Judy Eby hasn’t been in Coronado for long, arriving in the Emerald Cit just over a year ago. In that time, though, she has impressed many local residents with her energy, charm and talent. “She’s a real dynamo,” said Heidi Wilson.
In February, Eby started Coronado’s Acoustic Jam at the Community Center, a monthly meetup where locals sing and strum their way through familiar tunes. Now she’s starting a community choir with the help of John Nettles (pictured at left above with Eby), who will serve as the choir’s artistic director. Nettles is an established figure on the regional art scene; he is the current conductor and choral director of San Diego’s City Ballet.
“We plan to sing music from all ages and all nationalities, including opera, folk and classic rock” Eby said. The choir will hold its first event on Sunday, May 31, at 3pm in the Coronado Library’s Winn Room.
If the past is any indication, the venture is likely to be a long-term success. This is the third local community choir Eby has established. The first was in Point Loma, the other in Logan Heights. Both are self-sustaining. “I purposely leave the board of a new choir after three years so that it can thrive on its own,” she said.
A self-described “project-oriented person,” Eby uses her considerable energy to improve the lives of people in her community by bring joy of performance into their lives. “I deeply care about the people in this town,” she said. Eby first fell in love with Coronado 50 years ago when her high school sweetheart invited her to visit him here. He was a naval aviator stationed at North Island. It was the Fourth of July weekend, and Eby hadn’t traveled much beyond her home in Evanston, Illinois.
“I asked my mother if I should go and she said I would,” Eby remembers. Just before she flew back home, her flyboy proposed. “We were standing in the grove of trees next to the Coronado Library.” The couple was married on July 28. “Everyone thought I was pregnant,” she said, adding that she was not.
While he was deployed Eby worked as teacher’s aide at Glorietta Elementary.
“I loved it and I loved the kids,” she said. If it had been up to her, she and her husband would have stayed, but he missed the Midwest. So when his tour was over, the couple moved back to Illinois. “We wanted to start a family and Richard wanted to raise our children in the Midwest.”
The couple moved to Clear Water, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, in 1967. She was not the same woman when she returned to Illinois. Her experience at Glorietta School led her to return to college, earn a PhD in Education from Northwestern and take a teaching position at DePaul University where she wrote 10 books on education. Yet with all the success she enjoyed in the Midwest, she still couldn’t get California out of her system.
In 1991, after their youngest son went off to college, the Ebys moved to Point Loma. “I wanted to move back to Coronado, but Richard advocated for a new homebase, saying of Coronado, “[we had] been there, done that.” Eby remembers. So, the couple moved to Point Loma instead. Her husband, who flew for United Airlines, kept working for the airline, simply changing his base to Los Angeles from Chicago.
After enjoying professional success while in Illinios, Eby walked away from her career when the family returned to California, leacing Judy to reinvent herself. She became a library volunteer and found a new path for her life with Rolling Readers; a program that sent volunteers out to read to children, hoping to instill in them a love of books. Eby would go on to serve as the organization’s program director for eight years.
Besides Rolling Readers and the music programs in Point Loma and Logan Heights, Eby founded the Centro de Communidad, a library in Tecolote, Tijuana, that she and her husband built from the ground up. Her work there was the inspiration for her novel “Free Trade.”
Some of the sheet music Judy Eby’s hopes her new choir will perform.
Her newest venture is well on its way. She and Nettles have already decided on an accompanist for the choir, but they don’t want to limit the instrumentation to piano. “I would love people who played other instruments to join us, a flutist or guitar player would be wonderful,” she said. The emphasis of the choir is on diversity, not only of instruments, but also of generations and talent.
Both Eby and Nettles believe everyone can sing. “The reason some people don’t is that a fourth grade teacher told them not to,” said Eby.
“This will be a learning environment,” Nettles added. “I want to help everyone sing better so they can enjoy singing more.”
The first meeting will not only give people an opportunity to sing, but also an opportunity to shape the choir itself. While Eby has some firm ideas she is open to suggestions about repertoire and organization. Right now the name of the choir is the Coronado Library Choir, but that is temporary, as are performance times. Those will be sorted out at the first meeting, after everyone has had an opportunity to sing a few songs and get to know each other.
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Gloria Tierney
Staff Writer
eCoronado.com
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