Europe Tour Days 5-6

Publicity chair Marisa Karchin '14 on the YGC in Stockholm, Sweden. Photos: Monica Qiu and Mari Oye.

Day 5: After a luxurious breakfast at the hotel, we traveled into the city center of Stockholm, where we were given a guided tour of City Hall. A few highlights included the largest organ in Scandinavia (although it has 1000 fewer pipes than the Woolsey organ), the conference room with a massive Viking boat suspended from the ceiling, the 'Oval' in which Swedes can marry and/or divorce in under 5 minutes, and the Golden Hall, covered in over 18 million gold and glass mosaic pieces. We were then driven to a restaurant for dinner, where many of us were introduced to another new dish, reindeer (see left).

Stuffed with delicious meat and chocolate cake, we rehearsed for our concert in the Adolf Frederik kyrka. A few hours later we performed in the beautiful gold and white church for an enthusiastic crowd (Emily once again sang her verses of Eli Yale in Swedish, and I have yet to figure out what she's been saying...). After the concert most of us stayed in the city to explore and experience Stockholm nightlife! A few YGC members even got to walk the 7-mile journey back to the hotel.

Day 6: The next day was a free day to explore Stockholm. We started off at the Vasa Museum exhibiting the ship, Vasa, which was built in 1626 and then sunk immediately in the Stockholm Harbor. It was recovered about 300 years later- we got to see the enormous restored ship and preserved bones of those who died in the accident, and learn about its history and restoration. YGCers also spent the day observing bears, reindeer, and owls at Skansen, and canoeing/kayaking/paddleboating on the rivers (Lauren and Aria pedaled while Henry conducted our paddleboat with a twig baton, Mari and Helen apparently 'beat' the Connors at canoeing, Markus and Dylan had a smooth ride until the last minute when one of them may or may not have ended up in the water).

We were also graced by the presence of party trucks filled with dancing and cheering college grads parading around the city. From our unofficial poll, we extrapolated that at least 50% of Swedes are blond. 100% are beautiful, friendly and at least somewhat fluent in English (for which we are immensely grateful). We're sad to be leaving this dreamlike country, so full of sunlight, lilacs, and unreal beauty, but we're excited to exchange our Swedish kronor into Danish kroner and continue onto Copenhagen!

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...

The Yale Glee Club Blog

Search This Blog