The Glee Club Presents: Misa Criolla

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.

Varshini Narayanan is a multi-genre vocalist and flautist with training and performance credits in

Carnatic music, opera, choral music, jazz, and flamenco across the United States and Argentina.

Varshini has been studying Carnatic music since the age of three and specializes as an accompanist

for Bharatanatyam, deploying a sensitivity to rhythm, movement, and gesture that has established

them as a highly sought-after collaborator in the world of South Asian classical dance. In addition to

this deeply traditional performance practice, Varshini has a vested interest in cross-cultural fusion

from both scholarly and artistic perspectives, as their diverse musical background and unique ability

to translate across genre lines produces rich multicultural soundscapes. Recent performance credits

include a collaboration with Kathak dancer Rachna Nivas at New York Live Arts, as well as a series of

collaborations with jazz pianist John Bitoy III across Chicago. Varshini graduated from Princeton

University in 2016, where in addition to singing with the Glee Club, Chamber Choir, and Chapel

Choir they had the opportunity to conduct ethnographic study of flamenco history and cante,

including fieldwork in Seville. They are currently pursuing a dual PhD in Ethnomusicology and

Theater and Performance Studies at the University of Chicago, where their research focuses on the

cross-cultural performance practices of the South Asian diaspora.

Freddy Vilches is a composer, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist based in Portland, OR. Originally

from Santiago, Chile, Freddy has performed and recorded with several bands in Latin America and

the US, and performs regularly with his own Latin ensembles. He frequently performs with his son,

the percussionist Nico Vilches.

His symphonic works have been featured by the Orquesta Filarmónica de Montevideo, the

Willamette Valley Orchestra, the Lewis & Clark Orchestra, the Reed College Orchestra, and other

orchestras in Bolivia, and the US. His choral works have been performed by Resonance Vocal

Ensemble, ACDA NW, and the NAU Choir. His most recent compositions “Latin American Suite”

and “Abya Yala Choral Suite” are starting to gain national and international recognition, and are

scheduled to be performed next year in Bolivia, Cuba, Canada, and the US.

Freddy holds a PhD in Latin American Literature from the University of Oregon, specializing in Latin

American Literature of the 20th and 21st Centuries. His research interests include Latin American

literature, music, and film. He is an Associate Professor at Lewis & Clark College in the Department

of World Languages and Literatures. He is also instructor of several traditional instruments

(charango, cuatro, and Afro-Cuban percussion), and directs the Latin American Ensemble in the

Music Department.

Keyboardist and conductor Jeffrey Grossman specializes in vital, engaging performances of music

of the past, through processes that are intensely collaborative and historically informed. As the

artistic director of the acclaimed baroque ensemble The Sebastians, in recent seasons Jeffrey has

directed concerts including Bach’s St. John and St. Matthew Passions and Handel’s Messiah from

the organ and harpsichord, in collaboration with TENET Vocal Artists, and he is a frequent

performer with TENET, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and numerous other ensembles across

the country. Recent seasons include his conducting operas of Haydn and Handel with Juilliard

Opera, leading Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 with the Green Mountain Project in New York and

Venice, and conducting a workshop of a new Vivaldi pastiche opera for the Metropolitan Opera. As

musical director for the 2023 and 2019 Boston Early Music Festival Young Artists Training Program,

he conducted Jacquet de La Guerre’s Cephale et Procris and Handel’s Orlando from the

harpsichord. For thirteen seasons, he toured portions of the rural United States with artists of the

Piatigorsky Foundation, performing outreach concerts to underserved communities. Jeffrey can be

heard on the Avie, Gothic, Naxos, Albany, Soundspells, Métier, and MSR Classics record labels. A

native of Detroit, Michigan, he holds degrees from Harvard College, the Juilliard School, and

Carnegie Mellon University. Jeffrey teaches performance practice at Yale University.

Dušan Balarin is a versatile soloist and accompanist recognized for his eclectic artistry and vibrant

interpretations on a range of historical lutes and guitars. His curiosity has led him to collaborate with

leading artists and ensembles across Early Music, Jazz, and Contemporary Arts. Notably, he has

worked with Cécile McLorin Salvant, Les Arts Florissants, The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the

Emerson Quartet, Rachel Podger, Bruce Dickey, Lionel Meunier, Stephan MacLeod, Tessa Lark, and

Reginald Mobley. Dušan regularly performs with leading Early Music organizations, including The

Washington Bach Consort, ARTEK, TENET, Chatham Baroque, Harmonia Stellarum, and EMNY.

A Juilliard graduate and recipient of the prestigious Historical Performance Scholarship, Dušan

performed widely with Juilliard 415, both in North America and Europe. Prior to establishing himself

in New York, he apprenticed with renowned British lute virtuoso Nigel North, earning his Master of

Music in Historical Performance with highest honors from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of

Music.