The Harvard Glee Club and the Radcliffe Choral Society will kick off their North American concert tour with a preview performance in Sanders Theatre at 8:30 p.m. tonight. The tour, which will last for five weeks through the summer, will carry 91 members of the two groups to stops in eight states and three Canadian provinces.

The trip will cap two years of extensive planning and fund-raising by the Glee Club and Choral Society. It is being financed for the most part by concert revenue, donations from chorus alumni and contributions from parents of the chorus members. It is the second such major tour following a Glee Club trip through eight countries in the Far East during the summer of 1961.

The two groups will leave Cambridge on Thursday, and will stop off in Marsh field, Massachusetts, for a week's tune-up. Their first appearance will be on June 16 in Cleveland, where they will perform Handel's Israel in Egypt with the Cleveland Summer Orchestra.

Following the stop in Cleveland, they will move on to Kansas City, Denver, Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle. They will then journey into Canada for two performances in Vancouver, British Columbia.

At that point, the singers will split into two groups, one going to Juneau, Alaska, and the other to Penticton, B.C. They will meet again for a rodeo performance in Calgary, Alberta, and will then move on to Edmonton, Alberta; Minneapolis; Toronto; and Chautauque, N.Y. The final appearance of the tour will be July 19 at Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod