Bill Eldon, one of our low, low basses, has been singing with the Long Beach Chorale for at least eight years. He can’t remember exactly. Probably because the time he’s spent diligently and strenuously hauling our risers and music stands all over creation has all blurred together. Bill is the head of our Performance Venue Realization team, and at times, has been its only laboring member. He’s a champ, through and through.
By day, Bill is a field development specialist with Farmers Insurance Group. In his off hours, he’s an avid rower and competes in many local and not-so-local rowing events. “I came to rowing late in life as a parent volunteer for my son’s high school rowing program,” he explains. “The high point of my rowing career was competing in several events in the World Masters Rowing Championships in St. Catherines, Ontario in 2010 and coming away with a medal in one of my team boats, a mixed masters’ quad with two men and two women.” That’s good, Bill. You need those muscles to lug the risers, right? Wink, wink! Poor Bill. We’re looking for minions for him.
Bill rowing in the Masters competition.
Vocally, Bill has come a long way since his youth, as he sang with the sopranos in fifth grade. He didn’t sing in a choir again until college, where he sang in the chorale as well as a sixteen-voice chapel choir that performed Bach cantatas every semester. Later, he joined his church choir. It was in a church choir that he met fellow Long Beach Chorale member Alan Caddick, who encouraged him to join us. “Before I joined the Chorale, I was asked to be part of a pick-up choir to help audition candidates for a new director and was thrilled both that they chose Eliza from the group and that she then accepted me into the Chorale, the first group I ever auditioned for,” Bill says. Sounds like it was all meant to be!
Bill’s favorite Long Beach Chorale performances have been the Brahms Requiem and the Bach Christmas Oratorio. “I love being in a choir and making music with others. I am not a soloist or even a performer by nature, so the Chorale lets me be a part of great music. Singing with the Chorale has also greatly improved my sight reading and my vocal skills in general,” Bill says. His favorite music to listen to is that of the Baroque period, especially Bach. He also enjoys Renaissance madrigals, They Might Be Giants, The Real McKenzies and anything in between, he says.
Bill spends his free time listening to NPR news, coping with a four-cat household, rowing, singing in his church choir, and working on cars.
To “adopt” Bill as part of our Adopt a Singer program, click here:
To read more singer profiles in our Adopt a Singer campaign, click here.
Thanks for supporting the Long Beach Chorale!
