125th Anniversary Weekend Schedule
Friday, May 2, 2025 to Sunday, May 4, 2025
RCS alums and friends, you are cordially invited to the RCS 125th Anniversary Celebration the weekend of May 2nd and 3rd, 2025, in Cambridge, MA.
Registration is now open! Please join us for any and all of the weekend events as follows. For the detailed Saturday schedule with links to pdfs of the sheet music we’ll be singing, please click here.
Friday, May 2, 2025
6:30 pm to 8:00 pm: Pre-concert reception for RCS singers, alums, and friends in the old Queen’s Head Pub space in the Loker Commons (lower level of Memorial Hall, 45 Quincy Street).
8:00 pm: RCS’s 125th Anniversary Concert, Sanders Theatre, Harvard University. RCS’s landmark season will culminate in this stand-alone RCS 125th Anniversary Concert as part of Harvard’s ARTS FIRST Festival. During this concert, RCS will premiere commissioned works from composers Chen Yi and Dale Trumbore in addition to works written by current RCS members Anika Christensen ‘26 and Eve Jones ‘27.
Saturday, May 3, 2025
8:30 to 9:30 am: Continental breakfast, registration, and icebreaker, Student Organization Center at Hilles (59 Shephard Street in the Radcliffe Quadrangle).
9:30 am to 9:45 am: Welcome.
9:45 am to 10:30 am: Singing conducted by Andrew Clark: ¡Que Buen Año Es Del Çielo!; Tundra; Planetarium.
10:30 am to 10:45 am: Break.
10:45 am to 11:30 am: Singing conducted by Hana Cai: Psalm 23 (Gott ist mein Hirt); Spaseniye sodelal ; Still I Rise; Music Down in My Soul.
11:30 am to 1:00 pm: Lunch (provided) and time to socialize, and a greeting from Constance DeFotis. Note: During the lunch hour, RCS will be doing a brief (three to four minute) additional ARTS FIRST performance at the main campus. Those who are interested may wish to take time during this space to hear them.
1:00 pm to 1:15 pm: Singing conducted by Jameson Marvin: O Gloriosa Domina.
1:15 pm to 2:15 pm: Singing conducted by Beverly Taylor: Tota Pulchra Es; Regina Caeli; Behold Now Praise the Lord; Real Friends; Pueri Hebraeorum; Ave Maria (Holst); Ain’t Got Time to Die (repertoire split over two sessions with break).
2:15 pm to 2:30 pm: Break.
2:30 pm to 3:15 pm: Singing conducted by Beverly Taylor (repertoire above).
3:15 pm to 3:30 pm: Break.
3:30 pm to 4:30 pm: Update on current RCS activities and a singalong with current students. Presentations will include RCS’s year and musical year in review with RCS president Ellie Powell and 125th Anniversary Committee officer Evelyn Carr, a tour update with tour manager Chloe Call, and a discussion of RCS friendships with outgoing and incoming managers Anika Christensen and Maria Cifuentes. Singing repertoire, time permitting, will include Tundra; Psalm 23; Still I Rise; Spaseniye.
4:30 pm to 5:30 pm: Joint cocktail hour with alums, guests, and current students; remarks from the director.
Saturday evening:
6:00 pm to 9:00 pm: ‘Cliffe Notes Mini-Reunion in Central Square, Cambridge. E-mail avliu@ix.netcom.com for details or RSVP here.
8:00 pm: Dona Nobis Pacem: The Jameson Singers will be performing a program including Vaughan Williams’ cantata Dona Nobis Pacem at First Church Cambridge — see this link for more details.
Details to follow: Tour group gatherings; contact rcsf125@gmail.com if you’d like to connect with your tour classmates!
Sunday, May 4, 2025
12:30 pm to 2:00 pm: RCS History Tea, Classroom 6, Harvard Music Building (3 Oxford Street).
We hope to see you! If you have questions or are interested in volunteering, please email us at rcsf125@gmail.com.
Program Notes
Dr. Chen has been described as a strong advocate for new music, American composers, Asian composers, and women in music. Her compositions blend Chinese and Western traditions, and have received numerous awards and prizes in both China and the United States. She has been the Lorena Searcy/Cravens/Missouri Distinguished Professor of Composition at the Conservatory of Music and Dance in the University of Missouri-Kansas City since 1998, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2005. Her music has been performed worldwide and recorded in over 100 CDs on a variety of record labels since 1986. For more, see https://conservatory.umkc.edu/profiles/faculty-directory/chen-yi.html.
Ms. Trumbore is a Los Angeles-based composer who is passionate about setting to music poems, prose, and found text by living writers. Her music, which has been called “devastatingly beautiful” by the Washington Post and been praised for its “soaring melodies and beguiling harmonies deployed with finesse” by the New York Times, has been performed widely, both across the US and abroad, and has won a number of awards. Ms. Trumbore’s work that RCS will be premiering in the anniversary concert was commissioned from the RCSF-funded Beverly Taylor Fund for Soprano-Alto Choral Music. For more, see https://www.daletrumbore.com
