A quote often attributed to Plato says: “Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.” Famed composer Aaron Copland once proffered that, “To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.”
After appreciating the music performed by A Cabbello, the desert’s self-advertised premier men’s vocal ensemble, you may see the truth and wisdom in those descriptions of music. Throughout November and December, A Cabbello will be appearing at multiple venues and events to share their beautifully and energetically performed arrangements—starting with their performance on the Community Stage at Palm Springs Pride at noon, Sunday, Nov. 8. Next on the schedule is their show “California Dreamin’: The SoCal Sound,” on Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 21 and 22, at Revolution Stage Company in Palm Springs.
It’s quite a comeback for a group that, as of last year, was in the process of dissolving for good.
Linda Moran is the artistic director of A Cabbello.
“One of our tenor singers, Kevin Casey, came up with this idea (for “California Dreamin’),” Moran said during a recent interview. “We’ve got a beautiful Seals and Crofts medley, a Doobie Brothers medley, and some Fleetwood Mac (included as well). … We’ll be taking people on a musical road trip through California.”
A Cabbello was founded in 2016 by Rich Cook, soon after he retired as founder and artistic director of MenAlive, the Orange County Gay Men’s Chorus. At the very first show in 2016, there were just nine A Cabbello singers. One of them was Darryl Kozak, a Lutheran pastor from Corona who remains one of four bass voices in today’s ensemble. During a recent interview, he recalled that first show, when the singers sang with their music in front of them,
“It was at the Palm Springs Woman’s Club, and I remember it was just $20. We had no advance tickets … because Rich said people have 20 bucks on them,” Kozak said. “And we sold out. We had to put up more seats, and it was really good. … And then we slowly evolved, from ‘let’s sing two songs off book, let’s sing three songs, let’s sing everything off book.’”
The advent of choreographing the A Cabbello performances came in 2019, when Rich Cook first met Linda Moran.
“I came to the valley, having no idea what I was going to do here, as my husband was ready to retire,” Moran said. “I had been teaching theater and dance, and directing shows in Orange County and at a university for the last 25 years, and we had a mutual friend who introduced me to Rich, (who told me), ‘I’m looking to get the men from behind the music stands. I think I need to give them more stage presence.’”
The singers at first were skeptical about dancing and singing at the same time. But Moran was not skeptical about the singers’ talent.
“The very first time I heard the men (sing), I called my husband in the middle of rehearsal,” she said. “You know, I’ve done a lot of theater since my teens … and I said, ‘Oh my God, these guys are the real deal.’ I said, ‘I’m getting little chills in rehearsal.’ They were just glorious.”
After COVID-19 started subsiding in 2021, Cook conducted searches for both an artistic director and a music director to replace him as he headed toward retirement. He wound up offering the jobs to Moran and Kurt Kelley, an A Cabbello singer since 2018. Together, Moran and Kelley have moved the group off-book entirely, and transitioned from primarily ensemble/harmony work toward, in Moran’s words, “dynamically featuring the men in solos, duets, trios, octets—all over the board. We focus now more with staging, storytelling, humor and choreography, so the audience gets a full performance experience. They’re no longer 16 men standing behind music stands, right? It’s a lot of fun, and we’ve never looked back.”
For several years, A Cabbello was going strong … and then in the spring of 2025, the board shocked fans by announcing the group would be dissolved.
“It wasn’t because A Cabbello was failing, or because we wanted to stop performing,” Moran said. “The challenge was in maintaining a working board. As a nonprofit, you have to have a president, vice president, treasurer and secretary … and it was just very difficult to find people. People loved us, but people didn’t want to work and fundraise.”
Kozak said the members of A Cabbello were devastated. “I was almost in tears because I love this group,” he said.
A Cabbello filed its dissolution papers, and the group was finished.
Except it wasn’t: The Mizell Center offered A Cabbello a lifeline. The group had made a huge impression on the senior center via its Project Connect, which brings “live music and meaningful human connection to older adults who may experience isolation or have limited access to the arts.”
“Mizell came out of the woodwork a few months later and said, ‘Linda, how about joining Mizell?’ And I said, ‘Wow!’” she said. “Kurt and I had been rehearsing there for about four years, so we knew Mizell. We knew Ector Simpson, the director of operations and programs there. We met with him and Rob Wheeler, the executive director. Wheeler said, ‘Linda, the outpouring when you guys left … people said we need to save them. We can’t let this happen.’”
A Cabbello now operates as part of Mizell, though Moran and Kelley still run the ensemble.
“We have over 1,000 supporters, (who) can still offer donations,” Moran said. “The donations go to the Mizell Center, and then they channel them to us, if they’re earmarked for A Cabbello.”
Kozak said Mizell has been a “godsend” for A Cabbello. “It was a blessing because it took all the stress out of the board of directors and all of that. We’d been doing stuff with Mizell anyway, so it was a natural transition.”
Moran explained how Project Connect came to be.
“We were looking for a way to take the music (and find) ways that we could give back to the community,” Moran said. “Ector Simpson at Mizell began to talk to us, and he said, ‘Linda, are you aware that we do 750 Meals on Wheels a day at Mizell?’”
Project Connect brings some of those Meals on Wheels recipients and others to Mizell for free A Cabbello concerts—except they’re not just concerts.
“Each Project Connect been a little different,” Moran said. “Like for our British show … we had bangers and mash. And at another Project Connect, we had charcuterie boards there for food, and a little wine. At Christmas, we did a show, and we had holiday cookies and fun holiday apple cider and things. So, it’s not just a performance. Our Project Connect really is about giving, and making the senior community feel special. We want them to feel emotionally connected and special.”
Social connectivity is part of the DNA of A Cabbello Moran said.
“People can feel connected by music,” she said. “There’s nothing that connects more than music … with everyone.”
Learn more at mizell.org/a-cabbello-mizell.
