Yale Glee Club

Yale Glee Club
Yale Glee Club performing in Woolsey Hall
Origin	New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
Founding	1861 (156 years ago)
Genre	Choral
Members	80
Music Director	Jeffrey Douma
Affiliation	Yale University
Website	www.yalegleeclub.org

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, founded in 1859. The Glee Club performs several concerts each year in New Haven and goes on tour each January. According to music critic Zachary Woolfe of the New York Times, it is "one of the best collegiate singing ensembles, and one of the most adventurous." Its members are "world famous for their harmonic precision" per New York Times music critic Robert Sherman.

The Glee Club is conducted by a member of the university faculty, and the work of running the organization has traditionally been divided between the director, the office manager, and a team of undergraduate student officers. The Glee Club's director generally holds a faculty position in the Yale School of Music as the Marshall Bartholomew Professor of Choral Conducting. A large part of the work of planning concert tours is done by student tour managers.

Most members of the Glee Club are undergraduate students, but the group also admits students from the graduate and professional schools. Membership in the group is determined each fall by audition. Members of the group may be majors in any subject. Many members of the group are also involved in other musical pursuits on campus. The Glee Club typically consists of 70 to 90 student singers. When large-scale classical choral works require more voices, the Glee Club may team up with Yale's other choruses, the Yale Camerata and the Yale Schola Cantorum, or add other singers as needed.

The Glee Club was initially composed of men only (since Yale College was only open to men). In 1969, Yale admitted its first female undergraduates. The Glee Club President for that year, Jim Weber held auditions and selected twelve women to found the first female organization on campus- "The New Blue of Yale," an a cappella group for women. The following year, the Glee Club changed from an all-male chorus to a mixed chorus. Despite the fact that a glee club is typically an all-male chorus, the organization elected to retain its name. Although the group was formerly open to all students only after their first year, in 2003 the Glee Club began to include undergraduates of all four years.