Greetings loyal glee club fans! Thank you so much for following us on our first international tour since Mexico in January 2020! We hope you enjoyed reading about our memorable journey through the Balkans from current glee clubbers, young and old.
This tour culminates not only in the final duties for the current Glofficer Corps, but also the last major set of concerts and group experiences for the seniors. I’d like to give a special thank you to the people behind the scenes that worked tirelessly and poured hours of dedication into making this tour an outstanding success and unforgettable experience for each of us.
Sydney Eck ’24 and Emily Della Pietra ’24, our phenomenal tour managers without whom this tour would not have commenced. Organizing a rowdy crowd of over a 100 Princeton students is not an easy undertaking. Thank you both for your dedication and selfless effort in putting together this amazing feat. There is no one else we would have rather been (graciously) reminded by to be on time each morning. You handled unexpected plot twists and navigated uncertainty with such composure and unwavering calmness, which made even the tiring times a bonding experience to be remembered. When you were beyond exhausted, you consciously made an effort to have a conversation with the younger, new gleeple, and put a smile on their faces; this did not go unnoticed. Because of both of your energies put into making this experience positively formative for the underclassmen, we have been able to revive the culture of friendship, reliability, and love within the glee club that was harder to find during the pandemic years. On behalf of the entire glee club, you both deserve a hearty locomotive!!
Sloan Huebner ’23, president and Shruti Venkat ’23, manager, you both stepped up to lead without being asked. Whether it was to relieve the tour managers of the high volume of responsibilities on their plates, or being inclusive of new glee clubbers, you both were essential to the smooth running of our tour. Thank you for setting an example of what servant-leadership looks like, and we will forever cherish the profound imprint you made on each of our hearts of what the camaraderie of the glee club means to us.
Reese Owen ’24 and Katie Chou ’23, our wonderfully talented publicity chairs. While the gorgeous historical sites we explored were breathtaking in and of themselves, you both made it a priority to photograph the glee club’s many reactions to these :) Thank you for being on top of the social media game, and for photographing a legendary tour so that the memories we made can stay alive eternally!
Savvas and Sasha, our fearless couriers. It is an understatement to say that we got super lucky with y’all. Your sense of humor even in times where managing us can be stressful, was what kept us going even when we were exhausted. You went above and beyond your duties by looking out for each and every one of us, ensuring that we were comfortable and enjoying every moment of tour. While we (selfishly :) hope that we were the best tour group you’ve experienced, we wish you both a restful recuperation and hope that you enjoyed coming along with us and hearing us belt chaotic versions of our music on the bus!
To the talented, organic, creative, and humorous writers among us who volunteered to write the blog post following each day of tour. These individuals (who are mostly underclassmen!) willingly stepped up with enthusiasm to document what we did on their assigned blog day, and stayed up into the wee hours of the night to write these posts after our packed day of activities had concluded. We hope you enjoyed hearing from the voices among us. A special thank you to this tour’s bloggers (in blog post chronological order): Hannah Bein ‘22, Madeleine Murnick ‘26, Robert Mohan ‘26, Braiden Aaronson ‘25, Ishani Kulkarni ‘22, Anna Ferris ‘26, Zach Gardner ‘26, Charlie Ambach ‘26, Theo Wells-Spackman ‘25, and Evan Chandran ‘24.
And last, but most definitely not least: Gabriel, our beloved conductor, and Christie, our glee club mom (also Gabriel’s wife) whose radiant smile never fails to light up the faces of glee clubbers. It is very difficult for me to express the joy these memories have brought into my life and I know I am speaking on behalf of all the seniors who were in the thesis trenches prior to departing on this trip. What we missed most about glee before the pandemic was the tight-knit culture, friendship, and passionate expression of singing alongside our best friends. Gabriel, thank you for giving us this experience to rekindle these relationships and grow new ones. Over this past week, I know that many new friendships formed and will blossom over the younger glee clubber’s next few years. One of the fascinating aspects of the Glee Club is the breadth of talents and disciplines represented—not only musicians but engineers, writers, scientists, sociologists, mathematicians, economists, linguists, and historians alike all unite with a shared purpose, our love of music. You have fostered these relationships among us and we are ever so grateful for the impact these friendships have had on our college experience and will have on the rest of our lives. Thank you for caring genuinely about every one of our members on this trip, and we hope that you will recover soon from those many sleepless nights! This culture that you have created, has been the sole source of pure joy, happiness, and passion for many of us, especially through the pandemic interruption when we were not allowed to make music together. We will forever treasure these relationships and experiences, and know that we credit you with infusing these blessings into our lives.
To share a few of our fond memories, we enjoyed meeting Gabriel’s dear friend, Stefan—he was an incredible host to us in Klagenfurt, Austria, and we hope that his solo chant in honor of us will live rent-free forever in the Glee Club (at least until his next one in October!). The senior dinner in Zagreb, Croatia was a night not to be forgotten; it was lovely reflecting on the hilarious memories throughout our four years, and to experience the life-long family that is being a member of the Glee Club. For the lucky half of us that were on the LaudiBus (in reference to a signature chamber choir piece, ‘Laudibus in Sanctis’ by William Byrd) we enjoyed goofing off, cracking jokes, clowning the other bus in our group chats, and all of the contagious laughter that transpired on the bus rides between tour destinations! To the many new friends we met while traveling that were residents of the countries we visited and we recruited to our concerts, the overwhelming happiness of seeing a friendly face in a foreign audience was so comforting, and we hope that we can continue planting glee club seeds all over the world, empowering our audience members with the transformative power of the music we sing. And lastly, the farewell dinner we enjoyed in the deep Hungarian woods outside Budapest with our friends from the Princeton University Orchestra (PUO) was such a fun night following our final performance with the amazingly talented PUO at the renowned Liszt Academy. It was a night in good company with our beloved orchestral friends where we enjoyed a lavish Hungarian meal and native dancers who managed to convince some brave glee clubbers (and Gabriel!) to join in too!
It has been a joy to serve as your technology chair this past year, and an extremely rewarding experience to document our adventures on this memorable trip across the world. I hope this blog can be a place where glee clubbers past, present, and future, or just inquisitive readers who may happen to stumble on this can relive these fond memories :)
Viszlát! (A Hungarian Farewell) from your 2022-23 tech chair,
Katelyn Rodrigues ’23
Pictured below (in order) are our 2022-23 Glofficer Corps along with Glee Club members of each class (Class of 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, some 2022 alumni, and the graduate students) at our farewell dinner.
2022-23 Glofficers (left-right, top-bottom)
Sydney Eck ‘24, Tour Manager; Shruti Venkat ‘23, Manager; Emily Della-Pietra ‘24, Tour Manager; Reese Owen ‘24, Publicity Chair; Corinna Brueckner ‘23, Social Chair; Catherine Keim ‘23, Concert Manager; Katie Chou ‘23, Publicity Chair; Katelyn Rodrigues ‘23, Technology Chair; Sloan Huebner ‘23, President; Jenia Marquez ‘25, Archivist; Grace Morris ‘24, Social Chair; Braiden Aaronson ‘25, Editor (not pictured); Chloe Webster ‘25, Alumni Liaison (not pictured)
