Harvard Glee Club
to Perform in Charleston
Honoring its historic ties to the Holy City's Unitarian Church
As part of its southeastern U.S. tour, the Harvard Glee Club will perform in Charleston on Monday, March 16 at 7:30 pm at the Unitarian Church, 4 Archdale Street. The concert is sponsored jointly by the Charleston Men’s Chorus and the Harvard Club of South Carolina. Tickets are $10; admission is free for students with ID and senior citizens. All ticket proceeds go to benefit the Community Outreach Fund of the Unitarian Church in Charleston. Tickets are available online at www.CharlestonHGC.brownpapertickets.com or at the door.
The Unitarian Church in Charleston has a unique connection with Harvard and the Glee Club. Samuel Gilman, rector of the church from 1819-1858, was a Harvard graduate and, in 1836, wrote the words for “Fair Harvard,” later adopted as the school’s alma mater. Gilman is buried in the churchyard, and the Glee Club plan to honor him with a medley of songs related to Gilman and “Fair Harvard.” The program will include the group's usual mix of music from the Renaissance, Classical and Modern eras, as well as folk songs and the famous Harvard “Football” songs. Brahms' "Alto Rhapsody," a rarely-performed piece for men's chorus, will be performed with a piano reduction and alto soloist. Additionally, the Glee Club is performing the world premiere of “The Field,” written by John Muehleisen for the Harvard Glee Club to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the end of the Civil War, which sets texts by Herman Melville, Stephen Crane, and Sara Teasdale.
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The Harvard Glee Club is the oldest American college chorus. For many years after its founding 1858, it served as a social club performing college songs and glees to the accompaniment of banjos and mandolins. Then in 1912, under the leadership of A.T. Davison, the Club began to build a new repertoire based on the best in choral music. The HGC first performed with the Boston Symphony in 1917, and appeared regularly with them for many decades, including the American premiere of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, later recorded under the direction of Leonard Bernstein, himself a Glee Club alum. The first tour to Europe in 1921 led to associations with the leading composers of the time, as Poulenc and Milhaud both composed original music for the HGC. This sponsorship of the men’s choral genre has continued ever since, with dozens of composers producing music for the HGC, including Randall Thompson, Gustav Holst, Toru Takemitsu, Sir John Tavener, Stephen Paulus, and Dominick Argento. Glee Club alums composing music have included Virgil Thomson, Elliott Carter, Irving Fine, John Harbison, and Bernstein. Today the Club is composed of about 55 men, mostly Harvard College undergraduates, from all over the USA and abroad. They combine with other University groups to perform major choral-orchestral works, and make annual spring tours within the USA and foreign tours every 4 to 5 years.
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