Yale Glee Club

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, which led to the establishment of the Yale Women's Chorus. The following year, the Yale Women's Chorus was absorbed into the Glee Club to form 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 once open to students only after their first year of college, in 2003 the Glee Club began to include undergraduates from all four years.

Several alumni of the group have gone on to professional careers in music, including Charles Ives, Douglas Moore, Cole Porter, John Stewart and Marshall Bartholomew, both of whom returned to Yale to conduct the Glee Club.

The Yale Glee Club has had seven directors since the appointment of its first faculty adviser:

• c. 1868-1873: Gustave J. Stoeckel
• 1873-1905: Thomas G. Shepard
• 1905-1921: G. Frank Goodale (Yale Sheffield Scientific School B.S. 1889)
• 1921-1953: Marshall Bartholomew (Yale Sheffield Scientific School B.S. 1907)
• 1953-1992: Fenno F. Heath, Jr. (Yale B.A. 1950, M.A. 1952)
• 1992-2002: David H. Connell (Yale D.M.A. 1991)
• 2002-2003: Timothy Snyder (Yale M.M. 1998) (interim director)
• 2003–present: Jeffrey Douma

The group's fourth director, Marshall Bartholomew, encouraged the group to undertake more difficult and classical works, adding considerably to the group's repertoire. He created arrangements of many spirituals and folk songs, many published by the G. Schirmer company as the "Yale Glee Club Series."

Bartholomew's successor, Fenno Heath, composed many original works and after 1970 rearranged many of his own and Bartholomew's pieces for mixed chorus when the Glee Club admitted women. David Connell continued the tradition of arranging pieces for the group, including madrigals and sea chanteys. Director Jeffrey Douma has also contributed his own arrangements to the Glee Club's library. Under his direction, the Glee Club has appeared in performances guest conducted by David Willcocks, Krzysztof Penderecki, Sir Neville Marriner, and Helmuth Rilling.