ABOUT UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN MEN'S GLEE CLUB

Founded in 1859, The University of Michigan Men's Glee Club is the second oldest collegiate chorus in the United States and the oldest continually-run student organization on the Michigan campus. Long acclaimed as one of the finest male choruses in the world, the Glee Club has achieved this stature by sustaining and respecting the traditions which have been established during its 160 year history. The Glee Club has become renowned for its wide repertoire of music that incorporates selections from different musical styles and periods including Renaissance motets, Romantic anthems, opera choruses, folk songs, spirituals, contemporary works, and, of course, Michigan songs. The Friars, an 8 or 9 member subset of the Glee Club, are in their 64th year and serve as an extension of Club as they maintain an ambitious performing schedule.

The scope of the Men's Glee Club reaches far beyond rehearsals and performances; the Club is a vibrant social organization. Rehearsals are supplemented by weekly post-rehearsal gatherings, tailgate "record" sings, intramural sports teams, and a myriad of other events that allow for fraternization. Collaborations with other choirs, the Club's annual Male Vocal Arts Day (a workshop for high school men), and touring also play vital roles in establishing a brotherhood. The Club performs regularly within the state of Michigan, and each year tours a region of the United States or goes abroad. In February of 2001 the Glee Club traveled to Northampton, MA for a performance of Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem with the Smith College Glee Club and Chorale and hosted a second performance the following October. Other recent highlights include collaborations with the Michigan State, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Harvard, and Yale Glee Clubs.

The Glee Club was honored in 1959 to be the first American male chorus to win first place at the International Musical Eisteddfod in Llangollen, Wales, (and has since won three more first prizes at the same competition), and in 1967, circled the globe in celebration of the University's sesquicentennial year. Recent international tours have included Southeast Asia (1989), Eastern and Central Europe (1992), South America (1996), and Australia (2000), and the British Isles (2004). The Club has also made appearances at Avery Fisher and Alice Tully Halls at the Lincoln Center in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, the pre-game festivities for the 1984 World Series and the Intercollegiate Men's Choruses National Seminars in 1986 and 2004. The Club has also had the esteemed privilege of performing at the American Choral Directors Association Central Division Conventions in 1992 and 2000 and the ACDA National Convention in San Diego in 1997. In addition to the numerous recordings to its name, the Club was recently honored to be featured on Manheim Steamroller's double platinum CD Christmas Extraordinaire.

MARK STOVER, DIRECTOR

Regarded as a leading conductor and pedagogue in the US and abroad, Professor Mark Stover shares his passion for people and building community through pursuing the highest levels of artistry. Since September 2018, he has served as associate director of choirs at the University of Michigan where he conducts the Men's Glee Club and the University Choir, teaches conducting, and serves and the conductor of the Michigan Youth Chamber Singers.

Professor Stover came to Ann Arbor from Northfield, Minnesota, home of Saint Olaf College, where he served on the music faculty as conductor of the St. Olaf Chapel Choir (SATB) and Viking Chorus (TTBB) while teaching conducting and a new course he designed titled, Music and Social Justice. Both of these choirs have regularly appeared in the annual St. Olaf Christmas Festival, a tradition held for over a century and regarded around the world as one of the great music festivals of the season. Prof. Stover led the Chapel Choir, Viking Chorus, and the Festival Mass Choir of over 400 voices in the St. Olaf Christmas Festival presented at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis at the 2017 National Convention of the American Choral Conductors Association (ACDA). Additionally, Stover served for multiple seasons as the artistic director of Magnum Chorum, a semi-professional choral ensemble of over 60 voices based in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Magnum Chorum was a featured ensemble in the 2017 ACDA National Conference in the Raymond C. Brock Commission performance under the baton of Robert Spano.

Prof. Stover holds degrees from St. Olaf College and Luther Seminary where he studied conducting and choral repertoire under the mentorship of Dr. Anton Armstrong and Dr. Paul Westermeyer. In the fall term of 2021, The University of Michigan has granted him a full educational leave for the purpose of advancing his work towards the Doctorate in Musical Arts degree at Michigan State University.

NOTES ON THE PROGRAM 

TO REPAIR. When we ask what it means to repair, we should be clear about the terms of the question. The work of repair is carried out in the aftermath of a breaking. Repair is not restoration: we do not seek to bring back something as it was in the past. Indeed, when we consider the project of community repair in the United States, we are often dealing with communities whose memory is not of wholeness and health but of violent dispossession, dehumanization, and enslavement. In asking about repair, then, we look at the present and toward the future: what do the people who live in this country with us need to be whole? Time runs in only one direction: we cannot unbreak a limb or uncut a wound. But bones can be set and wounds can be stitched and bandaged, and with time and care a person can heal both without and within, as long as life remains.

That caveat is a heavy one. So many are not alive who ought to be: dead from police violence, from uninvestigated murders, from AIDS complications and lack of healthcare. Their deaths are part of what needs repairing: the gaps where their lives should be are wounds in their families and communities that demand our care and attention. The word “reparations” in the present day sounds radical, and perhaps it is—but we should ask ourselves why. What is radical about giving people and communities, ravaged and traumatized by centuries of alternating exploitation and neglect, the things that they need to heal? This sounds radical only because we in the United States do not ordinarily permit ourselves to ask the simple question that gets to the root of the problem. Tesfa asks it with this work: what do our communities need, and what do we as Americans need, to repair?

PROGRAM

"Laudes atque Carmina" Charles M. Gayley, Albert A. Stanley

"Christus Resurgens" Irish Chant circa 1150, arr. Michael McGlynn

"Truth" Connor Koppin

"Veni Creator Spiritus" Timothy C. Takach

"Die Rose stand im Tau" Robert Schumann

"The Ballad of Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard" Benjamin Britten

"The Turtle Dove" Ralph Vaughan Williams

"The Word Was God" -Rosephanye Powell, arr. William C. Powell

"MLK" U2, featuring The Friars

"We Shall Overcome" Uzee Brown, Jr.

"To Repair" Tesfa Wondemagegnehu [WORLD PREMIERE]

I. America: Truth

II. Black Baby: Investment

III. Calling Dreams: Resilience

IV. God's Gonna Set This World on Fire: Renewal

"I Have Had Singing" Ron Jeffers

"I'll Ne'er Forget My College Days" Earl V. Moore

"The Michigan Medley" 'Tis of Michigan We Sing -composer unknown

A Toast to Michigan -Louis Elbel

I Want to Go Back to Michigan -composer unknown

"Varsity & The Victors" J. Fred Lawton and Louis Elbel

"The Yellow and Blue" Michael W. Balfe

Thursday Evening, April 7th, 2022 at 8:00pm

Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center