The doors to the First Congregational Church of West Brattleboro swung open on a Thursday evening in April, and close to 90 people streamed in, settling into the sanctuary’s curved wooden pews. They quieted only when Anna Patton, clad in a T-shirt and swingy skirt, stepped in front of them.
“Did any of you have long, complicated days?” she asked. Heads nodded. “OK,” Patton responded sympathetically, “let’s do some breathing exercises.” She guided the group through a series of inhales and exhales, followed by stretches, scales and a warm-up chant. She then lifted her arms, and the group began to sing.
Becky Graber, 71, stood quietly at the back of the church, observing the younger woman lead the chorus Graber has helmed for 30 years. A musician, educator, composer and unofficial mentor to hundreds of singers, Graber founded Brattleboro Women’s Chorus — now Brattleboro Harmonia — three decades ago and, until recently, has been its only director. She’ll pass her pitch pipe to Patton, 46, after the two codirect Harmonia’s spring concert this Sunday, May 10, at Latchis Theatre in Brattleboro. The show, titled “The Sound Shelter of a Thousand Songs,” will feature nearly 100 singers, an instrumental ensemble, and premieres of new work by both Graber and Patton.
Under Graber, the chorus has become something of a southern Vermont institution known for its community spirit, its twice-annual concerts, and an expansive repertoire of global folk songs, classical music, spirituals and the occasional pop song. The group changed its name earlier this year to broaden its mission and welcome nonbinary and genderqueer singers alongside women and girls. Its members have ranged in age from 10 to 93. Some have sung in choirs all their lives; others have zero experience.
Graber doesn’t hold auditions or use sheet music, instead teaching every song by ear. She doesn’t like written music to “get in the way,” she said.
“Becky encourages everybody to believe they can sing, and they pretty much can,” said Elizabeth Pittman, who’s been part of the chorus since its first rehearsal.
Inspired by one of her teachers, Ysaye Maria Barnwell of Sweet Honey in the Rock, Graber started the Brattleboro Women’s Chorus in 1996 and directed her first concert in the middle of a blizzard. She grew up singing in choirs in Minnesota and Connecticut and always knew she wanted to do work that combined music and people. After college, she landed in Brattleboro, left for a decade and then returned, all the while singing and playing piano and French horn in one ensemble or another, as well as teaching music in schools.
She met Patton when the chorus was still in its early years. Patton, then a student at the now-closed Marlboro College, interviewed Graber and other chorus members for an ethnography project. A clarinetist as well as a singer, Patton later earned a master’s degree at the New England Conservatory in Boston. After grad school, she started her own ensembles and joined the faculty of Vermont Jazz Center in Brattleboro, where Graber took one of her classes.
Becky encourages everybody to believe they can sing, and they pretty much can.
Elizabeth Pittman
A few years ago, Graber began to contemplate retiring from the chorus and feared she might have to shut it down. But a friend in the chorus who also sang in one of Patton’s groups suggested Patton as a successor. Graber loved the idea, as did Patton, and they’ve been collaborating for the past two years, preparing for Patton to take over the director’s role.
“Anna is a consummate musician, with an ability to arrange things in a really interesting way, using voices as instruments,” Graber said. “But she’s also good with people. Sometimes directors forget to care about the people they’re working with when they’re aiming to make beautiful music.”
That awareness and sense of connection are crucial when it comes to Graber’s signature practice of singing by ear. “You have to be very methodical and keep close track of what you’ve already taught and to what degree people are getting it,” Patton said. She called Graber’s way of teaching “a virtuosic listening exercise — hearing all the parts at once and perceiving what needs more work.”
Learning by ear is hard for singers, too; they’re memorizing up to a dozen songs at a time. But the benefit, Pittman said, is that “we’re not fumbling with sheet music all the time. We’re looking up, and we can sing out in a different way — more confidently.”
Izzy Snyder joined the chorus in 2025, a couple of years after finishing college and moving home to Vermont. She was one of the youngest singers in the room, “but people kept coming up to me and saying they were happy that I was there,” she said. “They were enjoying themselves, like they were taking the music seriously but not so seriously that they couldn’t have fun with it and with each other.”
That friendly environment was a lifeline for Bonnie Garrapy, who joined the group 14 years ago when she was living in a motel and struggling with an opioid addiction. She saw a local newspaper ad inviting singers to check out the chorus and, on a desperate whim, called the number listed in the ad. Graber answered and cheerfully urged Garrapy to show up for a rehearsal. “I thought, What is wrong with this woman? She’s too nice,” Garrapy recalled.
Garrapy went to the rehearsal. She returned the following week, then kept going. Singing is not the only reason she’s been sober since 2014, but she cited the chorus as a big part of her recovery. “That community is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me,” she said.
At the Congregational Church rehearsal last month, Graber eventually took over for Patton. She cracked jokes, played piano with one hand and conducted with the other, and called out instructions that were gentle — “We’re floating on this line” — but also direct.
“That wasn’t too bad,” she said of one particular rendition, grinning. “But not too good, either.”
After codirecting Harmonia with Graber, Patton said she’s ready to lead the group on her own, knowing exactly the legacy she’s stepping into. “Becky has held the group with her caring and humor and an expectation about hard work,” Patton said. “I’ve been sitting in rehearsals, taking notes and thinking, OK, I can do that. And I can do that. And then something will happen, and I’ll be like, Well, that was magic.” ➆
The original print version of this article was headlined “In Harmony | After 30 years, Brattleboro Harmonia founding director Becky Graber passes her pitch pipe to Anna Patton”
This article appears in May 6 • 2026.
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