I came to Dartmouth knowing I wanted to join Glee Club. But I've slowly come to accept that my constant singing consists of badly fumbled lyrics, voice-cracking and occasionally successful rapping. When I witnessed the Glee Club performance, "Latin Inspiration," at Rollins Chapel Thursday night, I decided I was glad that I hadn't tried out. I would never have made it; they're too good.
Led by director Louis Burkot, the group is made up of 40 to 50 serious choral singers whose repertoire spans four centuries. A slightly older crowd gathered under the appropriate Romanesque-inspired stained glass windows of Rollins to hear Latin-inspired music ranging from the mid-16th century to the late 1990s. Beginning with Tomas Luis de Victoria's soaring "O Quam Gloriosum," the show started off strong and on a heavy note.
After I decided that "Latin Inspiration" was to be a df serious affair, "Sol-fa de Pedro" surprised me with its joyous quality, as did the traditional "De amor Heridos," a fallback to Mexican roots. Burkot added to the lighter mood with enthusiastic commentary and a bit of humor between songs. For the introduction to the final song, the Portuguese "Navegar verde mar," Burkot recounted an anecdote of the Glee Club's visit to a private school in Rio de Janeiro, during which the Club "attempted" the song after a multitude of English-language songs, amusing the distracted audience of children.
"Thursday's show was a testament to the talent, focus and commitment of the members," Mike Amico '07, Glee Club president, said. "The spring is many times the most challenging term musically, because we perform in small ensembles that demand more from us as individual singers."
For seniors, Thursday's show is a sign of the approaching end of their Glee Club experiences. As Amico put it, "Every performance [with Glee Club] has been rewarding for me, and I am consistently amazed at the quality of sound and intensity of feeling we produce as a group."
Their last hurrah will come with the annual Commencement concert on Friday, June 8.
