Ann Gooch Award: Patti Cooke

Patti Cooke

2019 Ann Gooch Award Recipient

The Ann Gooch Award celebrates a member who “significantly contributed to and is or has been a driving force in the development and growth of Sweet Adelines beyond the borders of North America.”

This year’s recipient, Bella a Cappella Chorus (#35) Director Patti Cooke, grew up in a musical family, often visiting her aunt’s Sweet Adelines chorus in Pelican Rapids, Minnesota. When marriage brought her to the small New Zealand farming community of Wairoa in 1981, she missed singing, so she auditioned for a musical play where she met several women who decided to keep singing together.

“When we realised there weren't many men around who wanted to sing regularly, and that finding an accompanist was going to be a problem, I remembered my aunt's chorus,” Cooke recalled. “She gave me the Sweet Adelines headquarters address in Tulsa, and I wrote, naively thinking I was just requesting help sourcing music for women's barbershop. My letter was handed to Ann Gooch, and she sent us a 10-pound package of information called How To Charter A Chorus. We were all young, brave, and energetic, and we decided to give it a go!”

The rest is Sweet Adelines history. Patti’s family moved around New Zealand, and wherever she went, barbershop followed. By 1990, New Zealand was home to several Sweet Adelines choruses, and Patti was singing with Export Quality, New Zealand’s first champion quartet.

Anyone who watched Bella a Cappella’s 2018 Harmony Classic performance, which began with the Māori song “Haere Mai,” can see that the region she helped start not only acknowledges but also embraces its musical origins while perfecting the American art form of barbershop music.

“New Zealand is a bi-cultural country, and choruses sing the national anthem in Māori as well as English,” she said. “Choruses here often have traditional Māori songs (waiata) in their repertoires. Region 35 has three waiata in its Massed Sing repertoire, with a fourth being discussed, so it's fair to say we have our own unique take on combining traditional American with traditional Māori.”

Bella a Cappella’s team coordinator, Gaye Dawn, who is Māori, taught the actions that accompanied “Haere Mai” along with an uncle and a niece, both experts in kapa haka (Māori group dance).

“We wanted to do something that only a NZ chorus could do,” said Cooke. “Māori culture runs deep in many aspects of daily life in NZ — from our cuisine, to what our children learn at school, to how the country is governed. Māori culture is very visible in our Bay of Islands area. We use Māori words when we speak, the majority of our place names are Māori, and we cherish the Māori traditions of hospitality, respect, and guardianship of the environment.”

In a 1985 issue of The Pitch Pipe, Ann Gooch wrote that when people around the world asked why they should join Sweet Adelines, she instantly recalled a lifetime “of singing tags, making friends, crying over contests lost or won, soaking up applause, broken and mended friendships.”

“When I read those words in 1985, I had only the vaguest idea of what she was talking about,” said Cooke. “Now, 34 years later, I know exactly what she meant when she said ‘the harmony takes over.’ As a young bride, I really had no idea what New Zealand had in store for me but I am filled with gratitude that Ann Gooch made a whole world open up not only for me, but for about 700 sisters in song here in New Zealand. I couldn't be more delighted to receive the award named after her.”