The Yale Glee Club Blog

Kate Carter '12 on divided allegiance, the YPMB-YGC football game, and transcendence of ancient hatreds. I am, as my Glee Club bio aptly puts it, a Benedict Arnold, a traitor to the cause of Glee Club domination. After failing to cajole, coerce, or otherwise convince me, YGC left me to the ranks of that menacing and bizarre force, the Yale Precision Marching Band, in the annual epic showdown of musical powerhouses. The YGC-YPMB football game. A battle of glee against “precision,” of spirit, of “Y’s.” The score is unimportant (*coughthebandwoncough*). Vastly outnumbered (think 300 ), facing an opponent honed by weekly practices and killer duck-duck-goose matches, the Glee Club put up a valiant fight and emerged battle-worn but proud. I believe YGC’s efforts can be best described in the words of our manager and one of two fear-inspiring captains, Rachel Wilf: “ Our all-star freshman (Ben Lewis, Connor Kenaston) played brilliantly, Atid Kimelman chose to play on our side instead of ...

New member Ari Susu-Mago '13 on our Family Weekend Concert Like many things in the not-so-distant past, my memories of my first YGC concert are still fairly fresh (as far as memories go), but enough time has passed that they have distilled themselves into discrete moments; these pockets of clear recollection are surrounded by a fuzzy knowledge of what happened in between these moments (there's rather a difference between knowing that you hung out in the Woolsey rotunda and actually remembering every facet of the experience). Thus, I'm going to focus on the beads of clear memory I've strung together and gloss over the spaces between them, because...well, because I can't recall them clearly. And that's probably because they weren't interesting enough to be worth remembering, so you're not missing anything either way. ANYHOW, I remember... ...walking into Hendrie on the night of the concert and being abruptly conscious of how well-dressed everyone looked (e...

Welcome to all the fantastic new members of the Yale Glee Club. In keeping with tradition, we offer the following (extremely serious) bios of our officer corps for your edification and amusement. President – Emily Howell, CC ’ 11 Emily Howell is a senior in Calhoun College, majoring in English. She hails from the charming city of Lynchburg, VA. Having already filled the roles of Social Chair and Tour Manager in the past, Emily is currently the longest serving member of the Glee Club Officer Corps. Other than presiding over the YGC, she spends her free time terrorizing elementary-schoolers with the Yale Children's Theater group, and lending her hunky alto vocals to the Christ Church Choir. Emily Howell is also a computer program developed in the 1990's as an interactive interface that facilitates musical and language communication. Look it up on Wikipedia. Manager – Rachel Wilf, TD ’ 11 Rachel Wilf is the Manager of the Glee Club and manages to make that job look manageable. She...

“Good Morning” from Singing in the Rain is blasting off President Emily Howell’s computer. The door opens. She hits pause. Officers rush to seats in the Glee Club Office, stow half-eaten bagels under chairs, and try to look semi-official and yet not intimidating to freshmen. “Something Auditioning This Way Comes,” says Emily. I can’t shake the feeling I’m in a reality show. There’s one chair in the center of the room. Kids from West Virginia, South Africa, California, Vietnam, and Long Island are coming in one at a time to say hey, shuffle their feet, and talk music at Yale. As a cheat sheet to those of you planning to audition in future who may be reading the Glee Club Blog, I offer a set of possible questions you should study up on. We’ll answer some of them ourselves, as a sneak preview of the new officer bios to be posted Monday. Ahem. Q: If you could build a house out of any unconventional material, what would it be? A: “Ice cream sandwiches. They’re kind of like bricks and woul...

Casey Klippel '09, the wise old woman of the YGC, on our last few days in Santo Domingo. The last day on the Tour That Broke All The Rules started out by ... breaking another rule. The morning after our closing banquet usually consists of sad farewells and moaning-and-groaning about the early wakeup call. But not on this tour! Banquet technically happened last night (though more on that later), and instead of travelling home today, we had our first free time in Santo Domingo as well as our final concert. Time to rise and shine! Those who rose and shone early enough could take a walking tour of the Colonial Zone in Santo Domingo. Since I am a professional athlete in the extreme sport of sleeping in, my day started instead at our awesome hotel’s even awesomer breakfast buffet (read: tons of pastries, three kinds of tropical fruit juice, and unlimited fried cheese). To be fair, twenty-two of us had toured the Colonial Zone yesterday afternoon. Santo Domingo contains many of the oldest...

Yale Glee Club Workshop Slideshow from Julia Myers on Vimeo . On the Dominican Republic leg of tour, the YGC hosted arts workshops for young people from the town of Vallejuelo and its surrounding villages. "Team Film," an outreach group led by Julia Myers '12 and Phyllis Thangaraj '11, created a video slideshow documenting the workshop experience. The slideshow includes photos taken by the workshop students themselves.

Rebecca Trupin '11 describes an epic YGC day in the mountains of the Dominican Republic. Photos: Josh Schoenfield '10 Yesterday, Jeff told us: Great work today, guys, in handling the unexpected. For sure there will be some kind of surprise tomorrow. Never were truer words spoken. The day began smoothly enough with glorious sunshine and delicious oatmeal (there was fruit as well but the oatmeal earned rhapsodic praise from all who tasted it). We climbed aboard our buses at our hotel and set off for our second day in the remote town of Vallejuelo. There, we separated into Film Team, Dance Team, Theater Team, Writing Team, and Quilting Team to lead creative arts workshops with children from the nearby villages. I’m sure I speak for most of the Dance Team when I say we got well exercised when, at the end of our workshop, the kids taught us salsa, merengue, and reggaeton. After lunch, several Glee Clubbers began spontaneously singing on a balcony. Old beloveds such as “Ride the Char...