glee club

Carleton College Glee Club, 1913

A glee club is a musical group, historically of male voices but also of women's or mixed voices, which traditionally specializes in the singing of short songs—glees—by trios or quartets. The first named Glee Club was founded in London, UK, in 1787.^[1] Glee clubs were very popular in the UK from then until the mid 1850s but by then they were gradually being superseded by choral societies. By the mid-20th century, proper glee clubs were no longer common. However the term remained (and remains) in use, primarily for choirs found in Japanese and North American colleges and universities despite the fact that most American glee clubs are choruses in the standard sense and no longer perform glees. Glee in this context does not refer to the mood of the music or of its singers, but to a specific form of English part song popular between 1650 and 1900, the glee.

The oldest glee clubs in the United States are the Harvard Glee Club, founded in 1858^[2]; the University of Michigan Men's Glee Club, founded in 1859; the Yale Glee Club, founded in 1861; the Amherst College and the University of Pennsylvania glee clubs, both founded in 1862^[3][4]; and the Cornell University Glee Club founded in 1868.^[5]

See also

• List of collegiate glee clubs

References