It’s a universal truth that (almost) everyone loves to sing around a piano with a group of friends. There aren’t many opportunities for this, so most people content themselves with a little fa-la-la-ing at holiday time, or an occasional woozy wee-hours rendition of “One for My Baby.” But then there are those who want more, and want it enough to figure out how to have it…which is how the Wilton Singers were born, and why this coming May, they will celebrate their twenty-fifth year of singing with a group of friends in concert halls and churches, on bandstands and stages, and still, maybe best of all, around a piano.

It all began in 1982 when Wilton friends Ed and Jan MacEwen and Al and Jan Galletly attended a tenth reunion concert of the Wilton High School Madrigal Singers. “That evening was so wonderful,” recalls Jan MacEwen, “that the four of us went the next day to see Elissa Getto (who founded the Madrigal Singers and was the high school choral director) and said, ‘We want to do that too.’ Miraculously, she said she would help us.”

The Wilton Singers gather around the boar's head, the centerpiece of the Elizabethan Feast. Photo Courtesy of The Wilton Singers

The Galletlys and MacEwens got on the phone and found thirteen more people interested in forming a chorus. Elissa Getto signed on to direct them, and they were on their way, performing for the first time as the Wilton Singers on December 3, 1983 in a holiday concert held at St. Matthew’s Church.

Today, the 28-member ensemble appears in four major concerts each season, sometimes with one or two extra gigs thrown in, usually benefits for community causes. Four-part madrigals were the mainstay of the group’s early repertoire and, reinforced by Ms. Getto’s directing skills, set a musical standard from the start: accurate pitch, a “straight” sound (i.e., no vibrato), and harmonic blend. Those qualities have carried the Singers along as they have branched out and tackled new forms and styles over time. Typical seasons now include cabaret and Broadway show music, holiday songs, pop, folk, and jazz. And, during James Wetherald’s tenure as musical director, from 1987-2007, the group performed a major sacred work every Good Friday at Stamford’s First Presbyterian Church, usually a requiem accompanied by professional soloists and full orchestra. That’s a long way from standing around a piano.

The current membership includes six of the original members: the founding four, plus Wiltonians Glenn Shattuck and Alice Ayers. The age range spans 46 years—an ideal mix of longevity and young blood, in the opinion of Jean Caffrey, the Singers’ current president. “When we’re together, the age differences really don’t exist,” she says. Slightly more than half the members are Wilton residents; the others live in neighboring towns. Lifestyles and careers run the gamut, and while every member can claim a lifelong involvement with music, only Ron Drotos, the group’s new director, is a fulltime professional musician. The rest are a mix of marketing, consulting, financial, and technology types, along with a teacher, a nanny, a life coach, a librarian, an artist, two Wilton town officials, a church choir director, a smattering of busy retirees, a law student, and a glitter fairy. The group’s demographic makeup has always been rather diverse for Fairfield County, especially when considering the close bonds of camaraderie attested to by its members. It goes beyond a shared love of singing, apparently. Barbara Belon, a former member, who now lives in Pennsylvania, describes the Wilton Singers as “a family unit,” and remembers the “immediate, warm, inclusive welcome” she received when she joined them. “I wouldn’t have missed those years for anything,” she says.