page_title: Ohio State University Men's Glee Club
section_title: Early to Mid 1900s
hierarchical_section_title: Ohio State University Men's Glee Club / History / Early to Mid 1900s
caption_attribution_description: English: Glee Club from the 1922-1923 school year
context_page_description: The Ohio State University Men's Glee Club is an all-male choral ensemble at The Ohio State University. Officially founded in 1875, the Men's Glee Club is one of the oldest student organizations on Ohio State's campus and is the 12th oldest collegiate glee club in the United States. The group has garnered many accolades, most notably winning Choir of the World 1990 from the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod.
  Membership consists of Ohio State students auditioned from all academic colleges within the university. The current director is Robert J. Ward, who is also the Director of Choral Activities at Ohio State. He has held the position since 2004.
context_section_description: Under the direction of A.R. Barrington, the Men's Glee Club became a regular fixture on Ohio State's campus.  Their notoriety inspired both John Philip Sousa and Victor Herbert to serve as guest directors in 1910. As the Glee Club continued to contribute to the growing collection of Ohio State songs, the Ohio State University Association (currently known as the Ohio State University Alumni Association) would continue where Songs of the Scarlet and Gray left off by publishing Ohio State's second official songbook, Songs of Ohio State University, in 1916. Later given a second edition in 1923, this book included modern Ohio State fight songs such as "Across the Field" and "Buckeye Battle Cry".
  World War I forced the Glee Club to temporarily disband in 1918 (as World War II would also force it to do in 1945), but the ensemble eventually reorganized by February 1919.  The Glee Club's earliest known recording was made in 1926 at the Victor laboratory during a tour to Camden, New Jersey. 
  In 1929, the Glee Club participated in their first series of choral competitions.  They won Ohio’s statewide intercollegiate contest, going on the next week to participate in the National Intercollegiate Contest held in Carnegie Hall. Dartmouth won the competition, but the men from Ohio State placed third, finishing ahead of Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. The next year, they placed second, after a recount of the score left them trailing George Washington University by 0.4 points.
  During the 1930s, the Men’s Glee Club often had no formal director.  Instead, the group was divided into two subgroups, one for underclassmen and one for upperclassmen.  The subgroups were often led by student directors, much as the Glee Club had been during its formative years in the late 1800s.  When Ohio State’s department of music became the School of Music in 1945, it reorganized the Men’s Glee Club into an official School of Music choral ensemble. This meant that the group was now a credit-granting class and students who wished to join now had to register for it as they would any other class. The group also retained its registration with the Ohio Union as a student organization. This dual registration granted the Men’s Glee Club a unique position that is shared by only a few other student organizations, such as the Women’s Glee Club.
  On March 24, 1957, the Men’s Glee Club made an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. The next year, they appeared on The Voice of Firestone. In 1965, shortly after the premier of The Ohio State University Marching Band's arrangement of "Hang On Sloopy", the Men’s Glee Club joined the Marching Band on the football field to perform a choral arrangement of "Hang On Sloopy" during a halftime show.  This performance was the first of only four collaborations between the Marching Band and the Men's Glee Club; the second would not happen for more than 40 years.  Other notable performances from this era include singing at the United States Capitol in 1969 and 1977, as well as singing for the Rose Bowl and National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame banquet in 1970.
caption: Glee Club from the 1922-1923 school year
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