The Highland Glee Club Singing Through the Centuries:
The deep, wholesome sound of more than 20 male voices join together and stream into the rehearsal halls of the First Baptist Church in Needham, Massachusetts on Monday nights from September to May. As they so often do at these rehearsals, they reach every corner of the hall with a powerful, but careful harmony, breathing life into each new piece of music to be performed during a fall or spring concert series.
For over 100 years, the same ecclesiastical and popular melodies have floated off old, faded and crumbling sheets of music to fill concert halls and churches through the voices that make up the Highland (Male) Glee Club—when founded in 1908, a Glee Club was always considered to be male!
On Sunday, February 24, 2008 in the War Memorial Auditorium at the Newton City Hall located on famous Commonwealth Avenue, the Glee Club presented its 100th Anniversary concert, celebrating each decade they have been together with songs from their first, last and intermediate concert programs. Also, for this special occasion, a commissioned work for male chorus and tenor solo titled “Musings” by New England composer John Heiss, a professor at the New England Conservatory, was presented in a World Premier.
The concert was greeted with much anticipation by its loyal audience and enthusiastic singers, they who work each Monday night to nail the notes with musical precision. “It is unusual to see a small group like this continue for such a long period of time,” said the group’s current president, Dick Wulf, who worked with his comrades on the anniversary concert for over a year. “This concert will commemorate in a very special way a very special group of singers.”
Despite its original name, the Highland Glee Club of Newton Highlands, it is no longer a neighborhood group. Drawing its members from 18 different communities, from Cape Cod to Worcester to Boston, and now located in Needham, the singers approach their rehearsals with an air of professionalism. After a recent rehearsal in which current director David Tiedman, a native of North Dakota and present Millis, Mass. resident, emphasizes musicality and perfection in every line, Wulf, a Needham resident, said, “We realize we always have concerts coming up and we are very serious about it sounding right. You really can’t do it right by being casual about it.”
During the summer of 2008 the group participated in the First Annual Choral Festival in Leipzig, Germany; and, while preparing for their fall 2009 and spring 2010 concerts, they also ready themselves for the International Choral Festival in Tuscany, Italy, which they will attend in June 2010.
Begun in December 1908 in the home of James H. Turnbull on Columbus Street in the Highlands of Newton with its first conductor Edgar J. Smith, twenty-three charter members organized the glee club, elected him their first president and formally chose Mr. Edgar J. Smith as their first director. Shortly thereafter they adopted a constitution for the purpose of advancing the musical interests of the Community. On March 2, 1909 they presented their first concert in the Newton Highlands Congregational Church for the benefit of its new organ fund.
The first fifteen years, 1908-1923, were determinative years of founding and expansion with six different presidents and four directors. Membership grew from the original 29 to 78 by 1916, and then dropped into the fifties during the World War. After WWI in 1919, they joined the expanding New England Federation of Men’s Glee Clubs as men’s singing groups flourished.
In 1923 a new president of the club was elected: George H. Wright served in this position for over 30 years. He was instrumental in securing D. Ralph Maclean, a well-known Newton organist and choirmaster as the new director. For his first concert on December 11, 1923, thirteen additional singers had been recruited and world-renown Metropolitan Opera and RCA Victor recording artist lyric tenor Richard Crooks was the soloist. During their tenure a new striving for excellence, an added sense of loyalty still found today and a continuing incentive to higher creative achievement began to emerge.
Mr. Reginald Boardman was an early accompanist for the club and later often accompanied the famous tenor Mr. Roland Hayes of Brookline, Massachusetts in recital. Mr. Hayes and Mr. Boardman have both been featured soloists with the glee club.
After WWII there was another surge of interest in male singing, at that time the New England federation boasted 35 member clubs. It was after the 2nd War that the Highland Glee Club began singing each August at Cathedral of the Pines in Rindge, New Hampshire, built in memory of a “Favorite Son” killed in battle and which continued for over 35 years. Unfortunately, as the popularity of this music wanes, the number of groups in the federation does also. At the anniversary concert, there were only three remaining; today the Highland Glee Club is the sole member of the New England Federation! While the group’s membership has also dwindled, the singers are hoping that the music will carry for another 100 years supported by its strong direction and their avid dedication.
“It’s the joy of singing and the camaraderie that keeps us going,” said Wulf. “But I have considerable concern about what the club will look like in ten years. Younger people don’t get involved with this type of music because they don’t have exposure to it…we definitely want to keep this going in some way.”
Enamored with the music, Newton Lower Falls resident David Arthur Jarratt, who has been singing with the group for over five years and who started and directed a male glee club in the Air Force, said, “This kind of music resonates with me. When we click and when we make that unique male sound, that is when the music on the page comes alive.”
Bass John Ficarelli, who started singing in the NYU Glee Club and who has recruited his two sons, also basses, into the group, said, “I love singing and I love singing this kind of music. It’s melodic and memorable. And it’s really accessible. You don’t need a deep understanding of classical music to pick it up.”
For baritone Carl Krause, a 20-year member of the Highland Glee Club, the rehearsals are more than a social opportunity, though this is an integral part of the gatherings. “It’s like having a singing lesson every time you go,” he said. “You get good, constructive, criticism.”
As the men continue to rehearse for their concerts here and abroad, Krause adds, “To younger men, this music is considered old-fashioned. Everyone who comes to our concerts are between 50 and 75 year of age. My only hope is that we find some way to carry on this tradition.” Singing men are always welcome to join the group by attending open auditions during the months of September or January as mentioned on the club’s web site.
The history of guest soloists before the days of television reads like a “Who’s Who” of musical performance and includes such luminaries as John Charles Thomas, Adele Addison, Roland Hayes, Uta Graf, and Unice Alberts, a respected Boston Contralto. Conductors include co-founder E. J. Smith; D. Ralph McLean, by far the longest-running director from 1919 to 1959; composer and arranger Homer Whitford; director of music for the Newton School system, James H. Remley; Robert Prince, a 25 year veteran, second only to Ralph McLean; Robert Johnson, a Minister of Music from Union Seminary and organist at Second Church in West Newton conducted for the most recent 15-year period; and present-day director David Tiedman, accompanist during the Johnson years, since 2005.
Younger audiences appear in the spring to hear the winner of a musical scholarship, awarded to a local graduating senior high student continuing musical studies, a tradition started over 60 years ago. Now named for Leona P. Imrie, a local Needham choir director and long-time supporter of the club whose husband was also a long-time member, this annual event has been a part of the community involvement consistent with the original charter of 1908, to further a musical interest at the local level. In 2008 the Glee Club joined the 97-member Greater Boston Choral Consortium, another organization created to foster the love of vocal music for an even larger community of music lovers.
100 Years of Song: War Memorial Auditorium, Newton City Hall, Massachusetts.
References:
- ArtsBoston.com
- Boston Sunday Herald, August 13, 1960.
- Highland Glee Club archive
- Newton TAB, February 6, 2008
- www.boston.com
- www.bostonsings.org
- www.highlandgleeclub.com
- www.newtonhistorymuseum.org
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