Club increased the level of activity by introducing Live at Cimarron as a local band replacement for the former Cimarron Nightclub shows. The Live at Cimarron monthly shows feature Music Club bands as well as special guest performers from the Music Club. Membership is nearly back to pre-pandemic levels, and as we closed out 2023, all was well!