Lebanon
The former, made up of two mother-daughter pairs, recently won an international harmony organization’s regional crown for an area that stretches from Eastern Canada down to Virgina, beating out teams with names like Taken 4 Granite, Group Therapy and Life’s a Pitch, and qualifying them to attend the international competition for the third year in a row.
The latter, a men’s group, is also a regional champ who traveled to Nashville, Tenn., this summer to compete at the international level.
“We’re all just regular people who, this is our passion, so if we’re not working, we’re singing,” said Gaye LaCasce, a Grantham resident and the tenor in Aged to Perfection. “It is very unusual that from a little area — the northeast district for guys and (our area) for the women cover Boston and New York City — it’s really amazing that from little Upper Valley that both quartets have worked very hard to get to this place.”
The two groups are closely linked: wife and husband LaCasce and Fast Track’s Dan Signor are both community chorus directors for Lebanon-based Harmony Night; Signor often coaches the women’s group; and the men’s and women’s groups share rehearsal times when each crew coaches the other.
A member of the men’s group, tenor Bill Stearns, even developed software that allowed Aged to Perfection to rehearse together remotely when the youngest member, Ellie Pomer, left for Ithaca College this summer.
So for the two groups to perform together last Saturday at First Congregational Church was a treat, made more special by the reason for the performance: Donations from the 60-some-odd people in attendance will offset travel expenses for the women — LaCasce and her daughter Alexa Beal and mother Kathy and daughter Ellie Pomer — during their trip to Providence, R.I., next month, where they will compete among other regional winners for the international championship.
“We’re just happy to sing with them,” said Dan Falcone, who sings bass for Fast Track, directs the North Country Chordsmen and is a teacher at Hanover High School.
“They have great pitch, great emotion. We look up to them,” Falcone said. “We hope they come back reigning queens.”
The trip to Providence will mean a shorter journey for Aged to Perfection than a couple years ago, when the international event — hosted by an organization called Harmony, Inc. — was held in Kentucky and the four women made the 1,000-mile car ride together.
Like so many things in a group of two moms and two daughters, they said, the trip underscored some generational differences.
“These two like to burst into songs that we don’t know and they don’t really remember the words to,” Beal, the lead singer and an Enfield resident, said in an interview before the performance, referring to her older counterparts.
“We have found that this in an interesting bond and an interesting differentiation,” Kathy Pomer, the bass, added.
“We love heartbreaker songs,” she said of her and LaCasce, before turning to the younger half of the group, “but these two especially love making people cry and losing their minds over it, and hating men,” she said, laughing. “In this beautiful world, we should be giving a different message, but boy do they get jazzed on making people upset.”
Later, they appeared on stage in matching outfits from head to foot, another area — in addition to song choice and on-stage theatrics — where it can be hard to find agreement. They had settled on multi-colored tunics — since they were new, they called them their “new-nics” — black pants and dangly silver earrings, plus their regional medals hanging around their necks.
The only differentiation: Kathy Pomer, who recently moved from Grantham to Londonderry, N.H., and Ellie Pomer wore black closed-toe boots, while Gaye LaCasce and Alexa Beal wore black sandals.
The foursome came together via Harmony Night, an open a capella gathering for all ages that meets at Lebanon High every Monday night when the school is open. LaCasce said about 40 to 50 people currently participate, including several family groupings.
Ellie Pomer, then a student at Lebanon High School, was going to attend, but her mother recalled she was secretly jealous on the car ride over.
“I just sat the whole time in the car thinking, ‘I want to go too and I want to sing too and I wonder what you have to do,’ and then there really was like, no audition, and I got in, and it was very exciting,” Kathy Pomer said. From there, Aged to Perfection was born nearly three years ago.
Kathy Pomer also credited Signor and LaCasce, through their Harmony Night work, with nurturing an environment that could lead to two championship teams.
“This family has been sort of the first family of music in the Upper Valley for as long as you’ve been here,” she said, turning toward LaCasce. “There was nothing like that that was reaching out. … It brings people from all walks of life, it’s really something incredible.”
Maggie Cassidy can be reached at mcassidy@vnews.com or 603-727-3220.