Glee Club Lite Left Out of Music Jam

Saturday night’s A Cappella Jam—a Freshman Week institution which draws droves of first-years to hear Harvard’s singing groups perform—was shaped by a Crimson Key Society push to shorten the evening, leaving one regular member of the a capella scene to fend for itself in its efforts to gain name recognition from the Class of 2005.

The Crimson Key did not invite the Glee Club Lite—the a cappella affiliate of the Harvard Glee Club—to perform in the show, although they never specifically notified the group, according to Jonah M. Knobler, the Lite’s manager. The group had already planned a retreat in order to learn new music for the Jam, he said.

In response, the Glee Club Lite asked Dean David P. Illingworth ’71 to intervene. Illingworth met with Heather G. Childs ’02 and Glen R. Curry ’03, who run Freshman Week for the Crimson Key.

“I expressed to them I thought it was unfortunate that groups had been excluded,” said Illingworth.

The Glee Club Lite was not permitted to perform this year, however, although they will likely be included in the future, according to Illingworth. According to an e-mail message from Curry and Childs, this year’s policy had been to exclude groups whose members come “from larger choirs.”

Curry and Childs also said that the groups they chose held “more open audition policies for freshmen.”

While not answering specific questions about what sorts of admission policies they sought from the singing groups, Curry and Childs implied that the Glee Club Lite—which draws members on a seniority basis from the larger Glee Club—were not open to first years.

“We plan to accept up to four or five freshmen,” Knobler said, noting that the group held its own a cappella concert last Thursday in an attempt to attract the interest of first-years.