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February
1960: Reprint: Ivy Magazine article
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YRC
member William Alston wrote an article for Ivy Magazine -
a magazine written by and circulated among students in the
Ivy League universities - based on the
second trip to the USSR in 1959, again stressing the YRC's
interest in
cultural exchange. In the 1980s Alston and fellow YRC chorister Robert Keeney
began the annual YRC alumni weekend concert and banquet events
that have continued ever since, with concerts in Springfield
MA, Purchase NY, Salisbury CT, and Weston CT. These concerts
and gatherings have enabled the YRC alumni to stay in close
touch. |
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March
1960: Letter - U.S. Senate Hubert Humphrey
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The president of
the YRC, Ken Dove, received a letter from Senator Hubert Humphrey
endorsing the Chorus's activities in cultural exchange. It proved very helpful
in fund-raising for the third trip to the USSR in the summer of 1960. |
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| May
1960: Poster - Sprague |
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In May 1960 the YRC organized
the Inter-University Conference on Cultural Exchange with speakers
from Yale, other universities and the State Department, along
with seminars led by YRC members. Closing the conference was a concert in
Sprague Hall that included the jazz-duo of Willie Ruff and Dwike Mitchell
of the Music School, who had accompanied the YRC on its second tour to the
USSR in 1959 and had given an impromptu jazz concert in Moscow's Tchaikowsky
Hall. |
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| April
1961: Poster - Sprague |
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The
YRC started giving a major annual concert in either Sprague
Hall or Woolsey Hall. This
poster is an early example of the "blue domes" motif
that recurs in many YRC posters and programs in the 1960s and
1970s. |
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| November
1961: Program - Peace Corps rally with Coffin |
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The Chorus often sang in support
of causes it endorsed. William Sloan Coffin Jr. was Yale Chaplain
from 1958 to 1975 and sang with the YRC intermittently
in the mid 1950s. |
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| August
1962: Newspaper clipping - New York Times |
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During its fourth trip to Europe
and the USSR during the summer of 1962, the YRC was in Berlin
in August to sing a formal concert. A young East German,
Peter Fechter, was shot trying to cross the Berlin Wall. East German guards
would not allow him any medical attention and he died of his wounds where
he fell after several hours of agony in the sight of all. The Chorus sang
Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus at the Wall as a memorial to Fechter a few days
after the incident. |
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| June
1963: Poster/flyer - Salle Pleyel, Paris |
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During its fifth tour to Europe
in the summer of 1963 the YRC continued giving large formal
concerts in Western Europe and informal concerts in the USSR. |
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| July
1963: Photo, 8x10 |
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The
YRC, conducted here by John Stewart, singing "Joshua fit de battle of Jericho" on
Red Square in July 1963. The Kremlin walls didn't fall. |
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| November
1964: Photo |
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Averell
Harriman, who repeatedly expressed his support for the YRC's
activities in cultural
exchange, meets with YRC assistant conductor Dan Gsovski to
discuss the YRC's activities and plans before a concert in
Washington in November 1964. |
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| February
1965: Photo, 8x10 |
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This photograph of the founding
director of the YRC, Denis Mickiewicz, was taken at a concert
in Sanders Theatre at Harvard in February 1965. |
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| April
1969: Poster - Coffin Defense Fund benefit |
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Yale Chaplain William Sloane Coffin
Jr. was indicted in January 1968, along with a number of other
activists (incl. Dr. Benjamin Spock), for anti-Vietnam
War activities. The YRC invited Theodore Bikel and Yale's Augmented 7 to
join in a benefit concert to raise money for the Coffin Defense Fund. Coffin
had sung with the YRC in the mid 1950s. |
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