Join the Harvard Glee Club for our Hand in Hand Concert on Friday, October 29th at 7:30 PM! After a long hiatus, America’s oldest collegiate choir is making its triumphant return to historic Sanders Theatre, simulcast with our counterparts at Princeton and Yale. You will discover choral music from across the globe — sung in English, Russian, Italian, Xhosa, and Mandarin — and witness the world premiere of “Iinkomo” by Bongani Magatyana of Cape Town, South Africa. Finally, get into the school spirit with a rousing rendition of Harvard’s beloved fight songs! The show is free to attend and perfect for students, alumni, and families of all ages.
For more than a century, choruses from Harvard, Princeton, and Yale Universities have celebrated their deep friendship with a season of collaborative concerts during the fall semester. Last year we continued to honor this tradition at a time of extraordinary change and challenge with a series of two virtual benefit concerts: Hand in Hand.
As the Princeton, Yale, and Harvard Glee Clubs return to in-person activity and live performances this year, we are thrilled to present our third Hand in Hand presentation on Friday, October 29 at 7:30 pm EDT. Each choir will be performing for audiences in their home venue: Woolsey Hall at Yale, Richardson Auditorium at Princeton, and Harvard’s Sanders Theatre. The program will be simulcast to each venue and also broadcast live online.
Through Change and Through Storm
The Glee Club is America’s oldest collegiate chorus, a tenor-bass ensemble that has advanced the art of choral performance and education across its 160-year history. In that time, the group has given regular concerts in Sanders Theatre and brought its music across the world. 100 years ago, the Glee Club brought music and cultural interchange to France after that country was devastated by World War I and the Spanish flu.
The COVID-19 pandemic was a challenge unlike any the group has faced, scattering its entire membership across the country and the globe for over a year and a half. Learning the ropes of Zoom and experimenting with virtual choir projects, the group took inspiration from its history and used music, and new technology, to learn and connect in trying times. Embarking on a “virtual world tour,” the group leveraged Zoom to meet with experts in a diverse array of choral traditions: Italian, Russian, South African, and Chinese.
Now that it has returned home to Harvard, the Glee Club is thrilled to share a “travelogue” of sorts, sharing the music that members learned while they were far from home. Highlights include the world premiere of “Iinkomo,” a piece in Xhosa that the Glee Club commissioned from Bongani Magatyana of Cape Town, South Africa. The program will conclude with the beloved Football Song medley.
There are two ways to enjoy the concert - In Person at Sanders Theatre or Virtually through the livestream.
TICKETS FOR SANDERS THEATRE:
We welcome all our alumni to head over to Sanders Theatre and hear the Harvard Glee Club live! The concert will start with the Yale and Princeton Glee Clubs being simulcast onto a screen in Sanders Theatre from their respective campuses. Then we get to hear the Harvard Glee Club perform live on stage in Sanders. The event in Sanders in free, but tickets are required. Ticket sales are strong, so don’t hesitate to click on the link below and reserve your ticket from the Harvard Box Office.
TICKETS FOR THE LIVESTREAM:
Tickets are free, but during the concert the livestream audience will have the opportunity to make an optional donation to Save the Music, a national non-profit doing work for equity in music education whose grants support music programs in public schools in our local communities in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey.) Registration for the online event is required. Click on the button below to register.