2023 marks the 400th anniversary of the death of a composer who might well be the most influential and
beloved in the history of English music – William Byrd. His legacy is extraordinarily broad-ranging and touches
many areas of music: Keyboard players, viol consorts, and devotees of the English madrigal all revere the name
of Byrd… and of course his church music, which had both a public and a deeply private function in his lifetime,
is as popular as ever. His life story is long, and complicated. His career spanned four monarchies, and as a
favored musician of the Crown he was expected to serve music which fitted the taste, and faith, of the King or
Queen. With the gruesome punishments visited upon recusant Catholics during the reign of Queen Elizabeth
the First, it is not surprising that evidence for the religious preferences of her greatest composers can be vague
or contradictory. Byrd was the most famous ‘Catholic’ figure in English music, but he never did anything so
brazen as to publicly declare his faith – instead, at times when Catholicism was outlawed, he served his God in
encoded messages, woven in to the texts he selected for his Latin motets – especially those published in his
1589 Cantiones Sacrae.

In this publication, more than in any other collections of Byrd’s output, we find the composer’s faith and
politics laid bare through a bitter, delicately-coded commentary on the humbling of the Catholic church in
Elizabethan England. Almost all the texts are non-liturgical, and are sometimes knitted together from different
sources so that no extraneous words dilute Byrd’s angst and introspection. The image of the destroyed city of
Jerusalem, a clear metaphor for English Catholicism, pervades several of the works – and the lost inhabitants
pleading for guidance and mercy are an eloquent representation of all those engaged in secret religious
ceremonies in darkened private rooms throughout England at the time. At his most agitated, Byrd warns his
brethren to watch their backs in the restless, madrigalian motet Vigilate (‘watch therefore, lest coming in all of a
sudden, he find you sleeping…’), but it is the plangent self-pity of the longer motet Tristitia et Anxietas which
really typifies this period of Byrd’s writing.

One of the most telling pieces of circumstantial evidence for Byrd’s Catholicism is the now-celebrated
exchange of motets with Philippe de Monte, a prolific Flemish composer who made his living in various courts
of southern Europe. Monte may have briefly met a very young Byrd during the visit to England by Philip II of
Spain in 1554 (at which time de Monte was part of King Philip’s entourage), but essentially they were only
known to each other by reputation. But Monte was certainly aware of the spiritual agony being suffered in
England by his fellow Catholics, and he sent Byrd a setting of Super Flumina Babylonis (‘By the Waters of
Babylon’ – psalm 136) in 1583 as a gift. The text is significant since it describes the pain of exile and the sense
of religious dislocation experienced by the enslaved Israelites, and Byrd showed his gratitude by replying with
an answering setting of different verses from the same psalm – Quomodo Cantabimus – a masterpiece of 8-
part writing which sits at the heart of tonight’s program.

That Byrd survived and flourished under the Catholic purges of the late 16th Century is due both to his
extraordinary gift and to his political acumen, for he was able to compose excellent music for the Protestant
Rite whenever an act of such musical fealty seemed expedient. The anthem O Lord, Make thy Servant
Elizabeth, composed in the simple style beloved of the Protestants, is a shameless tribute to the head of the
Anglican Church – but tonight we represent this part of Byrd’s output with the anthem Sing Joyfully.
Byrd was less well known for his secular output, and a reasonable argument can be made that he was not the
peerless master of the madrigal that he was of the motet: Three Thomases – Morley, Tomkins and especially
Weelkes – were the acknowledged masters of this form, and it was Tomkins who produced a masterpiece of
musical and psychological invention when Byrd died in 1623 – Too much I once lamented. Laden with
extended suspensions and heaving musical sighs, Tomkins seems so twisted with grief that he resorts to bitter
irony in his delivery of the hackneyed madrigalian ‘Fa la la’ refrain. For his part, Byrd had earlier composed an
epitaph on the death of his friend and mentor Thomas Tallis -Ye Sacred Muses – which employs a peculiarly
English form – the ‘consort song’ – intended for solo voice and viols but adaptable, as in tonight’s performance,
for performance with keyboard.

We are especially grateful for the contributions of our friends Dr Tim Keeler and Dr Joyce Chen to our musicmaking this week, and are thrilled to be sharing the stage with them this evening!

Ulysses S. Grant was President and Verdi’s Requiem had just premiered when the Princeton
University Glee Club was founded by Andrew Fleming West, the first Dean of the Graduate
College, in 1874. Since that time, the ensemble has established itself as the largest choral body on
Princeton’s campus, and has distinguished itself both nationally and overseas. Nowadays the Glee
Club performs frequently on Princeton’s campus, enjoying the wonderful acoustic and aesthetic of
Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall. In the last few years performances have included
Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Bach’s St. Matthew and St. John Passions and Mass in B Minor, Mozart’s
Requiem, MacMillan’s Seven Last Words and Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Mass for the Endangered. In
2014 the Glee Club was the first collegiate choir to perform Wynton Marsalis’ Abyssinian Mass, and
in 2018 gave the United States premiere of John Tavener’s Total Eclipse, alongside the world
premiere of Shruthi Rajasekar’s Gaanam. The performing arts series ‘Glee Club Presents’ was
founded in 2014 to bring professional vocal and choral artists to Princeton to work with and perform
alongside the Glee Club. Since then the Glee Club has shared the Richardson stage with artists of
the caliber of Tenebrae, Roomful of Teeth and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The choir embraces a
vast array of repertoire, from Renaissance motets and madrigals, Romantic partsongs, and 21st
century choral commissions to the more traditional Glee Club fare of folk music and college songs.
The spectrum of Glee Club members is every bit as broad as its repertoire: undergraduates and
graduate students, scientists and poets, philosophers and economists – all walks of academic life
represented in students from all over the world, knit together by a simple belief in the joy of singing
together.

Gabriel Crouch is Director of Choral Activities and Professor of the Practice in Music at Princeton
University. He began his musical career as an eight-year-old in the choir of Westminster Abbey,
where his solo credits included a Royal Wedding, and performances which placed him on the solo
stage with Jessye Norman and Sir Laurence Olivier. After completing a choral scholarship at Trinity
College, Cambridge, he was offered a place in the renowned a cappella group The King’s Singers in
1996. In the next eight years, he made a dozen recordings on the BMG label (including a Grammy
nomination), and gave more than 900 performances in almost every major concert venue in the
world. Since moving to the USA in 2005, he has built an international profile as a conductor and
director, with recent engagements in Indonesia, Hawaii and Australia as well as Europe and the
continental United States. In 2008 he was appointed musical director of the British early music
ensemble Gallicantus, with whom he has released six recordings under the Signum label to
rapturous reviews, garnering multiple ‘Editor’s Choice’ awards in Gramophone Magazine, Choir
and Organ Magazine and the Early Music Review, and, for the 2012 release ‘The Word Unspoken’,
a place on BBC Radio’s CD Review list of the top nine classical releases of the year. His recording
of Lagrime di San Pietro by Orlando di Lasso was shortlisted for a Gramophone Award in 2014, and
his follow-up recording – Sibylla (featuring music by Orlandus Lassus and Dmitri Tymoczko) was
named ’star recording’ by Choir and Organ magazine in the summer of 2018. His most recent
release is Mass for the Endangered, a new composition by Sarah Kirkland Snider released on the
Nonesuch/New Amsterdam labels, which has garnered high acclaim from The New York Times,
Boston Globe, NPR’s ‘All Things Considered’ and elsewhere.

A native of Taiwan, Joyce Chen is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Music (Historical
Musicology) and the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in Humanities at Princeton University. Under the
guidance of Wendy Heller, Joyce is currently working on her dissertation, “Musica
Experientia/Experimentum: Acoustics, Aesthetics, and Artisanal Knowledge in Seventeenth-Century
Europe,” which explores the intersection between science, music, and aesthetics involving instrument
making, sensory experience, and the development of acoustical theory. For this project, Joyce has spent
a total 4 months (from August 2020 – Summer 2021) working as an apprentice at Zuckermann
Harpsichords International—the last harpsichord manufacturing factory in the United States— in
Stonington, Connecticut. In addition, she just finished building her first harpsichord from a Troubadour
Virginal Kit.

From Fall 2021 to Spring 2022, Dr. Chen was Adjunct Professor of Keyboard and University Accompanist
at Delaware State University, where she also introduced a pilot program of HBCU early music access
project in collaboration with Early Music America. Outside of academia, Joyce has an active performing
career as a solo harpsichordist. Joyce is a recipient of the 2018 Individual Artist Fellowship from the
Delaware Division of the Arts. In May 2019, Joyce was a featured solo performer of the Emerging Artist
Showcase by Early Music America at the Bloomington Early Music Festival. Joyce holds a Doctor of
Musical Arts degree in Harpsichord Performance from Stony Brook University and a Bachelor of Science
degree in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley. She has studied harpsichord with Charlene
Brendler, Arthur Haas, and Davitt Moroney.

Dr. Tim Keeler is music director of the San Francisco-based, GRAMMY® award-winning vocal ensemble
Chanticleer. Performing nearly 100 concerts every year all over the world, Chanticleer has been a staple
of the American choral sound for over 45 years.

Prior to moving to San Francisco, Tim forged a career as an active conductor, singer, and educator. He
has performed with New York Polyphony, The Clarion Choir, the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, and sang
with Chanticleer for their 2017-2018 season. He has also performed frequently as a soloist, appearing
regularly in the Bach Vespers series at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in New York City, as well as with
TENET, New York’s preeminent early music ensemble. An avid proponent of new and challenging
repertoire, Tim remains a core member of Ekmeles, a vocal ensemble based in New York City and
dedicated to contemporary, avant-garde, and infrequently-performed vocal repertoire.
As an educator, Tim has directed the Men’s Chorus at the University of Maryland, served as director of
choirs at the Special Music School High School in Manhattan, and worked closely with the Young
People’s Chorus of New York City as a vocal coach and satellite school conductor. He was also the
choral conductor for Juilliard’s new Summer Performing Arts program – a two-week intensive summer
course in Geneva, Switzerland.

Tim holds a BA in Music from Princeton University with certificates in Vocal Performance and Computer
Science, an MPhil in Music and Science from Cambridge University, an MM in Choral Conducting from
the University of Michigan, and a DMA in Choral Conducting from the University of Maryland.

While studying with Dr. Jerry Blackstone at the University of Michigan, Tim served as assistant conductor
of the Grammy award-winning UMS Choral Union, preparing the choir for performances with Leonard
Slatkin and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. At Maryland, under the supervision of Dr. Edward Maclary,
Tim helped prepare choirs for performances with the National Symphony Orchestra and the Baltimore
Symphony Orchestra.

Soprano
Emily Della Pietra ’24
Alex Giannattasio ’23
Lulu Hao ’23
Sophia Huellstrunk ’25
Catherine Keim ’23
Maddy Kushan GS
Madeline Murnick ’26
Reese Owen ’24

Mezzo/Meane
Katie Chou ’23
Claire Dignazio ’25
Rachel Glodo GS
Sloan Huebner ’23
Katelyn Rodrigues ’23
Anastasia Shmytova GS
Molly Trueman ’24

Alto
Cherry Ge ’24
Emma George GS
Lucy McKnight GS
Madeline Miller ’26
Priya Naphade ’24
Alison Silldorf ’25
Emma Simmons GS
Shruti Venkat ’23
Giao Vu Dinh ’24

Tenor
Braiden Aaronson ’25
Rafael Collado ’24
Matthew Higgins-Iati ’23
Nicholas Hu ’26
Martin Miller
Gary Sun ’26
William Yang ’25
Hunter York GS

Bass
Nicholas Allen ’23
Henry Hsiao ’26
Tim Manley ’24
Haaris Mean ’23
Rupert Peacock ’24
Liam Seeley ’23
David Timm ’23
Kevin Williams ’22
Zach Williamson ’26