"The Columbia Glee Club will give a concert consisting of warbles, merry college songs, and glees" was written back in 1873 announcing the first concert by a newly formed singing group. This year, as one of the nation's oldest college organizations, the Columbia University Glee Club celebrates its 133rd anniversary.

Today's club is a far cry from the daring group of seniors, collegiate sporting high hats and a flair for harmonizing, who first decided to do some organized singing for Columbia. They plastered up posters, borrowed tuxedos, and gave their first concert.

During those early years, the Columbia songsters set out on one of the first concert tours ever made by a college glee club. The boys returned from their Virginia trip musically successful but owing the Dean's office $826.

In 1920, the Glee Club was put in the capable hands of Walter Henry Hall, one of the outstanding choral conductors in the United States at the time. Under his direction, the club began building its reputation as one of the outstanding singing groups in the country. Professor Hall is remembered for his "Columbia Alma Mater," written especially for the Glee Club, which is sung at the opening of every concert.

The Musical Clubs [Glee and Mandolin] tackled their first extended tour in 1922 and traveled as far as Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse. The first appearance of the "Glee Club Octette," forerunner of today's "Notes and Keys," was noted in the program for the annual "Junior Week Concert" at Student's Hall, Barnard College. Professor Hall left the Glee Club in the hands of Morris W. Watkins...

Perhaps the influence of World War I caused the increased popularity in singing, especially patriotic songs, while the talents of the Mandolin Club apparently lost favor, and it faded into obscurity. For the first time the Glee Club was exclusively a men's chorus.

During the Second World War, the nation and its universities sobered considerably from the gayer and more carefree days of the twenties and thirties. Extra-curricular activities and alumni programs ceased to exist at Columbia while everyone devoted his energy to the war effort. Significantly the last concert of the Columbia University Glee Club was its Christmas appearance with the Barnard Glee Club on December 15, 1942. The concert ended with "Silent Night." The Glee Club did not sing again until the Christmas Concert of 1946.

The late forties found the club in a period of rebuilding, difficult indeed since the club was shuttled back and forth between the Music Department and the Department of King's Crown Activities. The Glee Club was criticized roundly by the college student body and the paper for lack of spirit. It seemed that all had forgotten what the Columbia Glee Club had once stood for. There were a few conscientious members who recognized the difficulties involved and offered suggestions to the administration for the solution of the problem, including proper financing and a permanent director.

In September of 1949, a new program of intensive reorganization began. The Glee Club increased its membership and began to do what a Glee Club should do - sing! The series of traditional and warmly received Homecoming Concerts was initiated, the first one held on October 7, 1949. The Yale Glee Club under Marshall Bartholomew sang the concert with Columbia. Television and radio appearances were tackled, and a successful series of concerts was presented.

An article appeared in the December 12, 1949 Spectator which included the following excerpt:

"Saturday evening in McMillin Theater the Columbia University Glee Club was reaping the rewards of a moment for which it has been toiling since the end of the war: its Christmas concert had just ended as a tremendous and heart-warming success. The audience registered its approbation with sincere and sustained applause.

"Few people in the audience knew of the painful effort which went into making it possible for the 67 Glee Club men to step onto the McMillin stage for the full-dress Christmas Concert. Virtually defunct because of the war, the Glee Club had to start rebuilding from its very foundations. Saturday night's performance is a testimonial to the success of its efforts."

Other highlights of the year included a concert in honor of His Imperial Majesty, Mohammad Reya Shah Pahlavi, the Shahansha of Iran. Things went well for several years. A record was pressed and the renaissance of the Columbia University Glee Club was noted and praised.

Apparently satisfied with the initial surge of activity, but somehow finding further progress impossible, the Glee Club once again found itself slipping into a period of indifference and internal disagreement.

In September 1952, the Glee Club was placed under the leadership of its new director, Mr. Bailey Harvey. Mr. Harvey, the Glee Club's first permanent director since the thirties, sparked a new enthusiasm for singing on the campus. Traveling once again began to play a part in the Glee Club's activities. The Town Hall Concert was reinstated as the highlight of the season. Concerts were presented before the President of the United States, the Crown Prince of Japan, the Queen Mother of England, Konrad Adenauer, Adlai Stevenson, and other distinguished personages...

The "Blue Notes" is the name given to the Glee Club's Varsity Quartet. Like the Notes and Keys, they rehearse independently and choose their own repertoire. The quartet features barbershop and novelty pieces...

Mr. Harvey's tenth anniversary with the Glee Club was celebrated at the Town Hall Concert in April, 1962. Of that concert, Francis Perkins wrote in the New York Herald Tribune of April 30:

"The Columbia University Glee Club deserves a conspicuous place in the front ranks of American collegiate choruses. The seventy young men under Bailey Harveyís direction had a combined tone which was remarkable for the consistently high standard of its quality, blending and balance; the volume of sound was notable both for its range and its control; details of the music were clearly projected and the program, both in its serious and lighter moods, was presented with spirit and expressive conviction."

The Glee Club's Assistant Director is Mr. Gerald Weale, a Columbia graduate, class of 1957. Mr. Weale directs the Junior Varsity Glee Club, formed in September of 1961, in order to take care of the new enthusiasm for singing at Columbia. It is from this group that members of the Varsity are selected by audition after a probationary period of a year.

The Columbia University Glee Club looks back on its more than one hundred years of musical history with a combination of amazement, frustration, amusement, and satisfaction, but more importantly looks forward to many more years of continuing to represent the University and the College with pride, and to singing with the spirit which has consistently charmed audiences with the serious and the satirical in choral music.