2010 Summer Tour: 'Neath the Palms

Rising senior Mari Oye describes the first day's journey from New Haven to Vero Beach.

Louder yet the chorus raise,

Friendship lasts when youth must fail;

Jolly jolly are the days

'Neath the elms of dear old Yale!

So goes the last verse of 'Neath the Elms, a Yale songbook favorite dating from 1871. This year, the Glee Club is exchanging elms for palms, and will spend twelve days in Florida and the Dominican Republic. Our schedule includes concerts with the national chorus of the Dominican Republic (advertised here), extensive outreach, set up in part through the efforts of the Association of Yale Alumni, and, tomorrow, a chance to see manatees.

I'm writing to you from a deck near the water in Vero Beach, FL. It's hard to believe that around 5:30 this morning we were all huddled amid suitcases (too many), pillows (too few) and boxes of equipment on the steps of Hendrie Hall. A bus ride and a few hours' flight later, we arrived at the airport in Orlando. Starving tenors rushed straight for the local delicacies: Chick-Fil-A and a dozen Krispy Kremes, consumed in no time. I'll fast forward through the next bus ride to Vero Beach, since I spent most of it asleep (along with the rest of the YGC).

I can't get over the fact that we are in the presence of actual palm trees. The Californians among us are homesick. I'm from Massachusetts, and I keep expecting the palms to be of the plastic variety. But no, they're real - and so is the beach, a few steps from the hotel, where we all rushed to wash the travel dust right out of our hair.

Around six, we arrived at the St. Edwards school, where we'll be giving a concert tomorrow, and rehearsed for several hours. The choir at St. Edwards is directed by Daniel Koh, a beloved former assistant director of the Glee Club. At Yale, he somehow acquired the nickname "Kohbra," which YGC seniors are eager to revive down here in Florida.

Favorite moment of the day: YGC director Jeff Douma and a small red and brown lizard face off on a brick wall near our buses.

Song of the day, chosen by tour managers Emily Howell '11 and Molly Perkins '10 for "obvious reasons": "Leaving on a Jet Plane."

Tomorrow: the Manatee Observation Center, or MOC, and concert at St. Edwards School, which has already merited an article in the Hometown News of Vero Beach.

Ten Songs of Yale you didn't know about

Bram Wayman '09 delves into the depths of songbooks past. The views shared here in no way represent the official opinion of the YGC Blog nor the YGC... & c. & c. & c.* Though clear favorites stand the test of time, and the old song books of Yale are full of the high stupidity of yesteryear, a few gems that aren't often — if ever — sung today stand out for me. Some of these songs are beautiful, some hilarious, and some downright offensive, but they all deserve a second look, and I'm not convinced all of them should have fallen out of use. I'm no expert on the history of Yale songs, and have only picked from a few books, but here are ten songs of Yale that still bring a smile to my face. 1. "Old Tom Wilson." TTBB. One of Barty's cleverest arrangements, this piece is a song from the Appalachian mountains of Kentucky. It features vocal banjos, vocal beer-chugging that gets longer each time the jug goes around, lyrics such as "Big fat ga...

SPRING TOUR DAY 1: San Diego

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 ...

Vuvuzelas @ Harvard

On Friday November 19th, the members of the Yale Glee Club traveled to Cambridge, MA for our annual joint concert with our counterparts from Harvard. The concert is always the day before the big Yale-Harvard football game ("The Game"), so rivalry runs high. During the lead-up to the 2010 Game, there had been much ado about the possibility that both Yale and Harvard fans would be armed with vuvuzelas during the contest (the powerful plastic horns were eventually banned ). During our football medley, we found a way to get in on the fun in B-flat : John Clayton '13 juggles Yale vuvuzelas during "Lord Jeffrey Amherst Douma" The Yale Vuvuzela Consort (Mari Oye '11, Rebecca Trupin '11, Jason Perlman '11, Dylan Morris '11), with a portrait of its spiritual leader YGC alumna Kaley Sullivan '10 gets in on the fun More photo fun from the Harvard Concert: "The saddest tale we have to tell" — YGCers mourning the fact that we have to grad...

Something Auditioning This Way Comes

“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...

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