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“Music is a universal language. In this world of constant chaos, it’s comforting to know that there is something that can still bring people together. I was so proud to be a part of it!”
Join the Yale Alumni Chorus.
At the core of the Alumni Chorus experience is, of course, the singing, the music. On either side of you on the risers is a skilled and dedicated choral singer, veteran of a college glee club, an a cappella group, a community or regional chorus, and probably several other Alumni chorus concerts.
On stage in Puebla, Mexico 2009
Out in front may well be a major symphony orchestra, like the London Philharmonic or the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, perhaps a world-class soloist like Dmitri Hvorostovsky or Simon Estes. Holding the baton will probably be Yale’s renowned glee club director, Jeff Douma—or St. Petersburg’s and London’s Valery Gergiev. And the hall itself—St. Paul’s Cathedral, perhaps, or even Yale Bowl. You could be singing Bernstein or Mozart, Clausen or Cordoba, Heath or Bartholomew—or South Africa’s freedom song “Bawo” or a Stalinist song from Russia’s bleak WWII winters.
You could also be performing in a rural village in Guatemala or a heart-breaking favela in Rio, too, with a children’s chorus you have helped create, or at an AIDS shelter in a South African township, the kids and adults alike teaching you some much better moves as you sing an African folksong.
It’s the music, to be sure, but it’s also the collegial experience and the opportunity to share with others that make the Alumni Chorus such a rich endeavor. One singer said, “each member of a YAC tour has the capacity to make a difference in the life of another person. These are the types of memories that cannot be recorded in a photo album, but rather in your heart. Aren’t those the memories you want to cherish?” Click here for a short YouTube video of the Chorus.
Singing The Creation with the Johannesburg Festival Orchestra under Maestro Douma.
The Alumni Chorus experience is self-funded, through gifts to the annual appeal and tour payments, and through the generosity of many others’ gifts both to the operating fund and the Foundation’s endowment. “Yes, a YAC concert tour can be expensive,” another singer wrote, “and yes, the time and energy expected and required is significant. Unlike our undergraduate Glee Club trips where the group is similar in age and relatively inexperienced, on our most recent tour we had singers from the class of 1941 to the class of 2009 (with a good representation all through the years), and with a fascinating range of national and international experiences.”
Yale’s storied choral tradition celebrated 155 years of song in 2016; its à cappella roots go back a century, too. The Alumni Chorus exists to share that tradition with singers and audiences around the world. Although members need not be Yale alumni, like the Yale Glee Club we are all devoted to performing choral music at a sophisticated level as a significant representative of Yale’s musical tradition.
Singing with the Simon Estes Choir in Capetown. YAC organized the concert to raise money for the performing arts high school that serves teens from nearby townships who show musical promise.
"Members of the Foundation are Ambassadors of Song, not simply because they create good music, though that's a start. And it's not simply great directors, or creative arrangements, or inspirational compositions; nor is it simply good singers or wonderful fellowship. Our lives may be changed through singing, but that is not the standard by which we measure ourselves. We are Ambassadors of Song because we bring our music to others in the hope that their lives might be changed through our gift." —Mark Dollhopf, founding member
Two chorus members with a fledgling group of singers in Rio de Janeiro