The Maroom & White Fund a support organization, will host a national tribute to the Morehouse College Glee Club’s “100 Years in Song” with a weekend celebration to include the launch of the “Power of Ten” scholarship fundraising initiative, The Maroon & White Gala “A Salute to Excellence in Education at Morehouse College” at the New York Grand Hyatt on Oct. 1.
It all began with a rising New York “Starr” — Georgia Starr that is.
In 1903, Miss Starr, an Allegany, New York native and graduate of New York’s Crane Institute of Music – Potsdam, New York journeyed southward to become the first music teacher at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia (then known as Atlanta Baptist College).
At Morehouse College (America’s largest all-male institution of higher education, named for New York philanthropist, Henry Lyman Morehouse) Miss Starr was afforded great latitude to exercise her music education and abilities to teach young African-American men the art of music performance. In spring 1911, she presented the first documented student concert at Morehouse with a group of 12 choral and six orchestral members. It is from this humble yet significant beginning and under the official directorship of Kemper Harreld in the Fall of 1911 that the World Renowned Morehouse College Glee Club was born.
The Morehouse College Glee Club, America’s oldest all-male collegiate glee club under professional directorship, has performed with excellence at the White House, state capitols, in famed concert halls throughout the United States, and on stages around the globe. A few notable occasions include: presidential performances for Franklin D. Roosevelt, James Earl Carter, and George H.W. Bush; at the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr., on U.S. State Department tours, The Kennedy Center’s salute to Robert Shaw, with The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, and at the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games. The glee club also performed for Oprah Winfrey and Ray Charles, who subsequently became generous benefactors of Morehouse College. In fact, inspired by the work of the Morehouse Glee Club, Winfrey established the Oprah Winfrey Scholars Program at Morehouse College which enabled hundreds of “Morehouse Men” (all of whom appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show – United Center Celebration) to graduate.
For more information, visit www.themwf.org.
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