Glee Club 1942-1943 season

Gleeclub1943 corks — Glee Club in 1943 Corks and Curls

The Virginia Glee Club's 1942-1943 season featured the premiere of Randall Thompson's The Testament of Freedom. Harry Rogers Pratt directed the group during the fall of 1942, but went on leave in January 1943 to support the war effort, leaving Thompson as acting director, with Stephen Tuttle as the assistant director.^[1] Officers included Charles Edwin Butterworth, Jr., president, Paul Webb Bourjaily, manager (later replaced by Thomas A. Conlin, Jr.), and Ralph van Sickler Chamblin, Jr., librarian.

Of the season, and of the challenges of preparing music during World War II, Pratt remarked,

This will be the most important year in the long history of the Glee Club. We will sing not once, but may times in Cabell Hall, and the public will be invited. We will probably make several broadcasts, the most important one being on next April 13th, the two hundredth anniversary of Thomas Jefferson's birth. Our manager, Tom Conlon is seeking engagements to sing at nearby army camps for which we are authorized to charter a bus. It has been the experience of Europe that the worse the times the greater is the demand for music and plays presented by local amateurs. It should be the Glee Club's pleasant duty to fill this demand and take the initiative in organizing mass singing in Cabell Hall. If you like to sing and are not tone deaf, I can assure you of a hearty welcome...^[2]

Concerts[]

Roster[]

This roster of Glee Club membership reflects the membership as of the Founder's Day Concert, 1943 and the 1943 Corks and Curls, and may not include all members who participated in the 1942-43 season.

First Tenors: Arthur E. Barnard, P. W. Bourjaily, Joseph C. Buntin, C. E. Butterworth, Jr., John B. Davis, M. R. Lovell, J. Edward Sandridge

Second tenors: Norman N. Adler, J. E. Berdahl, J. W. Clarkson, Kenneth P. Fitzgerald, R. D. Fraley, R. C. Gamble, Robert Gravette, R. D. Miller, Charles L. Minor, W. G. Noble, Joseph Ruvane, H. P. Taylor, Charles N. Trader, B. Wood

First basses: Eugene D. Brand, R.M. Brandt, William H. "Bill" Brown, R. van S. Chamblin, A. K. Cocke, T. A. Conlon, E. M. Dixon, William C. Eaton, L. G. Heinrich, F. Koch, Henry F. Neighbors, F.W. Riel, W. M. Stull, C. D. Tait, Stuart Talbot, E. Van Valkenburgh

Second basses: C.H. Bolen, K. F. Bevan, R. Larry Davis, Tom B. Furcron, John Gordon, L. Hendricks, D. C. Jensen, Murl T. Keiser, John D. Kreis, Owen Meredith, F.H. Nye, W. Okkerse, W. H. Pigg, P. M. Talbott, Victor Taylor, Robert Von Grimm, D. G. Wheeler, Alan C. Whitlock, D. C. Wilson, F.S. Wood

In addition to these members, the following were listed as having been tentatively accepted into the group in an October 1942 College Topics article: Fred Jenkins, Louis Bowman, Bob Phillips.^[3]