Dear Friends, 

Two weeks have passed since Spem in Alium, and the exquisite sound made by 200 current and former Glee Clubbers is still with me - how could one ever tire of such a piece? I will always treasure the day, immediately after our first ever performance of the piece four years ago, when a group of members of the class of 2011 asked that we get together every year to do this. Thank you to all of you who have ever sung this piece with us, for making the Glee Club reunion such a special event. But beyond Spem we have so many happy memories to look back on this year. We ended the season with the incomparable Verdi Requiem - with 230 Princeton students crammed on to the Richardson stage, we shook the foundations of the hall and saw people lining up around the block to attend. If you weren’t able to make it, this little taste of the spine-tingling Tuba Mirum section should give you a sense of the occasion. And for our Walter Nollner Memorial Concert, we were able to both perform and record a glorious program of English Coronation music, which will be made available as a CD in the early fall of this year.

Announcing Glee Club Presents 15/16
 

This year also saw the full establishment of our Glee Club Presents series, and we're so proud to say that we’ve filled every single seat for all three of our concerts to date. And what thrilling performances we’ve had, from the Schola Cantorum of Oxford, to the grammy-winning Theatre of Voices. Our goal to raise $10,000 for this series was exceeded thanks to the generous donations of 8 decades of Glee Clubbers, parents, faculty, and friends to the Glee Club Fund, so we were able to stage two extra masterclasses with two greats of the concert stage. With your continued support we hope to reach for even greater heights in planning next year’s campaign – in October the wonderful female ensemble ‘Latvian Voices’, and in February of next year, mere weeks after the Glee Club returns from a tour to South Africa, we’re going to be giving a joint concert with one of the greatest names in a cappella singing – Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

'65 Glee Club tour remembered

This year's Glee Club Reunion commemorated the 50th anniversary of the first ever Glee Club tour. Shep Shanley '64 introduced those present who were on the tour before a brief video.

"The 1965 Europe Tour was the first Glee Club Tour; and of course it was the start of a proud tradition with many more tours all over the world since then. Among the most memorable places where we performed were the Basilica of San Marco in Venice (where we were the first ever American Choir to present a concert) and, for our final performance, Chartres Cathedral. They were peak performances. We got a good review—in French!—after our performance at the festival in Aix-en-Provence; and in Amsterdam someone gave us a party at the Heineken Brewery! The recording sessions at the studios of "Radio-Télévision Francaise” were over the top and included works by Monteverdi, Schütz, Charpentier, Bach, and the “Mass for Four Voices” by William Byrd—a big favorite. Bill Parker, a member of the class of ’65 who went on to have a distinguished professional singing career, was the principal baritone soloist. He died a little over 20 years ago, and we miss him as a friend and a great singer. We all had friends in the Glee Club and many were on the Tour. Some of them became friends for life, and some of those are here today! The music was a triumph, and the friends were a gift and still are. We are delighted to be here to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Tour." -Shep Shanley '64

Alumni tour to South Africa

Exciting news from the Alumni Office at Princeton University: A parallel tour to South Africa is being organized for Princeton Alumni and parents and friends of current Glee Clubbers, so if you’d like to join the Glee Club for their performances in Johannesburg and Cape Town, and you’re free in the last week of January… we’ll see you there! More information will be published on the Princeton Alumni Tours website very shortly.

Alumni Spotlight

Our new series of interview spotlights with musically-inclined former Glee Clubbers has just been launched on our new alumni blog page! For our first spotlight we chose a member of the class of 2003 who, after spells at Yale and Cambridge, is now teaching at Westminster Choir College and directing the leading community/professional choral group in the region - Princeton Pro Musica. Read about Dr. Ryan Brandau ‘03 in his own words and leave a comment. If you’d like to give us your musical story in a future spotlight, please let us know!

Thank you for your support

We’d all like to say thank you to all of you - our friends, parents and alumni: Thank you for coming to our concerts, for cheering for us, for supporting the Glee Club Fund, and for believing in us and in this Glee Club that we all love. Here’s to a wonderful summer for all of us, and another great year of music-making next year. Cheers!