The Yale Alumni Chorus embarked on our second overseas tour in 2001 on the occasion of Yale’s Tercentennial. We celebrated Yale’s 300 years by taking 300 singers to Russia, Wales, and England, including a stop in Wrexham, Wales, at the gravesite of Yale’s founder, Elihu Yale.
In Russia we performed with Valery Gergiev and the Kirov Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre at the Stars of the White Nights Festival, and in Moscow with Constantine Orbelian and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory.
The total traveling group of 430, including family and friends, went on to Wales, where we performed the opening concert of the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod in a massive thunderstorm that brought down the lights at a moving moment. The chorus brought down the house with a haunting solo performance of a well-known Welsh folk song.
On the Fourth of July, the traditional U.S. Independence Day, we celebrated “Interdependence Day” with a parade through the town of Wrexham, together with Wrexham’s mayor, other dignitaries, and top Yale officials. Our tour concluded with the Yale Tercentennial Gala with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. The performance began with a formal procession down the nave of the Cathedral led by Yale dignitaries dressed in full academic regalia and carrying the Yale mace and college and graduate school banners.
Firmly establishing the tradition of international cultural exchange, on this tour we shared a musical evening of food and song with the Smolny Cathedral Choir in St. Petersburg, and an evening of Welsh music with several local choruses in Wrexham.
Yale Alumni Chorus performs with 300 singers for the opening ceremony concert at the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod on July 3, 2001.