In 1869, several undergraduate men at

Union College Union College is a private liberal arts college in Schenectady, New York. Founded in 1795, it was the first institution of higher learning chartered by the New York State Board of Regents, and second in the state of New York, after Columbia Co ...

formed the College Musical Association, which represented every known musical endeavor at Union. Enduring many obstacles to its existence during its first quarter century, in 1894 the college administration elected to actively support the Musical Association, comprised at that time by the Mandolin, Banjo and

Glee Club A glee club in the United States is a musical group or choir group, historically of male voices but also of female or mixed voices, which traditionally specializes in the singing of short songs by trios or quartets. In the late 19th century it w ...

s. The Glee Club's director at that time was Frank C. MacMahon.

Overview

Moving through the turn of the century, Musical Association toured the

Mohawk Valley The Mohawk Valley region of the U.S. state of New York is the area surrounding the Mohawk River, sandwiched between the Adirondack Mountains and Catskill Mountains, northwest of the Capital District. As of the 2010 United States Census, ...

Hudson Valley The Hudson Valley (also known as the Hudson River Valley) comprises the valley of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in the U.S. state of New York. The region stretches from the Capital District including Albany and Troy south to ...

and western

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

. The Glee Club was entered into many Intercollegiate Glee Club contests and was a several-time state and regional champion. At the 1931 IMC festival at

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th and 57th Streets. Designed by architect William Burnet Tuthill and built ...

, the Union Men's Glee Club under the direction of Elmer A. Tidmarsh, attained an overall ranking that placed it within the top five in the United States. Throughout the 1930s, the Glee Club regularly performed in NYC, including live radio broadcasts from several posh hotels including the Ritz-Carlton. It was heard regionally over WJZ (

WABC (AM) WABC (770 AM) is a commercial radio station licensed to New York, New York, carrying a conservative talk format known as "Talkradio 77". Owned by John Catsimatidis' Red Apple Media, the station's studios are located in Red Apple Media headqu ...

) and WKBW and nationally over the NBC radio

Blue Network The Blue Network (previously known as the NBC Blue Network) was the on-air name of a now defunct American radio network, which broadcast from 1927 through 1945. Beginning as one of the two radio networks owned by the National Broadcasting Comp ...

. In 1948, the Glee Club was heard over WGY every Sunday morning. 1948 brought the Glee Club its first First Place finish in the annual

Utica, New York Utica () is a city in the Mohawk Valley and the county seat of Oneida County, New York, United States. The tenth-most-populous city in New York State, its population was 65,283 in the 2020 U.S. Census. Located on the Mohawk River at the fo ...

Eisteddfod In Welsh culture, an ''eisteddfod'' is an institution and festival with several ranked competitions, including in poetry and music. The term ''eisteddfod'', which is formed from the Welsh morphemes: , meaning 'sit', and , meaning 'be', means, ac ...

and broadened its touring schedule in the 1950s to include joint concerts with many New England and Mid-Atlantic colleges. These traditional, joint concerts continued under the stewardship of Hugh A. Wilson who became the director of the Glee Club in 1963. Prof. Wilson assumed directorship of the Union College Women's Glee Club in 1977. Both clubs performed jointly, and for the last time in May 1984. The Union College Choir was directed by Prof. Wilson until his retirement in 1998.

Overview

See also