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THE MAROON TIGER
Arif;
The Morehouse Quartet
Levi Terrill, Ralph Lee, Howard Branch, and
Richard I. McKinney.
“The Morehouse Quartet is an organization
that by all means should retain its identity after
leaving school, because it is too good to be dis
solved.”—O. B. Keeler, Atlanta (Ga.) Constitu
tion.
The Contributive Values of the
Glee Club and Orchestra
The Morehouse College Glee Club and Orches
tra had its beginning as such back in 1911, when
Prof. Kemper Harreld became a member of the
faculty. Since that time this organization has
made rapid strides of development, and now it
stands out as the foremost of its kind. Begin
ning in 1911 with the following orchestra, Pro
fessor Harreld, violin; Edmund Jenkins, clarinet;
Maynard Jackson, piano; Fraser Lane, cornet;
C. Brown, cornet; Patrick, trombone; and John
Lewis, drums; this organization has grown to
become a symphony of thirty-five musicians.
It is to the credit of Mr. Harreld that this or
ganization has always kept within the bounds of
classical music. When Prof. Harreld first came to
Morehouse College, the glee clubs ox Yale and
Harvard were in reality mandolin clubs, and they
sang the rollicking tunes of the day, such as,
“Good-night Ladies.” Other college glee clubs in
the East and in the South were doing likewise.
But Professor Harreld introduced classical male
choral numbers in college circles instead of the
“rollicking tunes of the day.” Soon after the
Morehouse College Glee Club began to sing male
choral numbers the small colleges and large uni
versities began to follow in the trail that was
blazed by the first glee club of its kind in the
South or East, the one at Morehouse.
Morehouse College men should be proud of the
above fact, and I shall give some more facts
of which we should be proud.
In 1915 the Morehouse College Glee Club and
Orchestra rendered a matinee performance and
evening concert in Birmingham, Alabama. The
matinee was attended by fourteen hundred
school children and the evening concert was at
tended by eighteen hundred people, making a
total attendance of thirty-two hundred persons
in one day. In Jacksonville, Florida, February
24th, 1927, this organization played to two thou
sand people; the concert in 1926 at Augusta,
Georgia, was attended by seventeen hundred.
Few amateur symphony orchestras can boast
of having successfully played, “The Overture of
1812,” by Tschaikowsky; or the “Mid-Summer
Night’s Dream,” by Mendelssohn; “Overture to
Semiramidie,” Rossini; Von Weber’s overture
“Der Frieschutz.” But in addition to the above
difficult numbers Professor Harreld has success
fully conducted his orchestra through Schu
mann’s “Concerto in A Minor.” The masterpiece
was played once with the assistance of Miss Ca
mille Nickerson at the piano, and again with the
assistance of Miss Ruth Wheeler. Besides these
the orchestra has played many of the operas, in
cluding “Carmen,” “William Tell,” and “Madame
Butterfly.”
In 1920 very famous critics who heard this or
chestra were loud in their praise and said “this
is the greatest college orchesta in this country
regardless of color.”
The Glee Club has earned praise of the highest
type, and prominent among its renditions are
Schumann’s “Two Grenadiers,” and Cadman’s
“The Blizzard.”
We cherish athletic traditions, and may we al
ways do so. But in all our cherishing, let us save
a place for the organization that has always
brought laurels of praise to Morehouse College.
This organization stands out as the cultural back
ground of not only campus life, but life in Atlan
ta as well, and if we fail to recognize the value
of this asset we make a grave mistake.
Out of the Glee Club and Orchestra at More
house many competent instructors in music have
gone into various communities where they have
proved their efficiency and succeeded in develop
ing an appreciation for this fine art, Music.
Professor Harreld has chosen for the readers
of the Maroon Tiger what he considers his
“Greatest of All Time Orchestra.” If these men
were together he would have the best Morehouse
College Orchestra since the time of its birth in
1911. This choice of course is made from the