Princeton University Glee Club | |
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| Background information | |
| Origin | Princeton University |
| Genres | Choral |
| Years active | 1874–present |
| Website | www |
The Princeton University Glee Club is the oldest and most prestigious choir at Princeton University, composed of approximately 100 mixed voices. They give multiple performances throughout the year featuring music from Renaissance to Modern, and also tour internationally biannually. They have performed recently with Bobby McFerrin, Roomful of Teeth, Calmus, and a collection of the world's premier oktavists. Currently the Glee Club is led by Gabriel Crouch.
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Princeton's Glee Club
Transcription
[crowd noise] [singing: "Sednalo e Djore Dos"] SUZIE SHOFFNER: There are 89 students. ALEXANDRA GREEN: And 12 students pursuing a certificate in musical performance. NATHANIEL FLEMING: We're from 23 states. ALEXANDRA CERF: And 18 countries. DAVID SIMINS: 19 tenors. JOHN WHELCHEL: 24 basses. DAVID HWANG: 24 sopranos. KATIE WELSH: 22 altos. KRISTAN SCOTT: 23 majors. EMI NAKAMURA: And pursuing 32 different certificates. ALL: 88 new friends. [singing] GABRIEL CROUCH: Do I sing, as well? I sing during rehearsal all the time. I try to join in every part, as well, if I possibly can. You know, obviously, bass and tenor are sort of easy, but the sopranos will tell you that I have this squealy falsetto voice. [singing, laughter] I do still sing in my spare time, as well. Before I came here, I was actually a professional singer. You know, I came here because I wanted to do this instead. ARYEH NUSSBAUM COHEN: To have the opportunity to sing under a conductor who cares so deeply about each and every individual in the choir, and every moment of music that we make, is really, really inspiring. EMILY SUNG: I always learn something new from rehearsal. Not just one new thing, but many, many new things. He manages to be interesting for two hours at a time, without a break. And so people watch him and they really pay attention. NATHANIEL FLEMING: For those two hours, you're able to immerse yourself in something else, and something that you all have in common. That experience makes it much more fun. [singing] GABRIEL CROUCH: The only thing that you really need to do to be in Glee Club is to have some experience of reading music. EMILY SUNG: We only have seven music majors, which I think is a testament to how possible it is to participate in music here, even if you don't want to turn it into the focus of your life. [singing]
General information
The Princeton University Glee Club is the oldest singing group in existence at Princeton. It was founded in 1874 by Andrew Fleming West '74, who later became the first Dean of the Graduate College. The Glee Club is currently celebrating its 146th season of concerts.
In 1907 Charles E. Burnham was the first professional musician to lead the Glee Club. He was succeeded in 1918 by Alexander Russell, who served until 1934, when the Glee Club became a responsibility of the music faculty. James Giddings became director in 1934, Timothy Cheney in 1940, J. Merrill Knapp in 1941, Russell Ames Cook in 1943, J. Merrill Knapp again in 1946, Elliot Forbes in 1952, Carl Weinrich in 1953, Walter L. Nollner in 1958, William Trego in 1992, Richard Tang Yuk in 1994, Robert Isaacs in 2009, and Gabriel Crouch since 2010.
On the eve of the College football games in 1913, the Glee Club held its first concerts with the Glee Clubs of Harvard and Yale Universities, beginning a tradition of joint concerts that have continued to this day.
The Princeton University Glee Club was involved in some remarkable projects in the 1930s. They gave the American Premiere of Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex with Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1931; performances of Schoenberg's Gurrelieder and Wagner's Parsifal in 1932 and 1933; Bach's Mass in B Minor at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1935; and with the Vassar College Choir, gave the first United States performance of Jean Philippe Rameau's Castor et Pollux in 1937.
The Glee Club continued to sing with women's choral groups from Vassar, Bryn Mawr, Wellesley, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges until a mixed Princeton chorus was formed after the advent of coeducation.
From 1958 to 1992 Walter L. Nollner led the Glee Club, giving him the honor of the longest tenure of any previous conductor. Under his direction the choir traveled outside the United States for the first time, establishing a pattern of international concert tours to Europe, Asia, South America and the South Pacific, including two around-the-world tours. In honour of Professor Nollner's service to the Glee Club, an endowment fund has been established in his name to assist the Glee Club with its yearly operations. The Nollner Endowment Fund was officially launched in February 1999.
The Glee Club has continued their tradition of overseas concert tours (most recently traveling to Buenos Aires, Paris, Leipzig, Prague, South Africa, Spain, and Mexico) and expanded the repertoire to include more works of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The Glee Club presents several concerts in Alexander Hall on the Princeton campus. They perform a major oratorio each spring with professional soloists and orchestra. Recent masterworks performed include Orff's Carmina Burana, Mendelssohn's Elijah, Bach's St. Matthew Passion and Mass in B minor, Mozart's Requiem, and Honneger's Le Roi David.[1][2]
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This page was last edited on 8 August 2022, at 02:35