150 By Molly Petrilla t hey’re calling this the “Year of Glee.” hearing the gl- when you sing glee,” he says. The term has been used to end a “Explode the gl-.” Gl-s explode accordingly. emails and to start conversations. It’s Clad in T-shirts, many of them advertis- one of the first things their director ing the show for which they’re rehearsing, will mention when you meet him, and Scott Ventre EAS’13, a spirited high tenor, the guys run the medley again. Voices there it is just above the official Penn demonstrates the heads-down move that high and low blend into a single, strong TGlee Club coat of arms and the words will end the number. They’ve re-appropri- chorus, filling the empty theater that in Celebrating 150 Years on their website ated the millennial classic “It’s Gonna Be two days will hold a sold-out crowd: page linking to a list of events marking Me” from ’N Sync, turning it into “It’s that significant milestone. During 2011- Gonna Be Glee,” and Ventre wants to see Don’t you know it’s true? 2012 Penn’s all-male Glee Club has ambi- all heads snap down on the word glee. We sing and dance for you. tious plans to celebrate its past successes, The 30 or so guys on stage practice the Not gonna lose pitch, uncover more of its extensive history, and move with varying levels of ease, simul- ’Cause we’re not like that … reconnect with long-lost alums. taneously hitting their harmonies. But tonight, with the opening of their As the head snapping continues, Glee Baby, when you finally fall show fast approaching, they just want Club Director C. Erik Nordgren Gr’01 steps Get to love somebody to practice their boy-band medley. in with a request of his own: “I’m still not Guess what?
It’s gonna be Glee. LEM STEVENS KRISTEN SPRING SHOW: 2011 MICHEL TAUPIN; TOP: PENN GLEE CLUB; COURTESY PHOTOS 32 JAN | FEB 2012 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE AFTER A CENTURY AND A HALF, PENN’S OLDEST PERFORMING ARTS GROUP IS STILL GOING STRONG.
From top: Three Pennce—David Vaughn C’76, David Klipp, and Gene Schneyer C’75—perform “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.” In 1976, the Glee Club toured Pennsylvania in the “graffiti bus,” a SEPTA loaner THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE JAN | FEB 2012 they had to repaint before returning. Guys & Balls: A Football Musical, Spring 2011. The 1909 Glee Club.33 But with all their trials, no men in College have a better time than skits. They sing songs from Broadway the members of the Glee Club, and as the tuneful ones of ’87 bid farewell and Michael Jackson, along with seri- ous classical pieces and spiritual works. to these pleasant associations they cannot but sing to those left behind, They’re graduate students and engi- “On, gallant company !” and as the walls of “Old Penn” grow dim in neers-in-training. Finance majors and the distance, there will float back the answering refrain— budding biologists. Computer scientists “Ben Franklin was his name, and future lawyers. They grew up as far And not unknown to fame; away as South Korea and Singapore and as close by as Philadelphia and New The founder first was he Jersey. They have girlfriends and they Of the U-ni-ver-si-tee.” have boyfriends. Some listen to Bach, —1887 YEARBOOK others to Lady Gaga. “The diversity of the organization is It’s impossible to sum up the Penn Glee “I guess I’d say we’re a hybrid of the two what’s so lovely about it,” notes Eduardo Club with a single adjective, or even several. stereotypes,” Nordgren adds. “We’re much Placer C’99, a Glee Club alumnus who But here, according to Nordgren, is what more fun than the ‘boring’ stereotype, but now directs the group’s annual spring they’re not: They’re not stuffy or boring. not quite as Hollywood as the TV show.” show. “What we share is a love of music They’re not a bunch of Ivy-League dweebs The Glee Club is the oldest performing- and the ability to sing and harmonize who turn up their noses at the thought of arts group at Penn and one of the oldest with each other. It’s amazing how that singing pop music. And, as much as it’s glee clubs in the country. While the just transcends anything else—academ- helped their image in the last few years, emphasis clearly rests on vocals, they do ics, race, sexuality.” they’re not the toothpaste-commercial other stuff, too: dancing, acting, writing teens from the FOX TV show Glee, either.
34 JAN | FEB 2012 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE Over the last 150 years, the club has By the turn of the century, a University- performed with Frank Sinatra and Bill wide Glee Club had taken shape, replacing Cosby, appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show the class-specific ones. In those early days, and Today, and sung and danced in mul- the Glee Club offered one of the only out- tiple Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parades. lets for musically inclined Penn students. They’ve given concerts alongside famous A banjo group and mandolin club also opera stars and in front of foreign digni- existed, but the singers were consistently taries, and they’ve jetted off on perfor- heaped with the greatest “honourable lau- mance tours around the United States rels,” as it were. They performed joint and to more than 40 other countries. concerts with nearby colleges and trav- The names and faces change from year eled through the state on multi-city per- to year, but even over so many decades, formance tours. They also sang at the the group hasn’t strayed far from the com- Academy of Music and, by 1930, boasted a bination of musicality and brotherhood membership of more than 150 singers. that led eight undergraduates to found it In the decade that followed, membership in 1862. As the Civil War raged and a retreated to about 50 singers—much closer smallpox epidemic hit California, the to the range it now hovers in; this year Penn Glee Club prepared for its first per- there are 41 singers—but the club’s perfor- formance. In a chapel at Ninth and mance schedule remained busy: local Chestnut streets, the newly minted club colleges, Philadelphia Orchestra collabo- sang in late 1862 for “an audience that rations, tours through the southern states. was unusually select and large, the Hall “In the late 1940s, people didn’t travel as filled to its utmost capacity.” Each singer much as they do now,” says John Reardon wore red and blue ribbons in his button- W’51 WG’56. “When you grow up in a small hole, making the group the first at Penn to rowhouse in Germantown, only going into wear those colors as part of its uniform. Philadelphia a few times a year, Atlantic By the end of 1865, the Glee Club had City seems like a pretty exotic place. The 20 members—more than any of the cam- Glee Club took us out of our small bubbles pus fraternities. (Remember that in and showed us the big world out there.” those days, each class had only about 25 students.) It had also added a full board, uring the academic year, Penn Glee including a business manager, and D Club members rehearse anywhere received top billing in the yearbook’s from six to 30 hours each week. “University Record” of campus happen- having “already won for itself honour- That’s not including the time they spend ings. There, the group is described as able laurels” and praised for earning performing—shows in the spring and more than $200 in a single concert. fall; guest spots at University functions; Things hit a bit of a slump soon after singing tours around the world. As Glee that. In its yearbook, the class of 1872 Club alumnus Mark Glassman C’00 credits itself with “reviving” the flounder- puts it: “We say that everyone who was ing Glee Club. That year, nearly every man in the Glee Club at least minored in it. in the senior class got together weekly to Some people majored in it. And some of “pour forth the beautiful strains of us are doing post-baccalaureates in it.” Gaudeamus, Litoria, etc.” As a result, they Indeed, involvements with the club often write, “The Glee Club has brought us last far longer than four years. Glassman together, we have learned to know and has written the club’s spring show every love each other as we never could while year since he graduated, making this his merely meeting in the recitation room.” 12th consecutive script. Robert Biron C’91 The same 1872 yearbook lists separate GGS’92 G’97 has choreographed the annu- Glee Clubs for the junior and sophomore al tap-dance finale since the late 1980s. classes, and the graduating seniors note Erik Nordgren joined the club as a singer that “we only hope that they will keep up in 1992 and has been its director for the the singing interest, (we are glad to know last 12 years. that their glee clubs are at least orga- And then there’s the Granddaddy of Facing page: Erik Nordgren Gr’01 (lower left, nized,) and if they arrive at a higher point Glee himself, the late Bruce Eglinton bowtie) has directed the club since Bruce of musical excellence than ourselves, we Montgomery. “Monty,” as he was re-chris- Montgomery retired in 2000. Above: John will not begrudge them the honor, since tened at some point along the way, direct- Clark Sims C1865 G1868 was secretary of the it will all redound to the glory of our well- ed the Glee Club from 1956-2000 [“Monty club the year it was founded. Right: Monty— beloved Alma Mater.” in Full,” May|June 2000]—though, as sev-
PHOTOS COURTESY PENN GLEE CLUB COURTESY PHOTOS Glee’s guiding force for 50 years—conducts. THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE JAN | FEB 2012 35 eral alumni say, “directed” seems like too traditional organized activities on cam- a sense of theater and a larger mission of narrow a description of his role. pus, so there was a lot of apathy—and at bringing music to the world through “In many ways, Bruce taught us how to times antagonism—toward what were song and dance.” be men,” says Marc Platt C’79, now a considered establishment-type activities. After Handel with Hair, the new show prominent film and Broadway producer Bruce Montgomery was very savvy with format continued. Yet even as more mod- [“Passion Plays,” May|June 2006]. “We regard to creating excitement around ern music joined the club’s repertoire, learned to walk tall and to be proud of concerts, and he knew that we had to do Montgomery refused to oust the older, who we were and what we were doing. something to increase interest.” more traditional songs that he loved. Bruce also instilled a lot of creativity in They decided to create a themed show “The shows became more relaxed and me, and the notion of putting on a show. that would be more like a night out on entertaining, but we still kept the ele- He cared about every performance as if it Broadway than an all-male choir concert. ments of classical choral singing as at were opening night on Broadway—he was Calling it Handel with Hair, they cast least part of what we did,” Hallock notes. that professional and that focused. That aside the choral risers and built colorful In 2000, exactly 50 years after he came had a tremendous impact on me.” wooden cubes and ladders. They swapped to Penn, Montgomery retired. Members Most conversations with Glee Clubbers their dressy clothes for more modern from that time remember it as tumultu- present and past invariably drift to ones: vests, shorts, bellbottom jeans. And ous and sad. They worried about what Montgomery, who quite literally wrote perhaps most significantly, they closed would happen to their club—Monty’s club. the book on the Penn Glee Club. (It’s the show with a medley (and correspond- Monty worried, too. called Brothers, Sing On! and was released ing moment of nudity) from the year’s He decided to turn things over to his in 2005, three years before his death.) edgiest Broadway musical, Hair. student director, a talented and devoted Even those who didn’t sing under his “All over the country, glee clubs were graduate student named Erik Nordgren.
baton are fascinated with him—and yes, rolling over and dying like mastodons,” Always one to embrace his own flair for HANDEL WITH HAIR: THE BRUCE MATIJKIW; HARD CAFE: ANASTASIA ROCK KEN KIRSHENBAUM SING TUT: THE ARTS; FOR FOUNDATION MONTGOMERY several admit, jealous that they didn’t get Montgomery writes in Brothers, Sing to know him personally. On! “With Handel with Hair, we proved Though there had been one foray into that we were a valid voice for more a staged production—1928’s Hades, Inc.— than just singing.” when Montgomery took over the club in Many alumni say that the transition 1956, they still gave traditional, stand-on- from concerts to shows was one of risers-in-a-blazer concerts. Not a single Montgomery’s greatest legacies, rivaled choreographed boy-band medley in sight. only by the hundreds of songs he arranged He quickly beefed up their concert sched- for all-male voices. “Before Monty,” adds ule—by 1960, they were performing more Robert Biron, “the Glee Club was a stand- than 50 times a year—but interest in old- up singing group. He re-energized it with school glee clubs like Penn’s had plum- meted by the end of the decade. “It was the height of the Vietnam War, and the concept of an all-male glee club was becoming an anachronism,” explains Robert Hallock W’71. “There was much less interest in choral singing or in any
Starting with 1969’s Handel with Hair, the Glee Club updated its image with themed shows. Later shows continued the word play—like Extravagancelot in 1977, 1979’s Sing Tut, and the Fall 2010 show, Rock Hard Cafe—but dropped the nudity.
36 JAN | FEB 2012 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE the dramatic, Montgomery wanted a Big The audience is too large for the city’s Aside from introducing scripted Reveal moment to announce his succes- downtown theater, so an outdoor stage shows, Montgomery also brought the sor and chose his final show with the has been erected instead. After the club on its first international tour—a club to do it. He writes: show, screaming fans race up to the tradition that endures to this day. The young men, clawing at their clothes emphasis on travel was, and still is, a “At one spot in the program—not even and begging them for autographs. big draw for new members. Biron, now announced to the singers ahead of time— Who are the young men inducing this the president of the Glee Club Graduate I mentioned to everyone that I had been fervor? The Penn Glee Club, of course. Club, still remembers the marketing blessed for some years with a truly out- As a club member recalled in the 1970 flyer he received just before heading standing student conductor, and I called Penn yearbook: “We were really, truly, off to Penn in the late 1980s: Join the on Erik Nordgren to conduct ‘Ride the like celebrities. The girls swooned over Glee Club and Sing the World … Is More Chariot’ while I stood in the chorus and us wherever we went. As we walked off Than Just a Slogan. (Monty, a one-time sang. He did his customary fine job and from our last concert … the girls grabbed PR staffer at Penn, was never at a loss bowed appreciatively to the enthusiastic our clothing and our matriculation cards. for a stirring call to action.) applause. Then I put my arm around his They wanted everything we had. One girl In Brothers, Sing On!, Montgomery makes shoulders, walked him down to the front ripped off Mr. Montgomery’s shirt front frequent reference to the club’s role as of the stage, and said, ‘And ladies and and asked him to autograph it. This unofficial diplomats on these trips. gentlemen, now that you’ve seen Erik do attention we’ll never get at Penn.” Along with the rock-star moments, he what he does so well, let me re-introduce Maybe not, but a similar scene erupted also notes that the club’s journey to him as my successor: the next director of exactly three decades later when the club Latin America in 1969 coincided with a the University of Pennsylvania Glee Club.’ traveled to Japan in 1999. “For reasons period of strained relations between The place went wild!” that I still do not understand, we were ex- the US and Peru. The US ambassador traordinarily popular and extraordinarily to Peru had warned Montgomery that Nordgren has led the club ever since, well-received there,” Mark Glassman re- traveling there could be dangerous, but maintaining the blend of Broadway calls. “Girls were screaming and crying. the Glee Club made the trip anyway and showmanship and challenging classical We would look at each other and be like, swiftly won new admirers. In fact, a music that Montgomery instituted. “He ‘Why are we the Beatles right now?’ It Peruvian college student approached always had a knack for stagecraft and was a very odd phenomenon that had them after a performance and said, in making a presentation very appealing,” many of us contemplating canceling English: “If President Nixon had sent Nordgren says of his predecessor. “I like our flights home. You’re probably hard- you before tonight, we would not know to think that I’ve continued to build on pressed to find a group that loves itself hate in governments—we would know the transformation that Monty began.” more than the Glee Club, so it was really the love of people.” And following that nice to have other people shower us with now-legendary trip, The New York Times he girls in the audience scream or the praise that we always knew we de- wrote that the Penn Glee Club “has cre- T cry or, in more than a few instanc- served, particularly when those people ated greater understanding between the es, both. It’s the late 1960s, and a were members of the opposite sex.” United States and the people of South group of young men, singers, have trav- America than would be possible at this eled abroad to perform in Lima, Peru. time on higher diplomatic planes.” Two years later, the Glee Club headed off on a 1971 European tour and capti- vated another continent. According to Montgomery, a Finnish singer even remarked: “You must enjoy a happy place at your university for it to send you on such a wonderful tour. But I wonder if they know how much better we understand Americans now because you have been here? We will talk about this for a long, long time.” “We sort of refer to ourselves as being the ‘musical ambassadors’ of Penn,” Nordgren explains. “I don’t think any administrator at Penn has ever used that term, but we certainly say that about ourselves, and I think we can legitimate- ly claim that there’s a lot of truth to that. “There’s a cliché about music being the universal language,” he continues, “but
THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE JAN | FEB 2012 37 we really see where that comes from when But really, whether they’re headed we travel. We perform in places where the overseas or just up the New Jersey audience clearly didn’t understand the Turnpike, “the locations are never that [English] lyrics we were singing, yet they important,” Greg Suss C’75 admits. appreciate so much what we’re doing. “It’s more about the experience of get- They get it. Our performances cross the ting on a bus, getting on a stage, stay- boundaries of language quite easily.” ing in a hotel. You learn a lot about Biron recalls one such moment from a each other on those trips. You see each trip to Hungary in 1990. The club stayed other at best and at worst, and that at a campground during summer-camp promotes these deep relationships.” season and put together a huge campfire at sundown. “The whole Glee Club was he glee in Glee Club actually has there with dozens of these camp kids, and T nothing to do with its members’ exu- we wound up exchanging music with each berance. In the case of a singing other,” he says. “We would sing a song to group, glee goes by another definition: a them, then they would sing a song to us. song scored for three or more voices,
That went on well into the night. At one spanning any number of genres and point, this one little boy was shyly singing typically sung without accompaniment. some song and then a little girl joined him “I was always drawn to the all-male and then a few others and a few others. We choral sound,” notes Scott Ventre, the got wind that it was the Transylvanian junior who currently serves as the club Anthem, which had been banned for half a historian. “Men can sing very high, men century. It was incredible. That’s exactly can sing very low, and men can blend, what music can do—it can break down bar- too. When you listen to an all-male riers and bring everyone closer together.” group like ours, you really get the full And there was the occasional non- range of what a chord can sound like.” musical crosscultural experience, too. “I wasn’t looking for the all-male On the same 1971 tour that earned them sound,” Biron says. “I think the all- their Finnish fan, a Yugoslavian college male sound found me. The [tenor 1, student approached the guys and asked tenor 2, baritone, bass] arrangement is whether they were in town for an inter- a wonderful part of the musical lexi- Touring was a big part of the Glee Club experience national basketball tournament. “We con, and it’s a great sound. There are so during Monty’s tenure and remains a big draw for learned that it was an open tournament many wonderful arrangements for T-T- new members. Over the years, the club has traveled and, with a borrowed ball, we put togeth- B-B that it’s great to keep that strong. to destinations in Latin America, Europe, Asia, and er a team on the spot,” Montgomery Having a group that can produce that even the US West Coast, meeting international writes of the incident. The impromptu sound is not as common now, but it musical figures like Pablo Casals (top) and getting Glee team came in third place. should still be available and enjoyed.” mobbed by female fans (not shown). PHOTOS COURTESY PENN GLEE CLUB; PENN GLEE CLUB; COURTESY PHOTOS HUTT MOLLY NORWAY:
38 JAN | FEB 2012 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE “There is something about the ano- hanging out in small groups around yet finalized—to perform both officially nymity in the group—the way your voice Penn, even when they aren’t perform- and casually. is masked by the voice of 40 other peo- ing or rehearsing. Stroll around cam- And beyond that? “Much like with ple—that’s really magical,” adds Placer. pus for a few hours, and you’ll probably Darwinism, if you can’t adapt to chang- “You produce your own individual sound, see two of the guys grabbing lunch ing conditions, then you’ll go extinct,” but it becomes part of something bigger. together in Così or maybe a trio wait- Nordgren says. “One concept I can’t take It’s humbling, and it’s really magical to ing for crepes in Houston Hall. credit for—Monty relayed it to me—is that give over to something like that.” “I think the Glee Club has a really the Glee Club needs to be adaptable and In addition to its unique all-male sound, special way of combining the music flexible to remain relevant. It couldn’t be the club is known for its enormous rep- aspect and the social aspect,” Nordgren the Glee Club of 1900 in 1950, and it can’t ertoire. By the time a Glee Clubber says. So it’s sort of like a fraternity, but be the Glee Club of 1950 in 2000. Pop graduates, he’ll have learned about 100 with show tunes? “We do have some culture shifts. People’s attitudes shift. songs, according to Nordgren. About fraternal aspects in place for the sake Musical tastes and cultural influences 20 of those songs have been taught to of fostering brotherhood,” he responds, are constantly shifting, too.” all members since the 1950s, including “which in turns improves the quality of Still, even as it evolves, the club in the Afterglow, Grace, and Toast that our performances.” many ways remains the same. “The thing
Montgomery wrote and the centuries- As Keutmann notes, “It’s hard for me that I think is so amazing about an old University spirit numbers. to distinguish Glee Club from college institution like the Glee Club is that the “We truly have a song for every occa- because my Glee Club friends were also sound of the group hasn’t really changed,” sion,” Biron says. “When we traveled to my best friends, and whenever I went Placer says. “For 150 years, men ages Austria and Hungary my junior year, anywhere I was hanging out with Glee 18-22 have come together in song. We as we would find ourselves just walking Club people.” individuals graduate and move on, but around Budapest, and we could park And because of the music that binds the core sound stays the same.” ourselves at a square and just start them, the feeling of Glee-based broth- “One of the things the club likes to do singing. We could sing for an hour erhood transcends individual gradua- a lot is talk about how old it is, espe- straight, easy, and we did.” tion years, Biron says: “When we have cially compared to other groups at Penn That same shared musical lexicon alumni events, alumni come from or other glee clubs,” Mark Glassman often leads to spontaneous outbursts across decades—many of whom have adds. “It is in fact very old. But it’s not a of song, prompted by one guy shouting never met before—but they can all come surprise to me that it’s 150 years old, out a cue line from the club’s latest together and sing the same songs.” and I wouldn’t be surprised if it contin- show or simply holding out a first note. ues in very good health for the next 150 “Singing is what we do, and whenever In February, the Glee Club will celebrate years, if not more. There really is some- we’re together, that’s what happens,” its big anniversary with a gala in the thing to be said for singing in harmony says Michael Keutmann C’05 GEd’09. Zellerbach Theater and a new show with your friends.”◆ “Whether it be in a car or on a bus or up focused on its storied history. Then in on a stage, we’re singing.” May, alumni and current members will Molly Petrilla C’06 writes frequently for the Gazette It’s not unusual to spot Glee Clubbers head off on a cruise—destination not and oversees the magazine’s arts&culture blog.
THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE JAN | FEB 2012 39