About Us
Our Mission
The Broad Cove Chorale-Unicorn Singers, Inc. (BCC-US) of the South Shore of Massachusetts is a non-profit organization and community of volunteer, semi-professional, and fully professional musicians that are deeply committed to the core values of artistic excellence and community enrichment.
We are composed of two adult choruses: a 20-member womens' chorus, the Broad Cove Chorale, and a 24-member mixed chorus, the Unicorn Singers.
BCC-US prides itself on its unique personality and range of activities. We perform a wide variety of music, from Bach to Brahms, from Barbershop to Broadway, often from memory and in costume. We hire no outside soloists, which means we attract excellent musicians who know they will have solo opportunities. Our director performs many of the administrative duties, which leaves our singers more time for singing! We are also unique in that we generate a much larger than usual percentage of our operating budget by our performing activities. We work hard to delight and enrich the lives of our singers and of the listening public of all ages on the South Shore and around Boston.
Leadership
Margo Euler, Founder and Music Director
Margo Euler is celebrating her 32nd season as Music Director of The Broad Cove Chorale and her 29th season as Music Director of the Unicorn Singers. She has served as Music Director for several area theatre groups, including the Hingham Civic Music Theatre, where she prepared and conducted several shows including a highly-acclaimed production of Evita.
Euler grew up in Wellesley MA and attended school there. She holds degrees from Smith College and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She taught elementary school music in Concord MA and conducted the Concord Madrigals (women's chorus) for 14 years.
An enthusiastic and long-time member of ACDA (American Choral Directors Association), she has served the MA chapter as resource person for Womens' Choirs. Euler has served on the MA Arts Council and the Hingham Arts Lottery Council, and was instrumental in the creation of festivals showcasing four area womens' choruses in 1988 (U Mass Boston) and 1991 (Harvard University).
A passionate choral singer, Margo Euler gives full credit to the legendary Iva Dee Hiatt at Smith College as the model for her career choice, for the firm foundation in technique acquired during her education, and for the management experience that has caused her to want to run her organization as well as conduct the music it performs. Euler looks back on performances at Lincoln Center with Robert Shaw in the Mostly Mozart Festival, Haydn's Creation with John Nelson at the Aspen Choral Festival, Brubeck's Mass, To Hope, sung at the Berkshire Choral Festival with Dave Brubeck at the piano, and the last six summers singing at Ogontz Camp in New Hampshire's White Mountains with Sir David Willcocks and Richard Marlowe of Trinity College, Cambridge, to be highlights of her long singing career.
Board of Directors
Margo Euler, President and Artistic Director
Bill Reardon, Clerk
Norman Shaw, Treasurer
Jeanne Scammell, Representative for the Unicorn Singers
Lynn Anderson and Diane Murphy, Representatives for the Broad Cove Chorale
Profile of the Group and its Performances
With accolades for distinctive programming and multi-faceted musicianship, the Broad Cove Chorale and Unicorn Singers have become two of the South Shore's most recognized and respected choruses. The groups each perform three times a year, in October, December and April/May.
FALL
October’s unique Gala Goes POPS! event offers audiences a broad mix of choral music: classical, jazz, folk, spirituals, opera, barbershop, original parody and Broadway medleys enhanced with costumes and delivered with verve. Pops-style seating is at round tables, patrons bring their own picnic baskets, and the mood is upbeat and enthusiastic! This popular event sells out each season.
HOLIDAY
In what has become a South Shore Christmas tradition, the two choruses combine to present a Christmas concert, with two performances at area churches. Proceeds from this annual event are shared with local charities such as the Wellspring Multi-Service Center. For almost 30 years the ensembles have garnered enthusiastic responses from their listeners, partly because of a large component of audience participation; Margo Euler encourages everyone to sing, often music they've never sung before! Additionally, the Chorale performs alone during the holidays on Wednesday mornings, always including a segment of instrumental chamber music among their offerings.
SPRING
Historically, in May each group has offered a Spring Concert. The theatrical background of many of the Unicorn Singers has led the group to explore the niche in choral literature where music, dance, and theater intertwine, such as Masque of Angels (1984) and Down in the Valley (1986). The Broad Cove Chorale has explored the classical repertoire in various locales, often performing music on a single theme, such as Songs of Shakespeare (1993), Music of Gustav Holst (1999), or Songs of the Sea (2000). Beginning in 2004, the two ensembles have joined forces to present music of one composer or one period; recent concerts have focused on Randall Thompson, Benjamin Britten, Samuel Barber and Aaron Copland. During the spring months the Chorale also performs morning programs for Seniors and nursing home residents.
Members of the BCC and US come from Cohasset, Duxbury, Hingham, Norwell, Plympton, Scituate, and Weymouth.
BCC-US
Margo Euler, Music Director
Sarah Toco, Accompanist
Rich Jensen, Arranger
Sarah Tocco, Accompanist
Since her successful debut at Carnegie Recital Hall in New York as an accompanist, which won her the acclaim of "a very sensitive pianist" by The New York Times, Sarah Tocco has appeared in numerous solo recitals and concerts, and has collaborated with many different ensembles, including concert tours to Jamaica and Vietnam. Her recently released CD is becoming a favorite among music lovers. Currently, she is a pianist for SANS choral group as well as other vocal and chamber music ensembles in New England, while maintaining an active teaching studio in Newton and Arlington. Sarah Tocco holds both BM and MM degrees from Manhattan School of Music in New York.
Richard Jensen, Arranger
Rich Jensen began choral singing as a member of the Yale Glee Club. He has been arranging popular music and folk songs for the Unicorn Singers and Broad Cove Chorale for many years and has had pieces performed by the Oriana Consort of Cambridge and other area groups. A program of his arrangements, musical settings and original songs entitled "Measured Passage" has been performed at several venues by the cabaret group Crossroads.Rich is also the principal of the Jensen Quartet, which sings many of his arrangements at area shopping malls and hotels during the Christmas season. Rich is happy to share his arrangements and compositions with other choruses; he welcomes inquiries at: rajensen88@hotmail.com.
History
The Broad Cove Chorale was founded by Margo Euler in 1975 when she moved with her family from Concord MA to Hingham. Her first priority upon taking up residence in the history-filled Broad Cove House built by one of Abraham Lincoln's ancestors was to check out the acoustics in the wonderful big music room that was added to the old house in 1927! She brought her Concord Madrigals to perform on a warm May morning in a benefit concert for the South Shore Conservatory, and before the end of the garden reception which followed, she had a number of local women signed up to form a South Shore version of what they had just heard! The group is now in its 32nd season and counting!
Three years later in 1978, the women decided to invite men to join them for a production of Menotti's madrigal-ballet The Unicorn, The Gorgon, and the Manticore. The group decided after six successful performances to continue as an ongoing chorus, and named themselves for the work that brought them together. To further the association with this unique piece, the Singers have performed it twice since, on the occasion of both their tenth and twentieth anniversaries.
The groups perform in a wide variety of locations around the South Shore and Boston, including the Gardner Museum, the Fogg Art Museum, the Duxbury Arts Complex, the South Shore Music Circus, and many area churches. The Unicorn Singers are hired frequently for weddings, fund-raisers, and private celebrations. The Broad Cove Chorale volunteers time singing for schools, retirement homes, gatherings of senior citizens, and club meetings, as well as weddings and other private engagements.