Virginia Glee Club

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Virginia Glee Club
The Virginia Glee Club in 1893. Courtesy, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
The Virginia Glee Club in 1893. Courtesy, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
Background information
Origin Charlottesville, Virginia
Genre(s) Classical
Years active 1871–1905,1915–present
Website http://www.virginiagleeclub.org/

The Virginia Glee Club is a critically acclaimed men's chorus based at the University of Virginia. It performs both traditional and contemporary vocal works, typically in TTBB arrangements. Founded in 1871, the Glee Club is the University's oldest musical organization and one of the oldest all-male collegiate vocal ensembles in the United States. It is currently conducted by Frank Albinder.

Contents

[edit] History

The Virginia Glee Club was founded in 1871 as the Cabell House Men. In the 1893-1894 session of the University, the Glee Club was combined with other extant student musical groups to form the Glee, Banjo, and Mandolin Club, a more permanent organization, with Harrison Randolph as the director.[1]. The group appears to have existed in this form until around 1905, when its status becomes unclear. Though contemporary letters indicate that the Glee Club was in existence in the fall of 1905,[2] university historian Philip Alexander Bruce indicates it disbanded in this year. The group reformed in 1910-1911 but does not appear to have existed on a continuing basis until January 1915, when it was reorganized under the leadership of Professor Alfred Lawrence (A.L.) Hall-Quest (professor of educational psychology).[3][4] (At least one photograph of the Glee Club, dated January 1914, is known to exist in the period 1911-1915, so the exact dates of the group's hiatus are uncertain.)[5]

Since 1915, the Virginia Glee Club has been in continuous existence as a men's chorus at the University. From the 1920s into the 1980s, the Glee Club enjoyed an association with the McIntire Department of Music through a series of directors who were members of the music faculty, including Arthur Fickenscher, Harry Rogers Pratt, Stephen Tuttle, Donald Macinnis, and Donald Loach. The group was viewed as an educational resource that enhanced other offerings; a course catalog from the 1920s offered students in the Composition class the opportunity to have their works performed by the Glee Club.[6]

In 1943, the Glee Club worked with composer in residence Randall Thompson when director Stephen Tuttle commissioned Thompson to write The Testament of Freedom, a setting of Thomas Jefferson's words about liberty, for the Virginia Glee Club. In the later years of Tuttle's tenure, the Glee Club recorded an album with RCA of traditional university songs, accompanied by the University of Virginia Band.

In 1953, members of the Glee Club formed the Virginia Gentlemen, the oldest a cappella group at UVA, which originated as a performing subset of the Glee Club[7] and became an independent organization in the 1980s.

In 1971, the Z Society gave the Glee Club its Organization Award in recognition of its concerts, the recording of its album The Sun Dial, and its first European tour.[8]

In 1989, the Virginia Glee Club became a Contracted Independent Organization when the Music Department moved unilaterally to combine it with the Virginia Women's Chorus into a mixed choir, which would have eliminated the Glee Club's independent identity.[9]

[edit] Notable alumni

Over the years the group has counted various famous UVA students among its alumni, including Woodrow Wilson, who joined the Glee Club while attending the University of Virginia School of Law,[10] and Edward A. Craighill, author of The Good Old Song.[11]

[edit] List of Directors

  • Harrison Randolph (ca. 1893)
  • A.L. Hall-Quest (ca. 1915-1918)[12][13]
  • Arthur Fickenscher (ca. 1920 - 1933), head of the Music Department [14]
  • Harry Rogers Pratt (1933 - 1940s)[15]
  • Stephen Tuttle (ca. 1940s - 1951)
  • Donald MacInnis/David Davis (1951-1964)
  • Donald Loach (1964 - 1989)
  • Michael Butterman (1989-1991)
  • John R. Liepold (1991-1996)
  • J. Craig Fennell (interim) (1996)
  • Bruce Tammen (1996-2001)
  • Burke Morton (interim) (2001-2002)
  • Michael Slon (2002-2003)
  • Frank Albinder (2003-present)[16]

[edit] The Glee Club today

Since its separation from the McIntire Department of Music in 1989, the Glee Club has existed as a Contracted Independent Organization at the University. The group currently receives no funds from the University, and is entirely student managed.

The Glee Club rehearses and performs the majority of its home concerts at Old Cabell Hall on the University of Virginia Lawn, where it recorded its 1947 record Songs of the University of Virginia. The Glee Club's concert schedule typically includes a mix of home and road concerts, mostly notably including its annual Christmas Concerts, which have been produced each year since 1940. The Glee Club also gives its Finals concert the night before University Commencement, during which graduating members are bid farewell. The Glee Club typically collaborates on the road with such women's choirs as the Wellesley College Choir.

The Glee Club terms itself a "Fraternity of Talent". In its own words, the Glee Club is "committed to performing at a professional level, promoting fellowship, preserving longstanding tradition, and upholding the ideals of student self-governance." Members are said to adhere to the lifestyle set forth in the motto "Virginia Messengers of Harmony, Love, and Brotherhood".

[edit] Commissioned works

One of the high points of the group's early years was its 1943 premier performance of The Testament of Freedom by American composer Randall Thompson, then a Virginia professor. The Glee Club commissioned Thompson to write the piece in honor of the 200th anniversary of the birth of University founder Thomas Jefferson.[17]

The group continues to commission choral works for men's voices; recent examples include Young T.J., commissioned by the Glee Club from composer Neely Bruce in honor of Thomas Jefferson's 250th birthday.[18] The piece was performed at various celebrations of Jefferson's 250th birthday on April 13, 1993, including a special performance for President Bill Clinton.[19]

Other recent commissions include The Jabberwocky, a 2006 setting of the Lewis Carroll poem by Judith Shatin.[20]

The Glee Club most recently was part of a group to commission a work by Lee Hoiby called Private First Class Jesse Givens. The lyrics are the text of the last letter sent home by PFC Givens after he died in Iraq in March, 2003. [21]

[edit] Discography

A list of currently available albums is available on the Glee Club web site.

[edit] External links

The Official Virginia Glee Club Homepage

[edit] References

  1. ^ Bruce, Philip Alexander (1921). History of the University of Virginia, 1818-1919, Volume IV. MacMillan, 127-128,841. 
  2. ^ A Guide to the Gregory and Whitmore Family Papers, 1990-1993. Gregory and Whitmore Family Papers, 1990-1993, Accession # 10754-c (1905-10-29). Retrieved on 2008-03-25.
  3. ^ Bruce, Philip Alexander (1921). History of the University of Virginia, 1818-1919, Volume V. MacMillan, 209,288-289. 
  4. ^ (1917) A Thousand American Men of Mark To-Day. Chicago: American Men of Mark, 110-111. 
  5. ^ Holsinger, Rufus (1914-01-07). Glee Club University of Virginia.
  6. ^ (1924) University of Virginia Record. Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 31. 
  7. ^ Daly, Kim (1998-10-29). "Facing the Music". The Declaration 26 (17). 
  8. ^ Dabney, Virginius (1981). Mr. Jefferson's University. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 465. 
  9. ^ Dakake, Brad (2000-02-17). "Tradition in Treble: A Brief History of Glee Club". The Declaration 28 (3). 
  10. ^ Hale, William Bayard (November 1911 to April 1912). "Woodrow Wilson--A Biography: Second Article--At College, Preparing for Public Life". The World's Work 23: 74. 
  11. ^ University of Virginia Glee Club Photo, February 11, 1893 (1893-02-11). Retrieved on 2008-02-05.
  12. ^ (1918) Board of Visitors Minutes for May 15, 1918. 
  13. ^ Professor Hall-Quest resigned from the University on or around May 1918, presumably terminating his directorship.
  14. ^ (1924-1925) University of Virginia Record: Department of the College, 32. Retrieved on 2008-03-20. 
  15. ^ Stokes, Virginia; Lloyd Thomas Smith Jr, James R Boyd, Margaret O'Brien, Marc Wagner. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Recoleta (PDF). Retrieved on 2007-08-22.
  16. ^ A Brief History of the Club. Retrieved on 2007-08-22.
  17. ^ Tawa, Nicholas E. (2001). From Psalm to Symphony: A History of Music in New England. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 327. 
  18. ^ About Neely Bruce. Retrieved on 2007-08-06.
  19. ^ Clinton, William Jefferson (1993-04-13). Remarks by the President at Ceremony Honoring 250th Anniversary of Birth of Thomas Jefferson. Retrieved on 2007-08-06.
  20. ^ Ford, Jane (2006-04-13). "Shatin makes musical sense of Jabberwocky". Inside UVA 36 (6). 
  21. ^ Lee Hoiby Composer-in-Residence at Austin Peay University (2007-03).
  22. ^ Thompson, Ralph (1947). Glee Club.
  23. ^ “Virginia U. Band and Glee Club Put Songs 'On the Record'”, Washington Post: L7, 1951-04-22 
  24. ^ Recording Listing. Retrieved on 2008-03-25.
  25. ^ Staff Writer (1972-02-25), “A Shadow's on the Sundial”, Cavalier Daily, <http://scripta.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-textwg/cavdaily.pl?str=glee%20club&offset=49302434&fileid=19720225>. Retrieved on 22 August 2007