UNC Men’s Glee Club to host choral festival

UNC students don’t need to turn to “Glee” reruns on Netflix to enjoy talented student voices this weekend.

The UNC Men’s Glee Club is hosting 127 male high school singers this weekend at the annual All-Carolina Male Choral Festival, which culminates in a final concert on Saturday evening in Hill Hall.

The participating students are nominated by teachers and prepare the festival’s repertoire in their schools before rehearsals with the other participants and guest conductor on Friday.

Jeremy Jones, assistant professor of music at Miami University in Ohio and guest conductor for the festival, said the concert will include pieces from around the world.

Jones said he hopes the festival’s participants will learn various musicianship and vocal techniques and take away the enjoyment of singing in a male choir, as well as the sense of camaraderie it brings.

Daniel Huff, a UNC professor and conductor of the Men’s Glee Club, said the All-Carolina Male Choral Festival is unique because it allows male singers, who are usually outnumbered in an average high school choir, to join together and produce a sound that is rich, warm and powerful.

“They’re fairly rare across the country,” he said. “I think since we’ve started doing our festival, several of the guest conductors have gone home and created their own (festivals).”

Huff said the Men’s Glee Club is made up of mainly non-music majors and features singers from a variety of levels. The group performs an eclectic program of music and styles, ranging from The Beatles and The Beach Boys to songs from “Les Miserables” and “Ragtime.”

“We sing very early music sung exclusively by males up through pretty much anything that we can manage,” Huff said.

“If we don’t think we can do it, then we probably can. Sometimes people pull up short and do what they think the choir can manage, but I always push them out there for better or for worse.”

Joey Osuna, vice president of the Men’s Glee Club and organizer of the festival, participated in the event when he was in high school and described it as daunting but fun.

“You’ve got kids who are used to spending the entire semester working on four pieces of music and then performing them in concert,” he said. “Now, all of a sudden we’re condensing that entire process into a day and a half. It’s a very intensive process.”

Osuna said the festival shows high school students that they do not have to give up music when they start college and can continue to sing if they love it.

“I know that a lot of what I took away from the festival as a high school student was exposure to the college students in the glee club,” he said.

“They are a group of students who aren’t music majors, which I’m not; I’m a psychology major. Basically, it’s a way of saying music is something you can always enjoy without it being the only thing you ever do.”

arts@dailytarheel.com