The Pomona College Glee Club (MUS 32, half-credit course) is Pomona’s advanced chamber choir; among its most distinguished alumni are fourteen-time Grammy® winner Robert Shaw (Class of 1938), the most influential choral conductor in the twentieth century, and Howard Swan (Class of 1928), revered in the field as the dean of choral music education in the United States. This ensemble attracts members from all the Claremont Colleges and Claremont Graduate University, including students whose majors are drawn from all parts of the curriculum, from chemistry to neuroscience, English literature to French, politics to computer science and technology.
Each spring semester 23-28 of the colleges’ most gifted singers come together to explore a challenging classical repertoire spanning the 16th century to the present, focusing especially on works for unaccompanied voices. In addition to its normal concert schedule, the ensemble is regularly featured at major college functions, including at special alumni events, and at commencement. It also tours annually (with the full financial support of the College) immediately following commencement.
Annual Tours
The Glee Club has had the honor of representing Pomona College both internationally and at home for over 100 years. Since 2006, their international destinations have included Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, England, Italy, and Scotland—their trip to central and southern Spain in 2020 was cancelled due to the pandemic—with performance opportunities in a variety of small chapels and castles, and in high-profile venues of historical significance such as St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, the Thomaskirche in Leipzig (Bach’s home church for nearly 30 years), the Berliner Dom in Berlin, the grand Durham Cathedral (Durham, England), and St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh. Other highlights include being the featured choir for a Sunday service at Trinity College, Cambridge, and singing for several hundred elementary school children in Nowa Huta, Poland.
On its domestic tours, the ensemble has sung in some of the most spectacular ecclesiastical spaces in the United States, including the Washington National Cathedral in the nation’s capital, Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, and the Cathedral Basilica in St. Louis, as well as the impressive collegiate spaces of Stanford University’s Memorial Chapel and the University of Chicago’s Rockefeller Memorial Chapel. Other memorable appearances in inspiring venues include those at St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Honolulu,St. Joseph’s Church in New York City, Bruton Parish Church in Colonial Williamsburg (VA), and Christ Church Cathedral in St. Louis. The tour also regularly includes outreach performances at senior retirement communities, where students and residents can engage with each other through the gift of music. (For a list of past tour destinations since 1999.)
Repertoire
Recent Glee Club repertoire has included such varied works as William Byrd’s contemplative Ave verum, Eric Whitacre’s mesmerizing Sleep, and Moses Hogan’s energizing spiritual arrangement, The Battle of Jericho. The group occasionally takes on larger projects, such as Handel’s stunning, multi-movement Dixit Dominus with the period instrument ensemble Harmonologia Pomona, but the bulk of its repertoire is focused on smaller works for chamber choir; occasionally, it has been honored to offer the world, U.S. or West Coast premieres of new music, including Tom Flaherty’s A Timbered Choir (2001) and Shakespeare Sonnets (2004). The ensemble regularly sings music in a wide range of languages including French, German, Italian, Hebrew, Russian, Czech, Polish, Spanish, English, and Latin. (For a list of a past repertoire since 1999.)
Membership
Membership in the Glee Club is open to all students enrolled at any of the Claremont Colleges or Claremont Graduate University who are also active, reliable, and strong members of the Pomona College Choir or the Pomona College Orchestra. Singers selected for the ensemble have successfully passed rigorous auditions evaluating their individual strengths in singing and sight reading, their abilities to learn a great deal of music quickly, and their readiness to work within a small ensemble, where blend and musical sensitivity are essential.
The group rehearses in the spring semester: Tuesdays 11:10 a.m.-12:40 p.m. and Thursdays 4:10-5:40 p.m. plus a weekly one-hour sectional.