Glee Club goes to Hawaii

During the first week of the semester, 21 members of the Glee Club were in Honolulu performing as Ensemble-in-Residence for the Fourth Annual Hawaii International Conference of Arts and Humanities.

Impromptu performances on the trip included steel drum vocal percussions, popular music and even a coconut bra and grass skirt. They were invited to perform for more than 1500 people representing 700 academic institutions from 40 nations.

Founded in 1906, Glee Club is Tech's oldest student organization, and it has had a colorful past, including an appearance on the Ed Sullivan show.

"In the 80s and early 90s, it kind of died off. Dr. Jerry Ulrich came three years ago, and he.envisioned something he could take in a different direction...rather than classical music, we do Green Day, the Beatles, Cream.just a wide variety of music," said Colin Ake, Glee Club President and second-year Management major.

"When Dr. Ulrich came we had 13 people, now we have 55 or 60. It's kind of exploded," Ake said.

"[The Glee Club] represented Georgia Tech extremely well," said Jerry Ulrich, Director of Choral Activities and Glee Club director.

"This is another star in the crown of Tech's oldest student organization and a wonderful way to inaugurate our centennial celebration. The Glee Club's successful appearance at this arts and humanities conference is further evidence that Georgia Tech excels in many...arenas," Ulrich said.

Over the past year, Glee Club has been making itself more visible on and off campus.

They are available to President Clough for special events and they perform at College of Architecture (COA) events, since the Music Department is part of the COA.

They have even performed at Hartsfield International Airport as part of their sponsorship agreement with AirTran.

"We coordinated three events at the airport, and a local news channel came to film us," Ake said after performing in front of 5000 to 7000 AirTran employees at a company Christmas party in an aircraft hangar.

"[People at the airport] loved us. It's really a stress reliever...You're traveling for the holidays, stressed out.and we had a banjo.we had all kinds of fun stuff we were doing," he said.

Glee Club also performed a sold out show Dec. 5 at the Student Center Theater.

Because of their partnership with AirTran and their recent hard work, the Glee Club was able to make the trip to perform at the Hawaii International Conference of Arts and Humanities.

The club worked hard to raise donations for the trip. "We paid $150 up front. AirTran donated tickets to the west coast.a lot of the other money came from private donations," said Evan Moon, a fourth-year Management major.

"We wanted to.show them our unusual style of choral music. We just.moved around the room and sung and talked to people," Ake said.

"Glee clubs have traditionally been khaki pants, blue blazer.and what we really wanted to do was take it in a different direction because I think a lot of kids our age become disenchanted with choral music....We want to bring people back into singing for fun," Ake said.

The club's performances at the conference seem to have been a huge success.

"The organizers said it was the most successful conference yet, a lot due to having an engaging group there..It was a catalyst to other people," Ake said.

Other performing groups at the conference were inspired to think about ways they could wander through an audience in small groups the way the Glee Club did; conference attendees were even talking about how to do informal wandering Shakespeare performances.

The Glee Club gave multiple performances in Hawaii that were outside the conference. "We were waiting for the bus at the hotel lobby, and we started singing..The lobby's got no door so people were coming in off the street. They'd just walk up and listen..tons of people with cameras," Ake said.

Chris File, Development Officer at the COA organized a special concert for Tech Alumni in the area.

The Glee Club was introduced to the General Manager of their hotel and had two gigs singing at the outdoor bar and pool as well.

Moon said these impromptu outdoor pool performances were his favorite because, "We represented Georgia Tech to these people [at the hotel].and that was what was so fun."

"What separates us from other groups is that we're based on spontaneity. We're based on 'Let's try this,'" he said.

The Glee Club was proud to represent Tech. Moon said, "We had enough time to go out and check out what was around, but the main focus was to go out and represent Tech. Any time we sang, we told them who we were. We handed out a business card and our ending song is always a Georgia Tech medley which includes Ramblin' Wreck."

The Glee Club is presenting its Centennial Celebration concert on Mon., April 3, at Atlanta's famed Spivey Hall.

For more information about the Glee club visit their website at www.cyberbuzz.gatech.edu/chorale/.