The Yale Glee Club Blog

As 2008 draws to a close, the 2009 Yale Glee Club Winter Tour is almost upon us! Winter Tour is a cherished tradition for members of the YGC - it's a chance to showcase a semester of choral work, travel to fun new places, make some new friends and come together even more as a group. This year's tour, starting January 1st, will surely carry on that tradition. The hard work of Tour Managers Sarah Dewey and Mary Schnoor, combined with the generosity of alums and community members in the Pacific Northwest, promise to make for a fantastic experience and great concerts. But in the midst of all the tradition of the YGC, this year we're going to try something new: a Winter Tour Blog. The Yale Glee Club was founded in 1863 - in internet-age terms, somewhere in the early Paleozoic era. In those days, on-the-road updates would have a tad more difficult than in this age of laptops, wireless internet, and iPhones (the recent bad weather in the Pacific Northwest would probably have made

Fenno Heath, legendary conductor of the Yale Glee Club from 1953-1992, passed away on December 6. His family has set up a website with many more wonderful stories and memories of him. On hearing the sad news of Fenno’s passing, I just wanted to share a couple of thoughts, tell a couple of stories of Fenno, and hopefully honor him a little bit, as best as anyone can. For new Glee Clubbers: Fenno Heath was our conductor from the 1950s through the 1990s. If any one person could embody the Yale Glee Club, Fenno would be he. He made the courageous leap to bring women into the group; he brought the group on numerous tours abroad, including to China (I believe the group's first China tour ever); he arranged and even composed for the group extensively (hence the Fenno Heath Award for new Yale songs); and most importantly, he did it all with a spirit of genuine, hardy big-heartedness. I can't claim to have any Glee Club memories from before 2005, but in my time in the Glee Club, we