Yale Choral Festival in Greenwich, May 3

The Yale Alumni Association of Greenwich, Conn., will host the Yale Choral Festival Concert, Sunday May 3, 2026, 4 pm at First Church of Christ, Scientist, 11 Park Place, Greenwich, Conn. Yale alumni in Westchester County, N.Y., guests and friends are invited to join the event.

The concert is free (no tickets or passes are required). The festival will feature a chorus of 50 Yale singing alumni (including a few from Westchester County). Jeff Douma, current director of the Yale Glee Club, will lead the group. The concert will include several classical works, spirituals and familiar Yale songs. It includes, too, the singing of the Dylan Thomas poem "Fern Hill.".

Free parking is available on site.

For more details about the concert, click Yale-Greenwich. For more about Yale music events, programs and concerts in the Westchester area, click Yale-Westchester-Music.

Whiffenpoofs '25 Come to Scarsdale

Yale's famed and illustrious a capella singing group, The Whiffenpoofs, will present a concert in Scarsdale, N.Y., Friday, April 25, 2025.

The group will sing some of its traditional favorites, as well as tunes from a contemporary repertoire. Recordings from the concert will be included in a planned Spotify album later. 

The Whiffs '25 are currently on tour at venues in New York and Connecticut. Concerts this year have taken the group to California, Florida and Mexico. Each year, the group tours sites across the world after the school year. The Whiffs '24 held concerts in Brazil, Turkey, Croatia, South Afria, and many other countries last summer.

The Whiffs '25 include Scarsdale native Josh Bock '25, who acts as the group's business manager. 

The group started singing in 2009 and has included women since 2018. The Whiffs' 20 appeared in concert in White Plains, October, 2019, at the Grace Episcopal Church. 

The Scarsdale Congregational Church (1 Heathcote Road) will host the April 25 concert at 6 pm. For more information and to purchase tickets, click Scarsdale-Whiffs.

Scarsdale native Josh Bock '25

Yale Alumni College: Celebrating Opera

 

Yale professor Dan Egan will teach a six-week seminar for Yale alumni in Westchester in March-April, 2025 (Yale photo)

Yale Alumni College will sponsor and present a six-week course in Rye, N.Y., for Westchester alumni, "Celebrating Opera: Sight, Sound and Emotion," taught by Yale professor Dan Egan from the Yale School of Music on Mondays at 4-6 pm from March 10-April 14. Alumni in the area are invited to join the course and should register by clicking the link below. The sessions will be held at the The Osborn in Rye, 101 Theal Road.   As an amalgam of the arts, opera offers multiple points of entry for the audience, but ultimately, the art form is defined by its music. Changing attitudes across time toward opera’s place in the cultural discussion have precipitated an array of storytelling strategies as well as the incursion of political perspectives, theatrical innovations, and new musical styles.  This six-week course will explore opera from multiple eras with a focus on both its fundamental musical perspective as well as its larger cultural significance.   The session will begin by exploring “why we love opera” with excerpts from multiple eras, composers, and operatic styles of storytelling. Subsequent sessions will build on this foundation with a guided discussion of a single opera and/or compositional style each week. A video performance will be assigned for each class to ensure that everyone has had a similar opportunity to experience the week’s topic before class.   The course is open to anyone interested in opera, from the dabbler to the devotée. Various levels of knowledge and analytical acuity will be welcome additions to discussion. No singing will be required. A graduate of the School of Music, Prof. Egan is a lecturer and has been an advisor to undergraduates for projects and programs in music and theater. He teaches courses and has led special programs in the history of Americal musical theater and the work of composer Stephen Sondheim. He has spoken frequently at Yale alumni events and Yale reunions.  Prof. Egan has performed at the New York City Ballet, the New York Philharmonic and the Manhattan Theater Club. He has sung on recordings with the New York City Opera.

YACOL Rye-Celebrating Opera: Sight, Sound, and Emotion

The New Blue of Yale Westchester Tour

 

The New Blue, established in 1969 as Yale's oldest all-women a cappella group, embarks on its January tour of Westchester County with concerts scheduled for January 6-12, 2025. Yale alumni in Westchester and other friends of Yale music are invited to attend. 

The concerts will be held at the libraries of select Westchester towns. There is no fee. The schedule is shown below:

Monday, Jan. 6: Scarsdale Public Library, 7 pm

Wednesday, Jan. 8: Rye Free Reading Room, 7 pm

Saturday, Jan. 11: Bronxville Library, 3 pm

Saturday, Jan. 11: Chappaqua Library, 7 pm
Sunday, Jan. 12: Larchmont Library, 3 pm

The New Blue also sang at the Yale Club in New York City, January 7.

The group's repertoire features songs of jazz, blues, folk and popular music. Current members of the 2024-25 group include Westchester's Anna Feldstein '27, an alto.  All members of this year's group are listed below. B.K. Munguia '75, YWAA board member, sang in the group during her years at Yale. 

The 2018-19 New Blue, below, was featured in a concert Febuary, 2019, hosted by YWAA at Horace Greeley High School in Chappaqua. The group then was joined by the Spizzwinks of Yale. 

The New Blue, 2024-25

Lauren Alfaro '28

Bella Amell '27

Rachel Bish '28

Jen Cheung '25

Anjali Dhanekula '26

Anna Feldstein '27

Sydney Gordon '26

Esperance Han '28

Amiah Hanson '27

Jas Hollis '27

Marin Korenaga '27

Anna Lehman '27

Thy Luong '28

Maia Nehme '27

Alicia Shen '26

Below: Highlights from the New Blue's concert in Scarsdale, January 7, 2025. 

Yale Glee Club in Greenwich, Jan-2025

The Yale Glee Club will perform in Greenwich, Ct., in January, 2025

Calling all Yale alumni singers!

The Yale Glee Club is coming to Greenwich, Ct., on Sunday July 12, 2025 for a 4 pm concert, followed by a Singing Dinner! The concert is free--no registration required. Bring your family and friends to hear this outstanding group!

As part of the concert, an Alumni Chorus will perform four songs and also sing Raise Your Voices and the Football Medley with the Glee Club. If you sang at Yale in any group and would like to sing with us at the concert, please email Clay Kaufman at clayk@aya.yale.edu.

You must attend two of three rehearsals, Sunday afternoons TBA (most likely in October, November and December, 2024). Alums are invited to come and sing familiar favorites, including Ride the Chariot with alumni friends across the generations.

Rehearsals for the Alumni Chorus will be held in Greenwich. The concert will be held at Christ Church in Greenwich and is free. You may purchase tickets to the Singing Dinner, held immediately following the concert. 

All are welcome. Tickets may be purchased from the Yale Alumni Association of Greenwich at https://www.yaagct.org/.

For more about the Yale Glee Club, click YGC. 

Redhot & Blue Comes to Greenwich

Yale's Redhot & Blue a cappella group will sing in Greenwich Feb. 22. The group is familiar to Westchester, having sung in concerts in Rye four times since 2015. 

Yale's oldest co-ed a cappella group Redhot & Blue heads to Greenwich Saturday, Feb. 22, to participate in an a cappella jamboree. The Yale group will be joined by Greenwich's Off Sounders at the Christ Church (254 East Putnam Ave.).

Yale alumni in the Westchester area and their guests are invited to attend the concert, which starts at 7 pm. Community Concerts of Greenwich is sponsoring the affair and also hosted Yale's Alley Cats for a concert in October in Greenwich.

Redhot and Blue, which turns 43 in 2020, has sung in the Westchester-Greenwich area regularly in recent years. The group was featured at concerts in Rye in Dec., 2015, Feb., 2017, Mar., 2018, and in Oct., 2018, at the Osborne Auditorium and at the invitation of late YWAA director Bill Nightingale '53. Every year, it plans an international concert schedule.

Its current repertoire includes such familiar tunes as "Summertime," "Fever," and "Lullaby of Birdland." It takes its name from the musical by the same name written by Cole Porter '13.

Greenwich's Off Sounders is a local group formed in 1956, singing contemporary, jazz and pop songs. 

Tickets will be available soon on the Community Concerts website.

Yale Singing Alums

Opportunity for Yale Singing Alums

Are you interested in gathering with other Yale singing alums from the Glee Club, a cappella groups, Yale Russian Chorus, Slavic Chorus and other groups?

In Washington,  D.C., and other cities, the Yale Glee Club and singing group alumni have participated in a wide variety of singing opportunities:

• Informal evenings around a piano singing through favorite songs
• Hosting the Yale Glee Club (and singing a set of songs at the concert as well as singing with the YGC)
• Joining together for a local singing dinner
• Hosting a cappella jamborees
• Finding joyful ways to reconnect through singing.

If you sang at Yale in any group and are interested in being on an e-mail list, please send an email to clayk@aya.yale.edu.

The Glee Club is very interested in coming to Greenwich for a concert next year, so we are hoping to gather a local chorus of singers who would like to join in (which usually means three rehearsals of fairly familiar songs--any yodelers out there?).

Clay Kaufman

Whiffs '20 in White Plains Nov. 9

The Yale Whiffenpoofs 2019-2020 will present a concert in White Plains Saturday, Nov. 9, 2019 at 7:30 pm as part of the performance series of Downtown Music at Grace.  Ticket prices range from $15-25 for students, seniors and adults. Tickets can be purchased at the venue (Grace Episcopal Church, 33 Church Street). (For more about purchasing tickets in advance, click Whiffs-Tickets.)

This year's version of the Whiffs will have just returned from a southern swing where they will perform in late October in Atlanta, Savanah and Charleston. They are scheduled to sing in Singapore and Taiwan during spring break '20.

This is the second year in a row the formerly all-male group has included a female singer. Neha Bhatt '20, who sings tenor, is a biomedical engineering major from Minnesota. The Whiffs '20 also include Rye's David Townley '20, a baritone and mathematics major. Another Rye native Danny Keller '18 sang with the group two years ago. The group performed in Rye in April, 2018.

For over 30 years, Downtown Music at Grace has sponsored concerts featuring artists from around the world. Timothy Lewis serves as musical director. His writings are church music have been published by Yale.

Sunday Songfest in Chappaqua

The Spizzwinks of Yale greeted Yale alumni at the concert by singing the traditional Yale football medley at the a cappella concert in Chappaqua, Feb. 3.  They were joined in concert by Yale's New Blue and by Horace Greeley's Enchords and Quaker Notes (YWAA photos)

Yale singing groups, the Spizzwinks and the New Blue, made a Westchester stopover and joined groups from Horace Greeley High School for a Sunday afternoon a cappella songfest in Chappaqua, Feb. 3. 

The concert, held at the performing arts center at Seven Bridges Middle School, was jointly sponsored by YWAA and Horace Greeley. Proceeds from ticket sales will support the high school's clubs and other extracurricular events. Horace Greeley's Enchords and the Quaker Notes took the stage before the Yale groups sang after intermission. 

All groups performed familiar repertoire tunes, as well as their interpretations of popular songs.  The Spizzwinks of Yale even sang the Yale football medley. And alumnae at the concert joined the New Blue for the final song. 

The program was part of the YWAA music series of inviting Yale groups to perform in Westchester. The Spizzwinks sang in Westchester for the third time since 2013.  The Alley Cats, Red Hot & Blue and the Whiffenpoofs have also visited Westchester in recent years. 

At Horace Greeley, Enchords feature male and female voices singing in original arrangements.  The Quaker Notes is an all-female group on campus. At the concert, they both sang before an enthusiastic crowd of parents, classmates, and Yale alumni and friends. 

The Spizzwinks, who claim to be America's oldest a cappella group on campus (since 1914), sang renditions of "Once in My Life" and "No Regrets" (its traditional final song), as well as other popular songs and the football medley.  The group is headed to Iceland, Seattle and China later this year. 

The New Blue turns 50 years old this year and is Yale's oldest women's organization.  While members of the Spizzwinks and the New Blue hail from different parts of the country (from the Bay Area to Boston), the New Blue includes four from the Westchester area:  Laura Clapp '21 of Scarsdale, Anna-Sophia Boguraev '20 of Bedford, Alice Tao '20 of Tappan, and Allie Larocco '21 of Cold Spring. They had opportunities to sing solos before their own families and friends. 

Yale a cappella tradition calls for Yale a cappella alumni to join the groups for the final song.  In Chappaqua, Yale alumnae B.K. Munguia '75 and Sara Levine sang with the New Blue to conclude the concert. 

Horace Greeley, during the intermission, recognized Julia Rellou for her service to clubs and extracurricular activities at the school. YWAA board members Munguia, Levine, Regina Possavino-Serai '01, and Dan Leonard '76 helped organize the event.  Stacy Jacobs, Tom Witmer, and Priya Ma coordinated at Horace Greeley. 

See below photos of all four groups in performance:  

The New Blue of Yale is Yale's oldest women's organization

Enchords of Horace Greeley kicked off the a cappella songfest in Chappaqua.

Members of Horace Greeley's Quaker Notes and Enchords sang before an enthusiastic crowd of friends, teachers and classmates. 

Above, Enchords and the Quaker Notes in Chappaqua, Feb. 3

The Quaker Notes in Chappaqua, Feb. 3

The Quaker Notes in Chappaqua, Feb. 3

The Quaker Notes in Chappaqua, Feb. 3 

The Quaker Notes in Chappaqua, Feb. 3

Enchords and the Quaker Notes in Chappaqua, Feb. 3

Above, Yale a cappella alumni Sara Levine and Dan Leonard introduce the Yale groups

The Spizzwinks of Yale in Chappaqua, Feb. 3

The Spizzwinks of Yale sing in Chappaqua, Feb. 3

The Spizzwinks of Yale, Feb. 3, Chappaqua

The Spizzwinks of Yale, Feb. 3, Chappaqua

The Yale Spizzwinks in Chappaqua, Feb. 3

The Spizzwinks of Yale, Feb. 3

The New Blue of Yale will celebrate 50 years in 2019

Anna-Sophia Boguraev '20 of Bedford (above, top) sang a solo for New Blue during the concert

Yale's New Blue in Chappaqua, Feb. 3. Alice Tao '20 of Tappan is featured in a solo

The New Blue of Yale, Feb. 3, Chappaqua

Yale alumnae B.K. Munguia and Sara Levine joined the New Blue for the traditional final song

The New Blue of Yale, Feb. 3, Chappaqua

The New Blue of Yale, Feb. 3

Enchords and the Quaker Notes, Feb. 3

The Quaker Notes, Feb. 3, Chappaqua

The Quaker Notes, Feb. 3

Both a cappella groups from Horace Greeley posed as one for a final shot, Feb. 3, Chappaqua

Yale Groups to Sing in Chappaqua

The 2018-19 New Blue will join the Spizzwinks for a concert in Chappaqua, Sunday, Feb. 3 at 1 pm at Seven Bridges Middle School (New Blue photo)

Two Yale a cappella groups will perform in concert in Chappaqua, Sunday, Feb. 3 at 1 pm. YWAA and Horace Greeley High School will host the performance. Yale alumni, guests and friends are invited to attend.

The Yale singers will be joined by two a cappella groups from Horace Greeley, the Enchords and the Quaker Notes. Tickets ($5 for students and $10 for adults) will be sold at the door.

The concert will be held in Chappaqua at Seven Bridges Middle School (222 Seven Bridges Road). (For more about tickets, contact Tom Witmer at thwitmer@ccsd.ws or Priya Ma at prma@ccsd.ws.)

Scarsdale native Laura Clapp '21 and Bedford native Anna-Sophia Boguraev '20 return home to sing for the New Blue, which turns 50 this year. Allie Larocco '21 of Cold Spring and Alice Tao '20 of Tappan also sing in the group.

The New Blue, Yale's oldest all-female group, was formed in the fall of 1969, when Yale opened its doors to women undergraduates for the first time. It released its first studio album in 1970.

Boasting as being the oldest undergraduate a cappella group in the country, the Spizzwinks were formed in 1914. They return to Westchester after concerts in 2013 and 2015. The group plans concerts in Iceland, Seattle and China this spring and summer. 

YWAA board members Dan Leonard '76, Regina Possavino '01 and B.K. Munguia '75, all Yale alumni music performers, are Yale coordinators for the event.

The Yale Spizzwinks sang at a YWAA-sponsored concert in Scarsdale in 2015 (above). The 2018-19 group will perform in Chappaqua, Feb. 3, before touring Iceland and Seattle this spring. 

Live in Concert This Spring

An upcoming concert for both groups is scheduled in Manhattan, April 13. The Whiffenpoofs will sing in Rye, April 15.

The Whiffenpoofs and Whim 'n Rhythm, Yale's senior singing groups on a last fling of rounds of singing before the school year ends (and before they embark on summer tours), will be in concert in the New York area in April.

The two groups will sing together at the Brick Church (62 East 92nd Street) in New York City Friday, April 13 at 8 pm in a concert supported by the Whiffenpoofs of '65. (Tickets are available at TicketBud.) They will also sing at a Commencement Concert at Yale, May 20. 

The Whiffenpoofs '18 include Baritone Danny Keller '18, a native of Rye and computer science major.  This year's business manager and announcer in the group, Keller returns home with fellow Whiffs when the group sings at Rye Presbyterian Church (882 Boston Post Road), Sunday, Apr. 15 at 3 pm. Tickets are available at the door.

Typical for the group, as it travels across the country and world, the Whiffs have already had concerts in Texas, California, Washington State and Maryland in 2018. 

Both the Whiffenpoofs and Whim 'n Rhythm made news earlier this year when they announced they will permit candidates of either sex to audition for their respective groups.  The Whiffs recently announced its first female participant, Sofia Campoamor '19, who will join the Whiffs next year after singing with Mixed Company of Yale.

Red, Hot & Blue in Rye, Feb. 10

Red, Hot, & Blue, the a capella group from Yale, comes to Westchester on the evening of Friday, Feb. 10 for a concert at the Osborne in Rye. 

The group, Yale's oldest group featuring men and women, will be joined by a group from Princeton. It sang (with the Princeton Roaring 20) at a concert in Rye in Dec., 2015.

The 2017 concert details will follow.  YWAA board member Bill Nightingale '53 is organizing the event. 

Rosenthal: "I Got This"

At the Pittsburgh Opera this month, with little notice, Edgemont's Rosenthal was asked to sing two roles in one performance.

Luck, they say, is the residue of hard work.  Or it's all about being in the right place at the right time, because of passion, preparation and confidence.

Take Claudia Rosenthal '08 '14MM, for example. A recent example.  Rosenthal, an Edgemont native, studied music and opera at Yale and has won prizes to identify promising young performers, including competitions sponsored by the Metropolitan Opera.  She is currently a Resident Artist at the Pittsburgh Opera.

One afternoon in mid-October, she had a scheduled small part (Annina) in the company's La Traviata production.  On the morning of the performance, the performer for the lead role Violetta was unable to sing because of a bout with laryngitis.  The opera's directors decided to come up with a plan.  They asked Rosenthal to sing both her role and the lead role. 

During the performance, Rosenthal stood on the side of the stage and sang both parts, while other performers acted the parts and lip-synced what Rosenthal sang. (The audience was aware and could see Rosenthal.) By the end of the performance, Rosenthal, by some estimates, had sung about two-thirds of the entire performance. 

Local media didn't miss the feat.  "I was having conversations with myself," Rosenthal told the Pitts Post-Gazette, "because Violetta and Annina have conversations."

One audience member said of Rosenthal's two-part role, "Opera can be very tradition-bound, so when something shakes it up a little bit, I think that's all to the good."

Before she approached the stage to begin the performance, Rosenthal looked into a mirror and said she told herself, "You got this."

Rosenthal Wins Opera Prize

Claudia Rosenthal '08 '14MM receives another honor highlighting her talents in singing (CR photos)

Claudia Rosenthal ’08 ‘14MMus., who trained at Yale and grew up in Edgemont, was named a winner at the George London Foundation competition Feb. 19. The competition honors outstanding young opera singers from America and Canada. She was among six winners who each received a $10,000 prize. The event in Manhattan at the Morgan Library featured 83 singers.

The competition, named for the bass baritone George London, has awarded prizes annually since 1971 and encourages young, talented singers to pursue long careers in opera. Judges this year included a notable list of opera singers.  Soprano Harolyn Blackwell, tenor George Shirley, mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, and baritone Richard Stilwell, who himself was a George London winner at the first competition, helped select the 2016 winners.

New York Times music critic James Oestreich assessed Rosenthal's final performance as one of his four favorites in the competition.  Rosenthal sang Poulenc's "Les Mamelles de Tiresais."

Rosenthal is a first-year Resident Artist at Pittsburgh Opera. In recent years, she has sung with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Yale Opera (Yale in New York) in Carnegie Hall, and Hartford Symphony Orchestra, and at Tanglewood Music Center. She has received other prizes, including the Rohatyn Great Promise Award from the Metropolitan Opera National Council (East Region) and the Alumni Prize when she graduated from the Yale School of Music.

Also at Yale, she was a featured performer at the 2013 inauguration concert in Woolsey Hall for new President Peter Salovey ’86 Ph.D. As a student, she sang in six different productions (in the undergraduate and graduate programs) and performed at the YWAA banquet in 2008.

In 2016, at Pittsburgh Opera she will sing in performances of The Barber of Seville (Rossini) and The Rake’s Progress (Stravinsky).

Yale Baroque Opera Returns in April

Yale professor Grant Herreid, director of the Yale Baroque Opera Project, will perform in Rye, Apr. 10 and play an assortment of old instruments (Jay Center, Herreid photos).

Grant Herreid, artistic director of the Baroque Opera Project at Yale, will return to Westchester with his group of musicians who perform music from the 17th and 18th centuries and play instruments of the period.  The musicians will appear at the Jay Heritage Center in Rye Sunday, Apr. 10 at 4 pm.

Herreid and his group performed "A Night at the Opera" at the Center's Carriage House in 2014. The group performs American, French and English compositions.

Herreid specializes in old instruments.  He plays the lute, the baroque guitar, the cittern, the hurdy gurdy, the theorbo, and viol--instruments he has also played in recent Broadway Shakespeare productions.  

The theorbo is a string instrument, developed in the 16th century, with a long neck. Banjo-like, it is plucked. The cittern is a mandolin-like string instrument. The hurdy gurdy is a string instrument with a special wheel and small keyboard attached.

Herreid has taught classes at Yale in Renaissance music and 17th-century song and directed several opera productions and theatrical early-music shows. He is also co-director of the Yale Collegium Musicum, an instrumental ensemble in the Music School.

Herreid has performed around the world, playing the lute, the theorbo, and other early reeds, brass and strings. Before he pursued Renaissance and early music, he started out as a trumpeter playing jazz and classical music.

See concert details below.

In December, the Jay Heritage Center hosted the lecture, "Dirty Politics," by Yale history professor Joanne Freeman.  Suzanne Clary '83 is president of the Board of Trustees of the Jay Heritage Center.  For more about the Center, click JAY-CENTER.

Arts & Letters Concert at Jay Heritage Center

Sunday, April 10, 4-6 pm

210 Boston Post Road

Rye, NY  10580

Drawing from the vast music library of violinist President Thomas Jefferson, with dance and song known to dancer President George Washington, Arts & Letters concerts bring history to life, tying historical spaces to the arts and culture of the era.

Reflecting the world of Founding Fathers John Jay, Alexander Hamilton and their peers, the program includes music of internationally popular musicians of his day, Johann Christian Bach, Luigi Boccherini, and American composer Francis Hopkinson, with dramatic reading from letters and journal entries to set the scene, enhanced by re-creations of historical social dances of the era, featuring dancers in period costume to further illuminate the social culture of colonial life. 

Featuring Grant Herreid, instrumentalist, singer and narrator, with Leah Nelson on Baroque violin, and early keyboard specialist Dongsok Shin on harpsichord, this program is a collaboration with the New York Baroque Dance Company's Touchstone Project, Caroline Copeland and Matthew Ting, Baroue dancers.  

Free for JHC members and the Yale Westchester Alumni Association 
$15 for non-member
Open seating
Reception following
jayheritagecenter@gmail.com
914-698-9275