Next Week at the National Gallery of Art

Elina Vahala, violinist

Mika Rannali, pianist

Music by Copland, Debussy, Faure, and Stravinsky

Presented in honor ofthe exhibition

In the Forest ofFontainebleau:

Painters and Photographersfrom Corot to Monet

March 30, 2008

Sunday evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

The use of cameras or recording equipment during the

performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell phone

pagers, and other electronic devices are turned off.

Music Department

National Gallery ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

Mailing address

2000B South Club Drive

Landover, md 20785

wwiv.nga.gov

cover: Paul Stevenson Oles, 1971, National Gallery of Art Archives

The Sixty-sixth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,668th Concert

Harvard Glee Club

Jameson N. Marvin, director

March 23, 2008

Sunday Afternoon, 4:00 pm

East Building Auditorium

Admissionfree
The program will be announcedfrom the stage

The Musicians

HARVARD GLEE CLUB

America’s oldest college chorus, the Harvard Glee Club was founded in March 

1858 by the president of Harvard’s Pierian Sodality, the nineteenth-century

predecessor ofthe Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra. Through the rest ofthe century,

the glee club numbered one or two dozen men and sang a repertoire ranging

from old European and American college and folk songs to contemporary art

songs to popular operetta and show tunes. Accompaniment was often provided 

by banjo and mandolin ensembles and local bands. The club performed in

metropolitan Boston and throughout the northeast United States.

The Harvard Glee Club became one ofthe first American college 

choruses to concertize in Europe when it accepted the invitation ofthe

French government for an extensive tour during June and July 1921, performing in concert halls in major cities and at a World War 1 memorial

at Strasbourg Cathedral. Not only was this tour documented by almost

daily reports in the French and American press, but it also inspired new

pieces ofmusic, written specifically for the Harvard ensemble by two

young French composers— Francis Poulenc (Chanson a boire, allegedly 

inspired by a reception for the glee club) and Darius Milhaud (Psaume 121).

There have been just five conductors ofthe Harvard Glee Club: Archibald

T. Davison (1919-1933), G. Wallace Woodworth (1933-1958), Elliot Forbes

(1958-1970), F. John Adams (1970-1978), and Jameson N. Marvin (since

1978). Many oftheir students and assistant conductors have become leaders in

American music, including Leonard Bernstein, Elliot Carter, Irving Fine, John 

Harbison, Virgil Thomson, and Hugh Wolf. The current choral directors at 

Cornell University and Occidental College are glee club alumni, as are numerous managers of orchestras and festivals all over the United States. The late

J. Carter Brown, who was director ofthe National Gallery ofArt from 1969 

to 1992, was also a proud alumnus ofthe Harvard Glee Club, and he invited 

the ensemble to perform at the Gallery on several occasions.

Today the Harvard Glee Club consists of about sixty-five men from all over

the United States and abroad, mostly undergraduates at Harvard College, plus

a few students from Harvard’s graduate schools. Very few ofthe members

major in music or are destined for a musical career. Whether performing by

itself or with the Radcliffe Choral Society and the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium

Musicum, the chorus continues to flourish, demonstrating the persisting

vitality ofmen’s choral music on campus and in concert halls and churches

all over the world.

JAMESON N. MARVIN

Jameson N. Marvin is director of choral activities and senior lecturer on music

at Harvard University. He conducts the Harvard Glee Club, the Radcliffe

Choral Society, and the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum and teaches

courses in choral conducting, masterpieces of choral literature, and renaissance performance practices. Prior to his appointment to Harvard in 1978,

Marvin was director of choral music at Vassar College and conductor ofthe

Cappella Festival Chamber Choir and Orchestra. He has held conducting and

teaching appointments at Bard College, Lehigh University, and the University

ofIllinois. In 1984 he was a visiting scholar at Stanford University in California and Cambridge University in England. Over the past thirty-five years, 

Marvin has conducted some eighty symphonic choral works while developing

a national reputation as a conductor, teacher, author, and scholar. He served 

on the national committee for the selection of conducting candidates for

Fulbright fellowships and is the general editor ofthe Oxford University Press

Renaissance Choral Seriesfor Men’s and Women’s Voices. Marvin’s Harvard choral

ensembles have appeared at six national conventions ofthe American Choral 

Directors Association. He received a bachelor of arts degree in music composition from the University ofCalifornia, Santa Barbara; a master of arts in

choral conducting from Stanford University; and a doctor ofmusical arts in

choral music from the University ofIllinois.The Boston Globe has called

Marvin “a musician of consummate mastery.”