The Alexandria A Cappella Collective (AACC) is an umbrella organization of choruses specializing in one of music’s most challenging genres: a cappella four-part close harmony. AACC was created by the award-winning Alexandria Harmonizers in 2023. Since its formation in 1948, the Harmonizers have widely been recognized as one of the best choruses in the world. And now AACC is building on the Harmonizers’ storied history with its new choruses, Metro Voices and Capital Force.
Led by artistic director Joe Cerutti since 2007, the Harmonizers is made up of over 100 volunteer singers ranging in age from their teens to their eighties. The Harmonizers have won nineteen International medals, including four championship gold medals, and received the 2018 Greater Washington DC Area Choral Excellence “Ovation” Award for “Best a Cappella Ensemble.”
The Harmonizers perform throughout the year, in concert, contest, and in collaboration with other performers. They have sung at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Wolf Trap, the White House and the Supreme Court, and regularly produce shows at Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center in Alexandria. Recent collaborations with the Music Center at Strathmore include the 2016 D.C. area premiere of Andrew Lippa’s I Am Anne Hutchinson/I Am Harvey Milk, starring Lippa and Kristin Chenoweth, and the 2018 world premiere of Jeremy Schonfeld’s Iron and Coal – Survivor and Son.
The Harmonizers also have performed on three continents, with appearances ranging from musical tributes at Normandy and elsewhere during the 70th anniversary of D-Day to a 2019 concert at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the largest arts festival in the world. In 2012, they toured China, performing at the Forbidden City Concert Hall and the Great Wall. In 2025, the Harmonizers and Metro Voices will be traveling to Ireland.
Metro Voices is an SSAA chorus. In its first year of performing, Metro Voices stunned the global Barbershop community by taking home the championship of the 2024 International Chorus Festival. Since its formation in 2023, Metro Voices has already doubled in size—to almost 30 voices—and is looking forward to its second full year of performance and its first international tour in Ireland. In the meantime, the chorus, led by director Samantha Tramack, is attracting some of the biggest names in a cappella to drop by rehearsals and learn what’s next for this new group.
Click below if you want to read about our mission “Enriching lives through vocal harmony in the greater DC area.” and our strategic plan to achieve that mission.