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PSU Chamber Choir hosts the Yale Glee Club during their tour of Montreal, Alaska, and the Pacific Northwest. PSU Chamber Choir will open this show with a short set, followed by many outstanding performances by the Yale Glee Club. The concert will culminate with moving performances by the combined choirs!
Yale Glee Club
From its earliest days as a group of thirteen men from the Class of 1863 to its current incarnation as a 85-voice all-gender chorus, the Yale Glee Club, Yale’s principal undergraduate mixed chorus and oldest musical organization, has represented the best in collegiate choral music.
In recent seasons, the Glee Club’s performances have received rave reviews in the national press, from The New York Times (“One of the best collegiate singing ensembles, and one of the most adventurous…an exciting, beautifully sung concert at Carnegie Hall”) to The Washington Post (“Under the direction of Jeffrey Douma, the sopranos - indeed, all the voices - sang as one voice, with flawless intonation…their treacherous semitones and contrapuntal subtleties became otherworldly, transcendent even”).
The students who sing in the Yale Glee Club might be majors in music or biology, English or political science, philosophy or mathematics. They are drawn together by a love of singing and a common understanding that raising one’s voice with others to create something beautiful is one of the noblest human pursuits.
The Glee Club’s repertoire embraces a broad spectrum of music from the 16th century to the present, including motets, contemporary works, music from folk traditions throughout the world, and traditional Yale songs. Committed to the creation of new music, the Glee Club presents frequent premieres of newly commissioned works and sponsors two annual competitions for young composers. They have been featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition, WQXR’s “The Choral Mix,” and BBC Radio 3’s “The Choir.” Choral orchestral masterworks are also an important part of the Glee Club’s repertoire; recent performances include Verdi Requiem, Mozart Requiem, Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms, Shaw Music in Common Time, Orff Carmina Burana, Vaughan Williams Dona Nobis Pacem, Bernstein Chichester Psalms, Britten War Requiem and Cantata Misericordium, Fauré Requiem, Haydn Missa in Tempore Belli, Missa in angustiis, and Creation, Brahms Ein deutsches Requiem, Nänie, and Schicksalied, Mendelssohn Elijah, Penderecki Credo, Aaron Jay Kernis Symphony of Meditations, Purrington Words for Departure, and choral symphonies of Mahler and Beethoven.
One of the most traveled choruses in the world, the Yale Glee Club has performed in every major city in the United States and embarked on its first overseas tour in 1928. It has since appeared before enthusiastic audiences throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Africa.
Historically a leading advocate of international choral exchange, the Glee Club has hosted countless guest ensembles at Yale and at New York’s Lincoln Center in conjunction with its own international festivals. In 2012, the Glee Club carried this tradition forward with the first Yale International Choral Festival in New Haven, and in June of 2018 presented the third incarnation of the festival, hosting choirs from Sri Lanka, Mexico, Germany, and New York City, along with the Yale Alumni Chorus and Yale Choral Artists.
The Glee Club has appeared under the baton of many distinguished guest conductors from Leopold Stokowski to Sir David Willcocks to Robert Shaw. Recent collaborations have included performances under the direction of Marin Alsop, Grete Pedersen, Matthew Halls, Sir Neville Marriner, Dale Warland, Nicholas McGegan, Stefan Parkman, Simon Carrington, Erwin Ortner, David Hill, Craig Hella Johnson, and Helmuth Rilling.
The Yale Glee Club has had only seven directors in its 162-year history and is currently led by Jeffrey Douma. Previous directors include Marshall Bartholomew (1921-1953), who first brought the group to international prominence and who expanded the Glee Club’s repertoire beyond college songs to a broader range of great choral repertoire; Fenno Heath (1953-1992), under whose inspired leadership the Glee Club made the transition from TTBB chorus to mixed chorus; and most recently David Connell (1992-2002), whose vision helped carry the best traditions of this ensemble into the twenty-first century.
Jeffrey Douma
Jeffrey Douma is the Marshall Bartholomew Professor in the Practice of Choral Music at the Yale School of Music, and has served since 2003 as Director of the Yale Glee Club, hailed under his direction by The New York Times as “one of the best collegiate singing ensembles, and one of the most adventurous.” He also heads Yale’s graduate program in choral conducting and serves as founding Director of the Yale Choral Artists and Artistic Director of the Yale International Choral Festival.
Douma has appeared as guest conductor with choruses and orchestras on six continents, including the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Orchestra, Singapore’s Metropolitan Festival Orchestra, Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, Estonian National Youth Orchestra, Daejeon Philharmonic Choir, Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Solistas de la Habana, Istanbul’s Tekfen Philharmonic, Norway’s Edvard Grieg Kor, the Symphony Choir of Johannesburg, the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, and the Central Conservatory’s EOS Orchestra in Beijing, as well as the Yale Philharmonia and Yale Symphony Orchestras. He also serves as Musical Director of the Yale Alumni Chorus, which he has lead on eleven international tours. He served previously as Choirmaster at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Hartford, CT, where performances with the professional Schola Cantorum ranged from Bach St. John Passion with baroque orchestra to Arvo Pärt Te Deum, and recently served as Director of Music at the Unitarian Society of New Haven.
Choirs under his direction have performed in Leipzig’s Neue Gewandhaus, Dvorak Hall in Prague, St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Notre Dame de Paris, Singapore’s Esplanade, Argentina’s Teatro Colon, the Oriental Arts Center in Shanghai, Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher and Alice Tully Halls, and Carnegie Hall, and he has prepared choruses for performances under such eminent conductors as Marin Alsop, William Christie, Valery Gergiev, Sir Neville Marriner, Sir David Willcocks, Dale Warland, Krzysztof Penderecki, Nicholas McGegan, Craig Hella Johnson, and Helmuth Rilling.
Douma has presented at conferences of the ACDA and NCCO, and the Yale Glee Club has appeared as a featured ensemble at NCCO national and ACDA divisional conferences. Active with musicians of all ages, Douma served for several years on the conducting faculty at the Interlochen Center for the Arts. He frequently serves as clinician for festivals and honor choirs. Recent engagements include conducting masterclasses at the China International Chorus Festival, the University of Michigan School of Music, the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Hochschule der Künste in Zurich, the Florence International Choral Festival, and the Berlin Radio Choir’s International Masterclass, as well as residencies at the Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing and at Luther College as Visiting Conductor of the internationally renowned Nordic Choir.
An advocate of new music, Douma established the Yale Glee Club Emerging Composers Competition and Fenno Heath Award, and has premiered new works by such composers as Jennifer Higdon, Joel Thompson, Caroline Shaw, Dominick Argento, Paola Prestini, Ayanna Woods, Bright Sheng, Ned Rorem, Rodrigo Cadet, Ted Hearne, Han Lash, Martin Bresnick, David Lang, Derrick Skye, Rene Clausen, Bongani Magatyana, and James Macmillan. He also serves as editor of the Yale Glee Club New Classics Choral Series, published by Boosey & Hawkes. His original compositions are published by G. Schirmer and Boosey & Hawkes. A tenor, Douma has appeared as an ensemble member and soloist with some of the nation’s leading professional choirs.
In 2003, Douma was one of only two North American conductors invited to compete for the first Eric Ericson Award, the premier international competition for choral conductors. Prior to his appointment at Yale he served as Director of Choral Activities at Carroll College and taught on the conducting faculties of Smith College and St. Cloud State University.
Douma earned the Bachelor of Music degree from Concordia College, Moorhead, MN, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in conducting from the University of Michigan. He lives in Hamden, CT, with his wife, pianist and conductor Erika Schroth, and their two children.
Learn more about the Portland State University School of Music & Theater Choirs.