The Princeton Glee Club is the oldest and most prestigious choir at Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

, composed of approximately 50 mixed voices. They give multiple performances throughout the year featuring music from Baroque to Modern, and also tour internationally every other year. Every spring, they perform a major oratorio with professional soloists and orchestra, including most recently Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

's Elijah

Elijah (oratorio)

Elijah, in German: Elias, is an oratorio written by Felix Mendelssohn in 1846 for the Birmingham Festival. It depicts various events in the life of the Biblical prophet Elijah, taken from the books 1 Kings and 2 Kings in the Old Testament....

and Handel's Hercules

Hercules (music drama)

Hercules is a Musical Drama in three acts by George Frideric Handel, composed in July and August 1744. The English language libretto was by the Reverend Thomas Broughton, based on Sophocles's Women of Trachis and the ninth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses.-Performance history:Hercules was first given...

. Currently the Glee Club

Glee club

A glee club is a musical group or choir group, historically of male voices but also of female or mixed voices, which traditionally specializes in the singing of short songs—glees—by trios or quartets. In the late 19th Century it was very popular in most schools and was made a tradition...

 is led by Gabriel Crouch

Gabriel Crouch

Gabriel Crouch is a British baritone, choral conductor and record producer.Gabriel Crouch was born September 19, 1973. Musically inclined since the age of eight, he joined the chorus of Westminster Abbey. He became the Head Chorister of that choir and even had a solo at the wedding of HRH Prince...

.

General information

The Princeton University Glee Club is the oldest singing group in existence at Princeton. It was founded in 1874 by Andrew Fleming West '74, who later became the first Dean of the Graduate College. The Glee Club is currently celebrating its 132nd season of concerts.

In 1907 Charles E. Burnham was the first professional musician to lead the Glee Club. He was succeeded in 1918 by Alexander Russell, who served until 1934, when the Glee Club became a responsibility of the music faculty. James Giddings became director in 1934, Timothy Cheney in 1940, J. Merrill Knapp

J. Merrill Knapp

John Merrill Knapp was an American musicologist and academic. He was considered an authority on the life and works of George Frideric Handel. Born in New York City, Knapp graduated from the Hotchkiss School before entering Yale University where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1936 and was a member...

 in 1941, Russell Ames Cook in 1943, J. Merrill Knapp again in 1946, Elliot Forbes in 1952, Carl Weinrich in 1953, Walter L. Nollner in 1958, William Trego in 1992 and Richard Tang Yuk since 1994.

On the eve of the College football

College football

College football refers to American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies, or Canadian football played by teams of student athletes fielded by Canadian universities...

 games in 1913, the Glee Club held its first concerts with the Glee Clubs of Harvard

Harvard Glee Club

The Harvard Glee Club is a 60-voice, all-male choral ensemble at Harvard University. Founded in 1858 in the tradition of English and American glee clubs, it is the oldest collegiate chorus in the US. The Glee Club is part of the Holden Choruses of Harvard University, which also include the...

 and Yale

Yale Glee Club

The Yale Glee Club is a mixed chorus of men and women, consisting of students of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1861, it is the third oldest collegiate chorus in the United States after the Harvard Glee Club, founded in 1858, and the University of Michigan Men's Glee Club,...

 Universities, beginning a tradition of joint concerts that have continued to this day.

The Princeton University Glee Club was involved in some remarkable projects in the 1930s. They gave the American Premiere of Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex with Leopold Stokowski

Leopold Stokowski

Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born, naturalised American orchestral conductor, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted.In America, Stokowski...

 and the Philadelphia Orchestra

Philadelphia Orchestra

The Philadelphia Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, it was founded in 1900...

 in 1931; performances of Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...

's Gurrelieder and Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

's Parsifal

Parsifal

Parsifal is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the 13th century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail, and on Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail.Wagner first conceived the work...

in 1932 and 1933; Bach's Mass in B Minor at the Metropolitan Opera House

Metropolitan Opera House (39th St)

The Metropolitan Opera House was an opera house located at 1411 Broadway in New York City. Opened in 1883 and demolished in 1967, it was the first home of the Metropolitan Opera Company.-History:...

 in 1935; and with the Vassar College Choir, gave the first United States performance of Jean Philippe Rameau's Castor et Pollux in 1937.

The Glee Club continued to sing with women's choral groups from Vassar

Vassar College

Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...

, Bryn Mawr

Bryn Mawr College

Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....

, Wellesley, Mount Holyoke

Mount Holyoke College

Mount Holyoke College is a liberal arts college for women in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It was the first member of the Seven Sisters colleges, and served as a model for some of the others...

, and Smith

Smith College

Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters...

 Colleges until a mixed Princeton chorus was formed after the advent of coeducation.

From 1958 to 1992 Walter L. Nollner led the Glee Club, giving him the honor of the longest tenure of any previous conductor. Under his direction the choir traveled outside the United States for the first time, establishing a pattern of international concert tours to Europe, Asia, South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

 and the South Pacific, including two around-the-world tours. In honour of Professor Nollner's service to the Glee Club, an endowment fund

Financial endowment

A financial endowment is a transfer of money or property donated to an institution. The total value of an institution's investments is often referred to as the institution's endowment and is typically organized as a public charity, private foundation, or trust....

 has been established in his name to assist the Glee Club with its yearly operations. The Nollner Endowment Fund was officially launched in February 1999.

Under acting director Robert Isaacs, the Glee Club has continued the tradition of overseas concert tours and expanded the repertoire to include more works of the twentieth-century. The Glee Club presents several concerts every year in the spectacular acoustic of Alexander Hall on the Princeton campus. They perform a major oratorio each spring with professional soloists and orchestra. Recent masterworks performed include Orff's Carmina Burana

Carmina Burana

Carmina Burana , Latin for "Songs from Beuern" , is the name given to a manuscript of 254 poems and dramatic texts mostly from the 11th or 12th century, although some are from the 13th century. The pieces were written principally in Medieval Latin; a few in Middle High German, and some with traces...

, Mendelssohn's Elijah, Bach's St. Matthew Passion and Mass in B minor, Mozart's Requiem, and Honneger's Le Roi David.