This evening the University Glee Club will take part in the annual intercollegiate contest in New York. Nine other eastern colleges will be represented. The University has already won three of the contests and has an excellent chance of winning a fourth tonight. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Dr. A. T. Davison, the Club, with its reputation as the ablest chorus of men's voices in America ought to have little difficulty in so doing.
In the past, a number of die-hards among the alumni of the University have loudly lamented what they termed the degeneration of the Glee Club into a choral society." Choral society or not, they will witness tonight ample justification of the principles for which the Glee Club has been striving. A period of good music has shown the public that college men do not have to sing rah-rah songs to be college men. The Glee Club has so raised the standards of collegiate singing that the other colleges are following suit. Whether this is because the latter have come to realize that the day of the college song is passing or whether they believe that the only chance of defeating the University lies in meeting it on its own ground is not easy to say. Possibly the fact that the three judges are noted men in the musical world has something to do with it.
The twenty-two songs which will be sung tonight are of a much higher type than the "Solomon Levi" and "I've been working on the railroad" of the not so distant past. The repertoires will not be classical by any means--the names of Brahm or Palestrina or Rubinstein are not likely to appear on the program--and while the music will be of a lighter vein than is usually associated with the Glee Club, it will be decidedly of the better sort. If the Club had nothing more to its credit than the responsibility for this change, it would still be heartily deserving of praise.
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UNIVERSITY CHAPEL