Tomorrow night, the Notre Dame Glee Club (NDGC) will take the stage in the Leighton Concert Hall at the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center for their annual fall concert. Their performance, with compositions ranging from shanties to Stevie Wonder, is sure to stun, with the group’s intensive training and dedication to their craft an undeniable fact that has persisted throughout the many years of the club’s existence.
NDGC was founded in 1915 by undergraduate student Samuel Ward Perrott as an all-male choir of 60. It is the oldest glee club at a Catholic university and it's evident in their heavy alumni involvement and depth of tradition.
“[T]he traditions of the club give it a character that no other club has,” said NDGC co-president Joe Golden. “It is so unique that I have a shared experience that clubbers from 100 years ago had.”
The fall concert is just one of many traditions which has grown out of the group’s 108 years of choral excellence. NDGC puts on two concerts during the Christmas season, one in spring and one at commencement. They also do tours around the United States yearly and international tours every other year.
Outside of their time on the stage, the men of NDGC make sure to take time and form bonds with each other, participating in activities like “trips to the Grotto, wing-eating competitions, pickup sports, Christmas caroling and even impromptu midnight concerts in front of the Golden Dome,” according to their website.
On the community formed within the club, Golden remarked, “[It] is what you would expect from a group of college guys who also sing. We're goofy and competitive, but most importantly we overwhelmingly care for one another. The community actually kept me at Notre Dame. Freshman year, which was the COVID year, I watched all of my friends at home hang out while I was hundreds of miles away. The community that I found in the Glee Club kept me from transferring to a school closer to home.”
“Being in a choir forms a bond that I haven't been able to find anywhere else. The collective pursuit of musical excellence connects people in a way that bonds them for life. This is why we often say we are ‘brothers in song,’” Golden added.
Their pursuit for musical excellence and the brotherhood that has formed out of this effort is evident in their performances. Before fall break, I got a chance to sit in on one of the group’s weekly rehearsals. They were incredibly synchronized and, even as a group, each vocal range shone through in the different pieces they sang. Director Daniel Stowe meticulously sought out the perfect delivery of each song’s many parts, even if it took the group several tries to get things just right.
While every song was a spiritually transcendent experience, a few stood out. “Ave Maria” was glorious, with the group’s voices reaching high into the heavens to bring angels into South Bend, Ind. The melodies of “Tonight” from “West Side Story,” the concert’s opening song, were so beautiful it made me want to cry. Lastly, the Ghanaian dance song “Kpanlongo” was fun and upbeat, with a bit of choreography to match the quicker tempo of the song.
Seeing the club perform is a truly unforgettable experience — I felt like I had been transported to another dimension. Golden asserted the club’s focus on three tenets for the year — excellence, tradition and brotherhood — all of which are plain to see in the euphonious compositions of NDGC’s fall concert.
The Notre Dame Glee Club will perform in DPAC’s Leighton Concert Hall on Friday, October 27 from 8 - 9:30 p.m. Tickets can be purchased on the DPAC website. General admission is $10 and student tickets are free.
‘Excellence, tradition and brotherhood’: The Notre Dame Glee Club 2023 Fall Concert
Marissa Panethiere
