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DirectorDr. Patrick Gardner
AdvisorDr. Peter R. Gillett
2015–2016Senior Officers
President
Ifeanyi Ezeanya
Treasurer
Justin Luckenbaugh
Vice-President
for Alumni Relations
and Development
Edwin Trent
Vice-President
for Special
Organizational Affairs
Joe Ciampi
Business Manager
Pratik Shah
Glee GabThe
The Official Newsletter of the Rutgers University Glee Club
Inside This Issue
Volume 34, Issue 2, Spring 2016
Celebrating An Amazing Birthday Page 1
Stories Of The ’90s And Today Pages 2–3 Mason Gross
School of the Arts
The Rutgers University Glee Club is a performance ensemble of the Mason Gross School of the Arts
This semester kicked off with a boisterous bang: a number of crucial concerts followed by enormous celebrations to finish out the term. On January 30th, the RUGC traveled to Caldwell College and performed with a number of local men’s choirs in what was formally our first All- Male Choral Festival. This event allowed younger generations to showcase their talents while accessing the experience and showmanship of the Glee Club. Such events are a fantastic inspira-tion for younger singers and are how we recruit some of our most committed mem-bers, such as our current President, Ifeanyi Ezeanya.
Moving further into the semester, we performed at four Honors Program Schol-ars Days. It is always a fun way to brush up on those old faithful Glee Club classics and engage in some friendly stage antics.
On April 10th at 3:00 p.m., the RUGC will be in Ridgewood, NJ, performing at the West Side Presby-terian Church. The West Side Concert Series, which is celebrating its 40th year, is no stranger to sophisticated music. Over the past few years, such diverse artists as the Princeton Glee Club, Metropolitan Opera mezzo- soprano Tamara Mumford and the world-renowned Juilliard Chamber Orchestra have graced their stage. With acoustics specially designed for its recently rebuilt organ, the West Side Presbyterian Church provides an ideal location to showcase this semester’s repertoire. Please visit their website http://westsideconcerts.org/ for directions and concert information. All are welcome.
In celebration of Rutgers’ 250th anniversary, the RUGC is taking a day trip to the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. on April 19th. The closed event will see us perform for a number of members of Congress.
Our Spring Concert is on April 23rd this year, and it’s a big one. There are plenty of events celebrating the
CELEBRATING AN AMAZING BIRTHDAYBy: EDWIN TRENT
250th anniversary of our alma mater, and this is the one you must attend. We are welcoming back all alumni in a big way with a luncheon, a joint performance, and a reception following the concert. Come out and join together once again to sing Evviva Beviam from Giuseppe Verdi’s Ernani, Duch Tvoy Blaghi and Spasyenye by Chesnekov, and Someone to Watch over Me by Gershwin.
In anticipation of this major concert, there will be two Wednesday night joint rehearsals, on April 13th and April 20th at 8:15–9:30 p.m. in McKinney Hall. On April 13th, we invite all alumni to join in the rowdy tradition of singing Rutgers songs at Stuff Yer Face in New Brunswick. On the day of the concert, we are hav-ing a catered luncheon from 12:30–2:00 p.m., then a joint rehearsal from 2:30–4:30 p.m. in the newly built Mortenson Hall. For ticket information, visit the Mason Gross website at http://www.masongross.rutgers.edu/content/rutgers-glee-club. Events like these come but once every 50 years, so do not miss out on this once in a lifetime celebration!
West Side Presbyterian Church in Ridgwood, NJ
UpcomingEventsPage 3
1982 History Repeats Itself Pages 4–5
Building Eternal BondsPage 5
The Tour That Started It AllPages 6–7
Mason Gross School of the Arts
Ever ChangingYet Eternally
the Same
Mason Gross School of the Arts
Rutgers University Glee Club The Glee Gab2
STORIES OF THE ’90s AND TODAY By: CHRIS WOLFE
2015–2016Junior
Officers
Executive Secretary
Joseph DodrvSAS ’18
Technology CoordinatorDanny Ayoub
SAS ’16
Public Relations Manager
Ben MatherSAS ’16
Tour ManagerRyan ElieMGSA ’17
Music Manager
Alex MinterMGSA ’17
Uniform Manager
Stephan DodrvMGSA ’19
HistorianLeo Weismantel
MGSA ’19
While looking through the Glee Club archives at Alexander Library, I came across a set of wonderfully silly articles written by old Brothers in Song during the Southeast Tour of 1993. Scrolling through the intense itinerary and slews of dirty jokes, I thought of what it must be like—men like me scratching their heads, trying to think of ways to en-tertain their peers. When an advisory stamp states: “The opinions of these writers are not those solely of the Rut-gers University Glee Club,” you know you are going to have a good time. In an era before the personal computers we call phones, what better way to keep yourself occupied then by reading articles about scavenger hunts and New Orleans cuisine? The creativity, as well as the absurdity, of the articles amused me, and some may have scarred me for life. But hey, that’s the Glee Club experience in a nutshell.
I moved next to the photos and looked through them at faces of peo-ple I’ve never met before but for whom I curiously held an uncanny respect. How could I, not even a twinkle in my mother’s eye at the time, find some connection to these guys? I stopped with the philosophy, and enjoyed my seemingly endless page turning. I zipped through the concert photos at the OMNI Hotel and the Asbury United Methodist church, taking note of how grey blazers and red ties never
stopped looking so good. But then I began to focus, and became drawn into the narratives of the photos in front of me. More and more, I found pictures of men in fanny packs enjoying the Mag-ic Kingdom at Disney, and pictures of club members in fanny packs holding red solo cups walking down the streets of New Orleans, or posing in front of huge southern billboards, or relaxing in the back of coach buses with beers in hand, coming home from a slew of concerts and revelry.
When these moments are com-bined, those of fantastic choral perfor-mances and outrageous playtime create the genuine Glee Club experience, and the majority of stories we tell future rookies and bags for years to come. As I had a few ’90s alumni recollect their experiences during their tour travels, the variety of content within the stories they shared surprised me.
“I don’t remember all the concert venues with anywhere near as much clarity,” admits Matt Hooban, a mem-ber of the Glee Club during the 1997 European tour, “as I remember details like the nasty liver-and-gelatin appe-tizer they fed us in Poland, or seeing Baskin Robbins spelled out phoneti-cally in the Cyrillic alphabet from the bus window in St. Petersburg.” It can be argued that the majority of time spent in Glee Club is rehearsing for the next concert—and yet these are not the
moments we plan on telling our chil-dren’s children about. The memories that stuck with these men like Matt, and fellow Brothers in Song, are sur-prising in their simplicity, unexpected detail, and relatability. The best stories in my humble opinion are able to com-bine these outlandish moments with musical brotherhood. Duy Nguyen, who was also on the 1997 European tour, shared two stories where these moments seemed to blend together, one in Estonia, the other in Finland. Duy recalled the stop at the famous enormous choral shells and, of course, the antics that occurred there:
“I don’t think anyone really knows who the first person who took off was, but it was like someone opened the door to a Crazy Cat Lady house and all the cats heard a can opener. A swarm of Glee Club guys started sprinting down the hill to go sing in this ginor-mous shell.” Dr. Gardner had led the group to this famous Estonian cultural landmark and it was his idea to storm the shell and sing, even though it was ostensibly closed at the time. I imme-diately connected with Duy there, as images of my peers rushing from a bus to find a rehearsal room in Hill Audi-torium at the University of Michigan came flooding back to me. At other times, these moments of song and comedy (which may or may not have involved alcohol) find themselves wedged in some of the most whole-some celebrations, like the Senior Banquet that year, during a heartfelt performance of one of my favorite classics, Spasyeniye. Duy recollected in good spirit:
“Some drunk Finn had wandered into the hotel, sat down quietly among our group in the dark, and then when everyone stood up and linked arms, so did he. So he was just standing there looking around, amazed at what was happening. Needless to say, the whole room lost their collective ****!” As did I, just reading about it! And just like that the bass-heavy magic of that piece shatters, but something else rises from that. And if you will allow me to get a little sappy for a moment, some other kind of magic arises from these instances, just through the creation of a great story. Through mere glimpses into the times of these men and these tours, I found the potential to tell a story. While sitting in Alexander Library Archives wasn’t the most exciting thing, connecting to a time and to a group I didn’t really know was a great experience.
The 1993 Rutgers University Glee Club
Mason Gross School of the Arts
Rutgers University Glee Club The Glee Gab The Glee Gab Rutgers University Glee Club
Ever ChangingYet Eternally
the Same
Have aquestion?
Feel free to contact
Edwin Trent edwint0210
@gmail.com
“Ever changing, yet eternally the same,” always had a distinct ring to it, right? The more I think about those lines, the more I think that whoever wrote them was a genius. When I heard those lines for the first time in my fresh-man year, I didn’t truly appreciate them. I knew the esteemed Rutgers University Glee Club had one of the greatest histo-ries of any club on campus, existing for a majority of Rutgers’ (now) 250 years. But it had not been until this semester, while taking on the responsibility of writing this article, that I had truly understood what it meant.
With the anniversary, our tour last year paid homage to the beginning of Rutgers University with our mother school in the Netherlands. Traveling back to the roots from which Rutgers
University was born, to the place where we essentially stole everything from and took it to the budding United States, was a very special experience. Every tour shares similar experiences, whether it’s in or out of the country. Our tour not only trailed backwards to find an origin story, but allowed a new generation of members to spin their own tales. Seeing the sights of a whole new world, completely foreign to one’s original upbringings, these are the plac-es where our brotherhood is strength-ened. Our strength as a group is our abundance of great genuine stories.
I thought writing about a group of college men who had their years before I was born would be a fool’s errand: how would I be able to understand the bond between brothers that I’ve never
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Event Date Time Location
Rutgers Symphony Orchestra with the Kirkpatrick Choir “Gloria!” http://www.masongross.rutgers.edu/content/rutgers-symphony-orchestra- rutgers-kirkpatrick-choir-gloria
Saturday, April 9, 2016 7:30 p.m.
Nicholas Music Center85 George Street
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Alumni Rehearsal with Glee Club— Alumni Only
Wednesday, April 13 & 20, 2016
8:15 – 9:30 p.m.
McKinney Hall, 125 Hamilton Street
New Brunswick NJ 08901
Rutgers Symphony Orchestra with the Kirkpatrick Choir “Gloria!” http://www.masongross.rutgers.edu/ content/rutgers-symphony-orchestra- rutgers-kirkpatrick-choir-gloria-0
Saturday, April 16, 2016 8:00 p.m.
Alice Tully Hall1941 Broadway, New York,
NY 10023
Alumni Luncheon and Historical Presentation — Alumni Only
Saturday, April 23, 2016
11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Rehearsal Hall Room 10485 George Street
New Brunswick, NJ 08901Rutgers University, Douglass Campus
Alumni Rehearsal with Glee Club — Alumni Only
Saturday, April 23, 2016
2:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Richard H. Shindell Choral Hall
85 George StreetNew Brunswick, NJ 08901
Rutgers University, Douglass Campus
Spring Concerthttp://www.masongross.rutgers.edu/content/rutgers-glee-clubMason Gross Box Office: 848-932-7511
Saturday, April 23, 2016
7:30 – 9:30 p.m.
Nicholas Music Center85 George Street
New Brunswick, NJ 08901Rutgers University, Douglass Campus
Alumni Reception— Alumni Only
Saturday, April 23 2016 10:00 p.m.
Nicholas Music Center85 George Street
New Brunswick, NJ 08901Rutgers University, Douglass Campus
Rutgers Kirkpatrick Choir: Brahms, Mendelssohn, and morehttp://www.masongross.rutgers.edu/content/rutgers-kirkpatrick-choir-0
Saturday,April 30, 2016 7:30 p.m.
Kirkpatrick Chapel81 Somerset Street
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Upcoming Events
met, that I’ve never shared a tour bus to New Orleans with, or throughout Western Europe?
But the more I looked into the scrapbooks of the Glee Club archives, and the more stories I heard, the more I realized that I’ve been there, with the men in the grey blazers and red ties, singing repertoire from all over the world, (and performing all over the world), and gathering afterwards for food, a few drinks, and good cheer. As we pass the 250th year since the cre-ation of Rutgers, let’s look forward to the many tours that will happen long after we’ve graduated, to the fun that will be had and the stories that will be made and told, in tour buses, in for-eign countries, surrounded by Brothers in Song.
*** Contact the VP Alum (Edwin Trent) at [email protected] to Register for the EventsMason Gross School of the Arts
Mason Gross School of the Arts
Rutgers University Glee Club The Glee Gab
Ever ChangingYet Eternally
the Same
4
1982 HISTORY REPEATS ITSELFBy: ANGEL CARDOZO
Tour is an integral part of the Glee Club experience, one that is unique to our student organization. For underclass-men, it serves as a panacea for their doubts about staying in the club or even at Rutgers herself. For the upper-classmen, it is a milestone, a justifica-tion for all those late night rehearsals and countless hours of practice—one that cannot be had through concerts alone. Most recently, the Rutgers Uni-versity Glee Club departed for its 2015 European Tour. For many of our mem-bers, this tour was the first time they ever left the country. How many others at Rutgers or other universities can claim that during their studies they spent two weeks in Europe, not just making music, but also partaking in the bonds of brotherhood with their best friends? A Targum article from 1886 shows that this bond has existed since the early days of Club. In upstate New York, the men greeted each other with such “exuberance of spirit” that “by the greetings and hand-shaking one would think there had been a sep-aration of years instead of a few days.” To this day, that fraternal spirit is one of the unique things that holds our group together through the semester and keeps members coming back.
This past summer, members of the club visited historical places such as London, Bath, Bridgend, Maastricht, and Amsterdam. Of course, we were not the first to tread in these places. In 1982, the Rutgers University Glee Club made their way to Europe. This tour was special because it was the farewell tour of F. Austin “Soup” Walter. The men of
the Glee Club stopped at all of Soup’s favorite venues. Starting in London and ending in Amsterdam, they took steps that future generations of brothers would retrace for years to come.
On June 1st, the 35 members of the Glee Club landed in London, England to kick off their 1982 Tour. Clad in bright red blazers and gray slacks, they expected to meet the stereotypical rainy English weather. However, they actually landed during one of the worst heat waves of the 20th century. This was only the beginning of travel “hiccups” that were as much a part of the tour as the singing. In London, the men gave concerts at All Hallows-by-the-Tower and Covent Gar-den. Apart from performing, they had many excursions across the English countryside, visiting famous cathedrals such as Salisbury Cathedral and Win-chester Cathedral, at 554 feet long, the longest Gothic cathedral in Europe.
The Glee Club also visited Stone-henge. This was before Stonehenge became a UNESCO World Heritage site, so the men were allowed to get close up, and to touch, and climb on the stones. What made this trip espe-cially memorable, remarks Matthew Weismantel, was that while traveling in the European bus—which back then had tall windows that were not yet common in the United States—one of said windows blew out. It seems that when members of the Glee Club gather in large numbers, transportation simply refuses to work.
After taking the United Kingdom by storm, the men dedicated the whole
of June 6th to ferrying across the English Channel to Dieppe, France, before making their way to Tours, where they sang mass with the St. Gatien’s Cathe-dral Choir, as well as giving a concert in Salle Jean de Ockeghem. The next day, they left for La Ville Lumière in Paris, where they would give a concert at Notre-Dame de Paris. On one of their sightseeing tours through the City of Lights, accompanied by their advisor Roger Locandro, members of the group came across the laying of flowers at La tombe du soldat inconnu (The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier) at the base of the Arc de Triomphe. Back then, Soup made it a point to teach the Glee Club the national anthems of every country they were going to visit (sans Germa-ny, for political reasons). Thus, when some members of the Glee Club gave a beautiful performance of La Marseil-laise, one of the generals present was so moved, Weismantel remembers,that he imparted onto them la bise, a kiss, one on each side of the face. On the same tour, at the Chartres Cathedral and on the 38th anniversary of the Nor-mandy beach landings, the Glee Club gave a concert for the French veterans of World War II. On our past tour, an emotional part of the tour was singing at the grave of Captain Joseph Ryan, an alumnus of the group and a Rutgers graduate, at the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten. It seems that honoring military personnel with song is another tradition that we keep.
After France, the Glee Club made their way to the University of Konstanz in Germany, which was, and still is, one of the universities where Rutgers students can study abroad.
However, the club was met with surprise when, upon their arrival, it transpired that their contact, a Rutgers faculty member, had completely forgot-ten they were coming! The men were then housed in an abandoned Swiss bomb shelter, spending their night on long wooden boards that served as beds. From Konstanz, they made their way to Florence, Italy, where the first leg of their tour would conclude with a performance at Il Duomo di Firenze, now called the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore.
On June 13th, as soon as they checked out of their hotel, the men were given one free week to get them-selves from Italy to Amsterdam. Thus, be it by bus, train, or Audi through the Swiss Alps—while teaching Glee Club member Frank LeRose how to drive stick shift—Glee Club members made 1982 Tour sporting scarlet in front of their chariot
Mason Gross School of the Arts
Rehearsal Retreats are often remem-bered fondly by alumni and bags alike as a pivotal experience that solidifies one’s place within the brotherhood of the club.
Fall Retreat sounds the musical alarm for all; whether you’re a rookie or a super senior who majored in Glee Club, it is a time to wake up from sum-mer hibernation, fasten on your solfege skills, and gear up for a bustling and productive semester at Rutgers.
Spring Retreat reintroduces and revives the brothers from a winter apart, and is distinctly different from the Fall Retreat. Somewhere during the 18 hours of intense rehearsal beside an icy Jersey shore, something happens—something that makes the labor of repeating the second beat in measure 52 of David Conte’s Canticle more times than you can count almost enjoyable. The most reassuring thought is that after rehearsal, around 1 a.m., you know you’ve got 80 brothers to
jump into the Atlantic Ocean with for the annual polar bear plunge; you know that you’ve got 80 brothers to play Mao with and talk to until the early morning; you know that there is at least one person with whom you can have a truly authentic experience. It’s this tremendous sense of belonging that transcends and imbues the music- making with “the Rutgers Glee Club sound,” a sound that is warm and full, where every voice belongs, contributes, and is happy.
This year’s Spring Rehearsal Retreat was atypical. Winter storm Jonas was determined to see its name in history as it barraged the East Coast with over two feet of snow and flooded the Jersey shore. After the few hours of rehearsal in McKinney and Mortensen Hall we managed to eke out before the storm, the decision was made: the rehearsal retreat was cancelled, and with it the prospects of a traditional fun-filled mu-sical weekend at the shore. While this
BUILDING ETERNAL BONDS, ONE WEEKEND AT A TIMEBy: IFEANYI EZEANYA & EDWIN TRENT
was a disappointment, it was a great opportunity to manufacture a similar retreat atmosphere around campus.
The residents of 86 Harvey St., the “official” off-campus Glee Club house, in tandem with a ragtag group of seniors (headed by our former Presi-dent, Jacob Ohring) set out to make the most of the circumstances. They bought plentiful provisions, round-ed up as many members as were able to stay, and hosted a massive 36-hour sleepover/retreat spectacle, complete with homemade breakfasts, lunches, dinner parties, tons of snacks, video games, Netflix, sledding and snowball fights.
While the musical part of Spring Rehearsal Retreat was minimal this year, the retreat was indeed a success. Bring-ing brothers together for food and fun is still the essence of all things beautiful with the Rutgers University Glee Club.
The effort to get together despite the storm was an effort to preserve a tradition that spans over 30 years, as some alumni can attest when they recall their own experiences at Lake Minnewaska. Upperclassmen would cram 4–6 deep in a car during fresh-man week, travel two and half hours north to the lakeside cabin and stay for 3–5 days. The schedule was filled with intense rehearsals and complemented with some serious fun; from swimming in the lake, to performing for the hotel guests at dinner and running down the hill to the nearby pub to enjoy the locals—everyone enjoyed themselves, even “Soup” Walter who, on more than one occasion, cartwheeled down Route 44! On the very last night, the guys would nestle up under the moonlit sky and sing Rutgers tunes; a fine way to end the week. Sadly, the old cabin is no longer there, and although the scenery has changed, the feelings and good times associated with it have not. Those same eternal bonds and tradi-tions are seen year after year, becoming entrenched into the fabric of our history and the hopes for our future.
Hard at work during this year’s rehearsal retreat
The Glee Gab Rutgers University Glee Club
Ever ChangingYet Eternally
the Same
Mason Gross School of the Arts
Rutgers University Glee Club The Glee Gab 5
their way towards Amsterdam. In the spirit of brotherhood, the men would try to meet up wherever they could along the way. At one of these “beer dates” in Munich, they got kicked out of a beer hall for singing too loudly!
In Amsterdam, the Glee Club per-formed for Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, one week before she would visit Rutgers University. Upon the conclusion of their concert
in Beatrixpark, the men exited the stage and made their way to her personal ferry—stocked with Heineken—which took them to their Senior Banquet at De Hoop, the Royal Amsterdam Boat Club. While we made our way to our own banquet in Amsterdam last year by bus instead of royal ferry, I can imagine that the words and tears shared at these occasions were the same. Even with 33 years between us, it is amazing how
many things we share with the men that paved the way before us. Be it raucous reunions after mere hours apart, the singing of the Alma Mater at the Rookie and Senior Banquets, or others of the countless traditions we continue to share and uphold, the Rutgers University Glee Club is truly an organization that is, as we say, “ever changing yet eternally the same.”
Rutgers University Glee Club The Glee Gab
Ever ChangingYet Eternally
the Same
Mason Gross School of the Arts
6
THE TOUR THAT STARTED IT ALLBy: EDWIN TRENT
It was a different world entirely: JFK was President, a movie ticket cost a dollar, and F. Austin “Soup” Walter was the director of the Glee Club. It was his 30th year directing the men’s choir we have all come to know and love as an international power house. But this was before the performance in University Hall in the Academiegebouw in Utrecht, before Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome or Saint Mark’s Basilica in Venice, before Notre-Dame de Paris, before the Berliner Dom and the Baltic States, before we were ever heard of by an international audience. This was THE trip to Europe, the one to start the tradition. Let me dust off this old tale and hopefully provide some narrative for this defining point in our history.
The tour took off before Com-mencement, sweeping up seniors be-fore they received their diplomas. The Rutgers University Glee Club was off to what is now JFK airport, but at the time was known as Idlewild airport. After ten hours of seemingly endless flight, Norway was in sight. Hundreds of feet below, in perfect cinematic fashion, a crowd was gathered to wit-ness the plane touch down. According to Dick Dahoney, the chartered airline was the largest ever to land on that tiny runway: imagine that! To accommodate the massive air fortress, the plane was
piloted by the most skilled crew in all of Norway at the time.
One by one 60 men from the “Rutgers Men’s Choir”, 60 from the Yale Wind Symphony, the directors of both organizations, and Dean Howard Crosby, filed out, beginning a 50-year tradition of European travel for the Glee Club
Three days were spent in Bergen, and what a beautiful sight it was. Bergen has a certain charm, an almost Disney-like quality in the way it oper-ates so efficiently. Bergen comes alive in the morning with the rich smell of roasted coffee and the opening of the market down by the harbor. If you blink too fast, however, you might miss its transformation from quaint town market to bustling city center. By midday, the cobble is hosed down, the stalls disassembled and with almost staged precision, the area comes alive.
Bergen was the highlight of the trip for some like Dick Dahoney, and quite possibly the main reason for the voyage. The Bergen festival was where the Glee Club and the Yale Wind Sym-phony showcased their repertoire on the world stage. For what seemed like almost two hours, the groups traded off pieces: Celebration Overture by Paul Creston, Tutti Venite Armati by Giovan-ni Gestoldi. In typical showboating
fashion, the groups came together, performing a powerful rendition of Fantasy on American Ballads by Richard Donovan. However, no concert would be complete without a showcase of Rutgers songs to end the show. A storm of applause provided instantaneous validation for the long rehearsals beforehand and the late nights spent pouring over an ocean of music.
Before long, Bergen was in the rear window of an old steam engine churn-ing its way through the mountains of Norway to Voss. If you weren’t fortu-nate enough to know to close your window in the tunnels, you wound up with a face full of soot, Bob Mortensen laughingly recalls. The concert at Voss sold out. There, the gang sang a tra-ditional Norwegian folk song to an audience that knew it by heart and rose to sing along. They followed with the Norwegian national anthem. The small town of Voss, originally skeptical about the group of American hooligans, were overjoyed after the touch of familiarity.
After their midday concert, the group made their way to Oslo via a more modernized electric train. The following day, they performed in Oslo University’s auditorium. That night, they boarded an overnight steamer headed to Copenhagen. “Soup” Walter grabbed the RUGC, headed to the stern of the big cruise ship and put on an impromptu performance for the pas-sengers. Dahoney remembers that the following morning, the Yale wind or-chestra climbed the mast and proudly flew their flag, “commandeering” the ship from the Glee Club’s song-filled takeover.
Copenhagen was a bit of a surprise. Having previously had more than sat-isfactory accommodations, the group of 60+ men were stunned to find them-selves in an almost “open bay” style hostel, among hundreds more. With a little finesse, Dean Crosby and Soup arranged for a few hotel rooms. Despite the housing setback, the three-day stay in Copenhagen turned out to be quite the success.
Those few days were spent roaming the capitol city of Denmark, exploring the many iconic canals, and enjoying Tivoli Gardens, the unique amusement park. In lieu of receiving their diplomas at Commencement, those fortunate enough to be graduating in 1962 were presented with “diplomas” dressed in scarlet or blue ribbon by the US ambas-sador. To those lucky few, such as Bob Mortensen, graduating from college would be an unforgettable experience. The 1962 Rutgers University Glee Club boarding Scandinavian Airlines DC-8
The Glee Gab Rutgers University Glee Club
Ever ChangingYet Eternally
the Same
Mason Gross School of the Arts
Rutgers University Glee Club The Glee Gab
The 1962 Rutgers University Glee Club with the Yale Wind Symphony
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Copenhagen was closed out with a concert in Falkoner Centret.
The next day, the club boarded an early train headed to Germany. Difficult for us to imagine now, WWII was then still an ever present aspect of Europe. Hamburg was still trying to contain the damage: large piles of rubble, 100s of feet high, were seen towering over the city. In years to come, Bob informed me, those rubble piles would act as sled hills to what is now a dedicated park. The second day in Hamburg, the group performed at what is now known as Laeiszhalle; that performance was broadcast on Norddeut-sche Rundfunk, the local ra-dio station of Hamburg. The last day in Hamburg had the group enjoy their newly ac-quired celebrity status while exploring one of Europe’s central transport hubs.
A train took the club to Amsterdam, where they were able to experience the won-ders of the canal rides and see the unique leaning buildings on the water. The group per-formed in Bloemendaal Open Air Theatre, a big open venue encased in forest backdrop, as well as the Van Leer Factory. That night, in a cantina, while attending a party for the Rut-gers Glee Club, a barbershop quartet called the “Queens-men” whose members were all in the club, put on a per-formance that in many ways became a highlight of the tour for those men. With a youth-ful chuckle, Dahoney tells me
of the simple joy he received standing on that stage in their impromptu gig.
On the last leg of the tour, the group made its way to Heerlen and Hengelo, although very little is recalled about these last stops. In Heerlen, the RUGC performed in the Mine Festi-val, and then enjoyed the company of the hosts in traditional and humbling Netherland fashion. In Hengelo, the group gave their coup-de-grace in the Helgelo Concert Hall, before making their way back to the free city. Once the tour was formally over, the group
scattered across Europe, taking trips to Nice, Florence and Sweden, among other places.
In many ways this “Band of Broth-ers” tour prefigures the trip we just returned from. For the men of the 1962 tour group, this was the high-light of college, just as tours are today. This wasn’t simply sightseeing; it was something more entirely. This was an adventure, a new journey to set the stage for what would later become the world class organization the Rutgers Universi-ty Glee Club is known as today.
F. Austin “Soup” Walter with the 1962 RUGC
Featuring:Wedding Qawwali – A.R. Rahman
Dulcis Amor – Steven SametzTarantella – Elliot Carter
Das Berliner Requiem – Kurt WeillTravels – Lewis Spratlan
MLK – BonoRain, Rain, Beautiful Rain – Joseph Shabalala
Plus much more!! To order your copy today, detach the CD order form and mail to the address below, or order online at gleeclub.rutgers.edu
World-renowned piecesand a few crowd favorites!
The Rutgers University Glee ClubMarryott Music Building81 George StreetNew Brunswick, NJ 08901-1568
____ copies of Travels @ $15.00 each = ___________
and ____ copies of The Bells Must Ring! @ $15.00 each = ___________
and ____ copies of Let Thy Good Spirit @ $15.00 each = ___________
and ____ copies of the 1999 Eastern European Tour CD @ $15.00 each = ___________
and ____ copies of the 2003 European Tour CD @ $15.00 each = ___________
and ____copies of the 2007 Hear The Voice @ $15.00 each = ___________
Plus $2.50 each for postage + ___________
Amount Enclosed: ___________
Please allow 2 to 3 weeks for delivery
Rutgers University Glee Club CD Order FormName:
Address:
City:
State:
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
___________ Zip: ______________
The Rutgers University Glee Club Presents:
