The Yale Glee Club Blog

Yale Glee Club always manages to show its best attributes come holiday season. Maybe it's the accumulation of beloved annual events that we look forward to every year, or maybe it's the long sought relief we need during finals prep. Regardless, some of my fondest memories of the Yale Glee Club (and I'm sure this is true for many others as well) come from this festive and incredibly joyful period in our lives. Last year as a freshman in the Yale Glee Club, the trip to New York was the event that forever sealed my utter adoration for YGC. I had already been completely convinced of YGC's awesomeness at the beginning of the year with Beethoven's Ode to Joy. I mean, honestly, what music lover wouldn't be completely brimming with excitement with that experience? But the combination of being in New York City, one of my favorite places, in the famed Yale Club with such a warm and welcoming audience  made losing a whole day of studying (yes, I was and still am obsessi

I have a confession to make. It is a fact that before I came to Yale, I had been rooting for an obscure college in Cambridge MA for four years. My sister graduated from Harvard in 2010, and being the proud younger sister who oh-so-often looked up to her, I wore my little maroon sweatshirt to the point of obnoxiousness during high school. But do not fret my Yalies! My allegiances were established to their rightful party long before acceptance letters began arriving in my inbox. In fact, in the early stages of college applications, I had long figured that Yale was, in general and for my specific circumstances, superior to Harvard in so many ways. Without going into detail, let's just say my favorite parts of the week are when I get to sing fully to my heart content to incredibly moving and beautiful music in a MIXED collegiate choir I warmly consider my family here at Yale.  For our annual Yale-Harvard Glee Club concert, I was anticipating quite a rush of memories heading back t

Here is a fantastic and touching blog from our most beloved Stephanie Tubiolo, a junior in Silliman and a Glee Club member since freshman year! Enjoy! Oh How I Love Glee This year, I brought a pillow to Glee-treat for the first time. As I watched our incredible new members scramble onto the buses with stacks of textbooks and wrinkled sheets tugged off their beds just minutes before, my head was filled with memories of the swirling excitement of my first retreat—and how much it meant to me. It was my first time being out of contact with my family. It was my first time traveling with people I didn’t know. It was my first time having to pack on my own (thus the lack of pillow). And it was absolutely the first time I felt like I belonged at Yale. I entered Yale the epitome of an embarrassingly over-attached child. I cried every day of my Pre-orientation Harvest trip, I cried when my amazing parents and brother left orientation, and I called home every day for the entire

A new Glee Club member Sharif Vakili describes his experiences and memories from our 2012-2013 retreat! The yale glee club retreat has been one of the most uplifting and emotionally rewarding experiences I've ever had at Yale. And I mean that as a senior who's in his first and sadly last year with the group. The people in the glee club have been so unbelievably welcoming, sweet and interesting. They constantly emit positive energy. And in it's contagious. I'm pretty sure if a grade A dirtbag joined a rehearsal with us, either he'd lose his capacity to be douchy or maybe he'd just explode.  Beyond the special goodness of the glee club members that made the retreat so pleasant, the cool little events we did and the spirit we approached them with really added to the retreat. I always looked forward to rehearsal and was super excited to get started, to sing, to learn, and of course, to hear Jeff give his various inspiring, memorable (remember-- every entrance

Our beloved 2011-2012 manager, Abigail Droge '12, writes about our performance of Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms with the YSO: From Classical to Neoclassical – as Rachel Glodo ’12 reminded us in her brilliant and witty pre-concert pep talk, within two weeks the Glee Club has embraced both Mozart and Stravinsky.  And what a wonderful journey it has been.  Of all the pieces that I have sung with the Glee Club, the Symphony of Psalms is perhaps the one that transformed the most for me over the course of the year. When we first began rehearsals, it was difficult to find my notes amongst the dissonance.  But as we became more and more familiar with the piece, and especially when we were able to hear it with the orchestra, I came to appreciate its beauty and emotion on a different level.  The desperation of the opening movement, a setting of Psalm 38 (“Hear my prayer, O Lord … For I am a stranger with Thee”) only increases the monumental power of Psalm 40 in the second mov

The concert we'd all been looking forward to since September finally arrived last weekend. We performed the Requiem in Woolsey Hall with a wonderful orchestra of professional musicians, and soloists from the Glee Club. Although we only had a few weeks to practice the chromatic runs in the fugues, debate the contributions of Levin and Sussmayr, agonize over the beauty of the dissonances in the Confutatis, and learn to "call upon deep wells of personal frustration" while singing the Dies Irae, we savored every minute we were able to sing this masterpiece in German Latin. Rachel Protacio '15 writes about her experience: Mozart.  So much tradition, so much excitement, so much wishing we could sing it again.  For me, Glee Clubbers intrinsically represent a wide range of perspectives when it comes to music, and yet Mozart’s Requiem almost immediately captivated us all, bringing us on a gleefully shared journey of twists and turns, bashings of Süssmayr, a myriad of first

On Wednesday, the Glee Club drove back across the island to Honolulu, stopping along the way to visit the Pearl Harbor memorial and to sing with the high school students at the Waldorf School. Before we knew it, we were wearing fuschia leis at a luau at the Polynesian Cultural Center. Daniel Olson '12 writes about the remainder of our trip. Photos courtesy of Connor Kenaston. When it rains in Hawai’I, what is the glee club to do? For many of us, it meant walking up the mountains outside of Honolulu into a rain cloud. The Kuliouou Ridge trail usually offers striking views of both sides of the island. Last Thursday, the trail was covered in mud! Though many a glee clubber lost his or her shoes to the muddy trek, the haunting performance of Sarah Hopkins’ “Past Life Melodies” at the top definitely made up for the losses. Some of us (including me) decided to stay in the dryer environs of Waikiki. Exploring one of the most famous strands of beach in the entire world was

Monday, 6am. Sitting on the floor of the LAX terminal, venti coffee in hand, staring blankly at the Bananagrams tiles scattered across the stained carpet. 2 time zones ahead, 2 pm, Honolulu. Jamba Juice at the Ala Moana Center. Birds, beaches, and green seem to be everywhere. We learn the one Hawaiian word we must know, Mahalo. Apparently two consonants never exist in a row in the Hawaiian language. (I spent the rest of the trip searching for exceptions, to no avail.) 3:15 pm. No time to lose! We hike up Diamond Head Volcano. There is nothing quite like looking over miles and miles of beach, mountains, trees, water with no end that fuses into sky with no beginning. Triumphantly yoiking the mountain wind is only natural at this moment. And when it starts pouring on our decline, frolicking across the hills in the rain is deemed necessary. 6:15 pm. A bit overwhelmed and still quite wet, wandering around a large room filled with colorful clothing and colorful food. Han

Before we continue on to the Hawai'i portion of our trip, Goh Wee Shian reminisces about our California activities.  The long awaited spring tour has finally arrived! High in spirits, the glee club set off on Friday to their first stop at California. San Diego was refreshing in many aspects. Aside from the wonderful weather, San Diego also boasts some incredibly beautiful spots. For example, we visited the Garden of the Self-Realization Fellowship located in San Diego County. Taking a stroll in the gardens definitely gave me a sense of serenity. Moreover, the garden was situated on top of a hill and offered a magnificent view of the beach. The ebb and flow of the waves, together with the occasional breeze that brushed across my cheek, were inexplicably therapeutic, casting all my worries out of my mind momentarily. Next, we visited the Hotel Del Coronado on Coronado Island. This edifice counts ex-presidents, royalties and head of states as amongst its many distinguishe

After spending the night in wonderful homestays in San Diego (after the concert our host family took us immediately to In N Out Burger, on which this post will elaborate...), we drove right back to LA for our second concert. Jacob Metrick '13 writes about some things that particularly stood out.  Three facts: 1. The Glee Club is freakin’ good at singing. Well, at least according to the completely unbiased cousins (and parent) of mine, we’ve never sounded better. We started out with two of my personal favorite pieces: Sanctus from Martin’s requiem, and four movements (I, II, V, and VI) from Howells’ requiem. The Sanctus is extremely powerful in its emotional range: it has sections like the end which seem to evoke more passion and fire than any other piece, which is contrasted by the intensity of the quieter sections. I could talk all day about Howells requiem, but the best thing I could say is that the piece is downright beautiful. Every moment of it is meaningful and

The first stop on our tour was to sunny San Diego! We drove there after a night in LA, stopping on the way to reflect in the breathtaking Self-Realization Fellowship Gardens in Encinitas, and then to sink our toes into the sand for the first time at Coronado Island. Ashby Cogan '14 writes about our first concert of tour:  After a couple hours soaking up the sun and ensuring a prosperous quarter for the MooTime Creamery, the Glee Club boarded the buses to the First Presbyterian Church of San Diego for rehearsal and joint concert with the Whiffenpoofs. We speedily rehearsed our program, which included many pieces we had not sung in a while. Among them, terrifyingly, was a 24-part canon we had not performed since December. With fewer than fifteen minutes to review it we ironed out our missed entrances and proceeded through the program. Pre-concert energy levels varied—personally I felt like the jetlag monster had just scraped me off the bottom of its shoe—but as we got

-In the words of Jeff Douma. But I think we'd all agree that our trip to Providence this past weekend for the American Choral Directors Association convention was both a great performing and bonding experience, despite the time constraint. Terrence Chin-Loy '14 writes about our experience: Which choir has the willpower and drive to wake up by 6 AM and be ready to sing beautifully for a crowd full of scrutinizing conductors at 10 AM? The Yale Glee Club.  This past weekend, the Glee Club performed at the ACDA’s (American Choral Directors Association) Northeast Conference. Numerous conductors were present representing an even larger number of people from their respective choirs. Performing in a room full of people who knew all about proper cut-offs, correct placement of ‘s’es, and basically every other intricacy of choral singing was a daunting task and we prepared arduously to meet it. On a beautiful Friday morning, we boarded the buses at 12:30 PM with the in