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Cornell University Hangovers

The Cornell University Men's Glee Club is an ensemble rich in history and accomplishment, and Cornell's oldest student organization. The legacy of the Glee Club is perhaps best summed up by historian Michael Slon in his book about the history of the Glee Club, Songs From the Hill:

"Since the first days of the Orpheus Glee Club more than one hundred and twenty-five years ago, the Glee Club of Cornell has become a home to thousands of young men who have traveled in all walks of life, from music and medicine, to agriculture and astronomy. The group has performed songs of Bernstein on Malaysian television and songs of Shostakovich in the Moscow conservatory, sung in more than a dozen languages and logged hundreds of thousands of miles, brought music to millions of people as near and far as the students of Cornell and rural school children in Taipei. Today, the Cornell University Glee Club is recognized as one of the premiere collegiate ensembles in the United States."

The Glee Club has an a cappella sub-set, the Cornell University Hangovers. The Hangovers perform and tour both with the main ensemble, and on their own.

History

In the fall of 1868, little more than a month after Cornell University opened its doors, students banded together to form the Orpheus Glee Club, the first home to student singing at Cornell. Originally composed of a vocal quartet, several accompanying instrumentalists, and a poet, the group gave its first (and as far as history reveals, only) formal performance on January 21, 1869. Other glee clubs and musical associations replaced the original Orpheus ensemble, and by the mid 1870's, the Cornell University Glee Club had emerged in name.

For more than a decade, leadership passed haphazardly between students and teachers (including Estévan Fuertes, head of Cornell's civil engineering program), until in 1889, when Hollis Dann became director. Under Dann's gifted guidance, the Glee Club established a national reputation, expanding its domestic touring to include many major cities across the United States. Collectively known as the Glee, Banjo, and Mandolin Clubs, Cornell's Musical Clubs took their first international tour (and quite possibly the first international tour by any American collegiate ensemble) in 1895, travelling to England with the Cornell Crew. (That same year, the Musical Clubs Council was formed to govern the groups.) In 1904, Dann became Cornell's first professor of music, a post he held until 1921, when he left Cornell to continue his work elsewhere as a preeminent pioneer in American musical education.

In the fall of 1921, Eric Dudley took over the Glee Club, having come to the States from the Royal Academy of Music in London. During Dudley's tenure, the Glee Club made its first performances on radio, and to better compete with radio, changed its style of program to a variety show. When Dudley stepped down in 1942, John Kuypers took the helm until World War II forced a hiatus (as World War I had) in the Glee Club's activity. The group was reorganized in the fall of 1945 by a former chairman of Cornell's Music Department, Paul Weaver, and after Weaver died suddenly in the fall of 1946, Thomas Tracy, '31 (formerly an assistant conductor under Dudley), was appointed director. He led the Glee Club on a successful tour of the U.S. and Mexico in 1954, the same year the group appeared on the Perry Como show.

Thomas Sokol was appointed director of the Glee Club and Director of Cornell Choral Music in the fall of 1957. He immediately steered the ensemble toward a more serious repertoire and a more ambitious set of engagements; in 1961, the Glee Club was officially embraced by the University, ending the governance of the Musical Clubs Council. In the winter of 1960-61, the group became the first collegiate ensemble from the U.S. to take a concert tour of the Soviet Union. In 1966, under the aegis of the U.S. State Department, the Glee Club made a three-month tour of Southeast Asia, where they were heard by an estimated 100 million people in ten countries. Other tours have included Germany (1970), Eastern Europe (1972), England (1979, 1982), Asia (1989), and Western Europe (1992), as well as the perennial domestic tours.

After thirty-eight years of service, Sokol retired in 1995 the longest-standing director of the Glee Club, and was succeeded by Scott Tucker. Professor Tucker previously served as assistant director of the Harvard Glee Club (as Sokol once had), and as Director of Choral Music at the Milton Academy.

The Glee Club has collaborated with other ensembles on a regular basis. Since a joint performance in 1889 with the Amherst Glee Club, collaborations have included performances with the orchestras of Philadelphia, Boston, Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse, conductors the likes of Michael Tilson Thomas, Eugene Ormandy, and Nadia Boulanger, and choruses which include the Cornell University Chorus, the National University Chorus of Taiwan, the University Chorus of Geneva (Switzerland), and ensembles from around the United States. In 1966, the group celebrated the opening of the Saratoga Performing Arts Center with Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra in a performance of Beethoven's 9th, and has sung first performances of works by Maximilian Albrecht, Carl Orff, and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Karel Husa.

Directorship

Professor Scott Tucker, Director of Choral Music

As Director of Choral Music, Professor Scott Tucker conducts the Cornell University Glee Club and Cornell University Chorus. Prior to coming to Cornell, Tucker was the Choral Director at Milton Academy in Milton, Massachusetts. He also served as Assistant Conductor of both the Harvard Glee Club and the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum, and has conducted the Clark University Choir, the Worcester Consortium Orchestra, and the Regis College Choir.

Professor Tucker received a Master of Music degree in Choral Conducting from the New England Conservatory of Music in 1986 and a Bachelor of Science Degree from Tufts University in 1981.

Birth: September 17, 1957

Awards:

Talbot Baker Award (1993) for excellence in teaching

St. Botolph Award (1985) for artistic excellence

Presser Scholarship (1980) for academic excellence

John Rowehl, Assistant Conductor

John Rowehl began his musical training at age seven with classical piano lessons. Eight years later, after two consecutive first-place finishes in Hawaii's state-wide piano competition, he was invited to study at the Juilliard School. John chose instead to earn a B.A. in philosophy at Stanford University, where he also studied voice and served as vocal accompanist.

Continuing his steady march out of the tropics and into the frozen north, John came to us at Cornell to pursue a Ph.D. in philosophy, where he currently works as editor of the Philosophical Review. In Ithaca, John studies and teaches voice and has served as studio pianist for Susan Davenny Wyner and Judith Kellock. He is also on the staff of Cornell's Vocal Coaching Program.

John has been heard as baritone soloist in the Finger Lakes Bach Festival, with Ensemble Sine Nomine, and NYS Baroque. A long-time member of the Cayuga Vocal Ensemble, John served in 1997-1998 as the group's Acting Musical Director.

The Hangovers

Founded in 1968, The Hangovers are the subset of the Cornell University Glee Club Formed with the purpose of exploring alternative forms of musical expression in addition to the traditional Glee Club repetoire, the Hangovers concentrate their efforts on contemporary a cappella.

References

• Cornell University Glee Club Online:
• Cornell University Hangovers.

Hangovers Online:

Michael Slon's Songs from the Hill