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04/13/2016 08:30 AMWhat do the London Philharmonic Choir, the Royal Choral Society, and the New Haven Chorale have in common? Music, of course, but more specifically, one musician: Bill Chatman. He has sung with all of them. And also with Goldsmtihs Choral Union in England, and two New Jersey groups, the Masterwork Chorus and Harmonium.
At the moment, Bill is singing with Con Brio Choral Society, which will present its spring concert on Sunday, April 17. The program includes Beethoven’s Choral Fantasia with renowned pianist Mihae Lee, a local resident with an international career as a piano soloist. Lee is also the music director of the Essex Winter Series. In addition to the piano and the chorus, the Beethoven Choral Fantasia features orchestral accompaniment.
Bill, a baritone, has never taken voice lessons; he didn’t sing in college, though he had sung as a youngster in a church choir. He did take one year of piano when he was a young teen, but that is his sole experience with formal music training. Experience has been his teacher.
“The more you sing, the more you learn,” he says.
He had no trouble with the difficult requests made of him when he auditioned for the different choral groups. At the London Philharmonic tryouts, for instance, someone played a chord and then asked Bill to pick out the middle note and sing it. At other times, he would be asked to sing a note a third- or a fifth-interval higher than the note he had been given. He downplays the difficulty, particularly in trying out for the British groups.
“Maybe they were just looking for the odd American,” he says.
His keen ear has not deserted him. Recently, singing in his church choir in Essex, he saw an F-sharp in the music and realized that no one was singing the note.
“I only knew it was an F sharp because I saw it, so I asked who was singing that note and no one was,” he says. “I just knew something was missing. It added color to the chord.”
Bill spent all his professional career with the engineering construction firm Foster Wheeler, involved in constructing oil refineries and chemical and pharmaceutical plants. A Philadelphia native and a graduate of Drexel Institute of Technology (now Drexel University), Bill spent the first 15 years of his career in engineering, but then switched to the sales side of the business. He and his family lived abroad for much of his corporate sales career in the United Kingdom, France, and Italy. He retired as chairman and CEO of Foster Wheeler Ltd, headquartered in Reading, England.
On Bill’s first day in the Milan office, there was a one-day strike, but there were also provisions in place for such disruptions. One of his new associates took him to another office, a second location set up so whatever the labor situation, there was always a workplace to go to. In all his foreign postings, Bill was the only American in the office, but it wasn’t a situation in which he felt uncomfortable.
“Business is all about people, learning how to match people,” he says.
Still, he was sensitive to the different cultural rhythms of the places he worked.
“Italians love to stay in Italy, the French love to live in France, but the Brits love to go anywhere,” he says.
Bill and his wife Helen also learned a few things about the art of moving a household so many times.
“My advice about moving? Keep it simple; don’t get attached to stuff,” he says.
Singing often provided a nice balance to Bill’s business life. He recalls flying back to London and being handed a note by a driver who had come to pick him up at the airport with some not very good corporate news. There was a London Philharmonic Choir rehearsal that night.
“I decided what the heck, I was going to go to the rehearsal anyway,’ he says.
Sometimes when he traveled, he would relax from the day’s meetings by playing at the hotel piano bar. He plays by ear.
“I liked to sit down and play awhile,” he says. “I’m not professional, but it sounded all right and it kept people amused.”
Five years before his retirement in l996, Bill and Helen bought a house in Essex. They first became acquainted with the town when one of Bill’s three daughters was at Wesleyan. Bill and Helen had stayed at the Griswold Inn when visiting her. They rented their house on North Main Street until they were ready to settle here. Now they live at Essex Meadows.
When Bill and Helen came to town, they decided the best way to make new friends in the community was to volunteer.
“We got involved in every local organization we could,” he recalls.
The result is that Bill has been president of the Essex Historical Society and a trustee of the Middlesex Community Foundation, the Connecticut River Museum, the Essex Library, the Community Music School, and the Essex Winter Series. At present he is a director of the Southeastern Connecticut World Affairs Council and a trustee of the Ivoryton Playhouse. He is also a proud member of the Ancient Order of Weeders, which takes care of the maintenance of several traffic islands in Essex.
In addition, he finds time for a monthly poker game with a group that has been playing together for some 15 years and he is a regular at the Society for the Preservation of Cowboy Pool, a game that combines English billiards and standard pocket billiards.
“Up to a score of 90, the game is mostly standard pocket billiards, or commonly pool. From 90 to 101, the game is entirely billiards, which can be much more difficult,” Bill notes. “As a result, going from 0 to 90 usually takes, say, 15 to 30 minutes, while going from 90 to 101 can take up to 2 hours, depending on both skill and luck.”
Recently, Bill and three other Essex Meadows residents have formed their own barbershop quartet. All the members are over 80. Their repertoire includes such standards as “Aura Lee,” “Let Me Call You Sweetheart,” and “My Wild Irish Rose.” The group practices once a week.
“I never thought I’d be singing barbershop at 85, but it’s a hoot,” he says.
Con Brio Spring Concert
Sunday, April 17 at 4 p.m. at the Christ the King Church, 1 McCurdy Lane, Old Lyme. Tickets ($30 or $15 for students) are available at www.conbrio.org or by calling 860-526-5399; tickets will also be available at the door.