CUGC Alums & Friends
Welcome!
What and Why

Columbia University Glee Club Alums & Friends encourages active support for Glee Club for Columbia students of today and tomorrow.

Since the start of its roller-coaster history in 1873, the Columbia University Glee Club seems to work best when active, interested alums and friends support the initiatives and direction of the club's student leaders.

In 2011, the Glee Club alumni organizing this effort determined they could best support the Glee Club by evolving into Columbia Alumni Singers, an official affinity group of the Columbia Alumni Association. 

Its mission is three-fold: serve Columbia, support student singing on campus and create opportunities for alumni to sing once again for Columbia.  For more on Columbia Alumni Singers, go here.
Glee Club Alumni Are Soloists at Reunion

John Suggs CC 1969 kicked off the solo shots with Balm in Gilead.  Jeff Kurnit CC 1968 followed with the tenor solo in Ride the Chariot, while David Tilman CC 1966 loosed his baritone on Fenno Heath's arrangement of This Train.  Paul Zola CC 1957, tenor, and Jon ("Bowzer") Bauman CC 1968, bass, split the honors on Robert Shaw's arrangement of Set Down Servant.  Crowd-rousers, all.

More on the Reunion event here.
First Holiday Singalong may have launched a tradition

About 30 Columbians, family and friends, including several former Glee Clubbers, joined Bruce Trinkley CC 66 (former GC director) and Cantor David Tilman CC 66 for the first Holiday Sing-Along: Celebrating Festivals of Light around the World, held at the Columbia Club in midtown New York on December 12, 2010.

After coffee, hot chocolate and holiday cookies, Bruce and David led Christmas and Chanukah songs respectively before pulling out all the stops for some Columbia songs.
Glee Club Names Student to Liaise with Alumni

The Glee Club Board named Janet Lee, BC 2014, to serve as liaison with Glee Club alumni during the 2011-2012 year.
Glee Club Presents 2011 Spring Concert!


The Glee Club occupied Lerner Hall's Party Space again on Sunday evening, May 1, 2011 to present their annual Spring Concert, a long-standing tradition.  The group clearly showed an improved musical presence at the end of music director David Harris's second year on the podium.  A crowd of students, friends, parents and a few alums showed their appreciation for the performance.


Drawing on a round setting of a Navajo prayer by former Glee Club music director Gregg Smith, Now I Walk in Beauty, the club began their performance by filing in through the audience, the different voice parts collecting on top of each other.


The set list bounced around the music landscape but focused primarily on contemporary and popular music arranged for chorus, including Dirait-on, a French piece by noted contemporary composer Morten Lauridsen.


The program ended with the traditional call for Glee Club alumni to join the students for the singing of Sans Souci.

 

Pictures here. 


Concert program here.