Founded in 1861, the Yale Glee Club is Yale’s principal undergraduate mixed choir and oldest musical organization. The students who sing in the Yale Glee Club might be majors in music or engineering, English or political science, philosophy, or mathematics. They are connected by a love of singing and a collective understanding that raising one’s voice with others to create something beautiful is one of the most noble human pursuits.
Although some Yale Glee Club singers are pursuing a major in music and anticipate careers in the music industry, the majority of Yale Glee Club members are not music majors and represent a wide array of majors at Yale.
The Yale Glee Club membership represents a full spectrum of choral singing experience, from those who have been singing in choirs for their entire lives to others who are just trying it for the first time. The Yale Glee Club strongly encourages everyone to audition.
If you are not a confident sight reader, please don’t panic. Strong sight reading can help your audition, but it is only one part of the overall audition, nor is it the only factor in determining membership. Our goal is to make the audition process as low-stress as possible.
The Yale Glee Club is one of the world’s most traveled collegiate choruses, appearing before enthusiastic audiences in every major US city and abroad on six continents. In recent seasons, the Yale Glee Club has traveled to Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Dallas, Houston, San Francisco, Florida, Hawaii, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, the Czech Republic, France, Spain, Turkey, Cuba, China, Mexico, South Africa, the UK, and Kenya.
The Yale Glee Club rehearses on Monday and Wednesday evenings from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM, performs up to five concerts per semester, and travels domestically and internationally on two tours each year during breaks. Yale Glee Club members are expected to attend every rehearsal, concert, and event.
There are many of additional musical opportunities available through the Yale Glee Club. We select two student conductors each season, and appoint a cohort of tour managers who plan our seasonal tours. Additionally, the Yale Glee Club funds a program which provides its members free voice lessons during each semester that they spend on the roster. The Yale Glee Club also features its own chamber ensemble, the Yale Glee Club Chamber Singers, of around 20 rostered singers from within the Yale Glee Club who rehearse and perform music designed for a smaller ensemble throughout the season.
The Yale Glee Club members also participate in a cappella groups and other campus music groups.
There are several student-run residential college orchestras, including the Berkeley College Orchestra and the Davenport Pops Orchestra. Wind and brass players can also set their sights on the Yale Symphony Orchestra, Yale Concert Band, and the Yale Jazz Ensembles. If you’re interested in chamber music, musicians abound at Yale and most are eager to start a small chamber group of their own. Students can even get credit for their chamber music and a School of Music coach by taking MUSI 2220, The Performance of Chamber Music. Additionally, you can play in the pit orchestra of a musical or an opera.
Highly trained musicians at Yale College may qualify for a program that awards course credit for students taking free music lessons. Students audition in September at the Yale School of Music, one of the top music graduate schools in the country, and are matched with instructors, including School of Music faculty and highly trained graduate students. Students who take two semesters of music theory may receive free lessons and college credit. Placement examinations for theory classes are administered by the department of Music in the first week of school. Students who have not fulfilled the theory requirement can still take lessons for a fee but may not receive college credit. For more information, visit the Music Lessons Program page.
The easiest way to get more information is through the Yale Glee Club office. The Yale Glee Club Operations and Productions Manager will be glad to help you with any questions you might have via e-mail, or you can visit them in Hendrie Hall. If you would like to get in touch with a student, please write to the Yale Glee Club’s president.