The Harvard Summer Chorus, founded in 1936, will be led by Harvard’s Director of Choral Activities, Andrew Clark, in Summer 2026. The ensemble is open by audition to Harvard Summer School students, Harvard affiliates (ID holders), and members of the community, including local high school and college students.
More information will be available in early 2026. Please email [email protected] with questions.
More information will be available in early 2026. Please email [email protected] with questions.
Schedule
Rehearsals are Tuesdays and Thursdays, 7pm to 9:30pm, in Sanders Theatre, starting Thursday, June 25, 2026.
The culminating performance is scheduled for the evening of Friday, July 31, 2026 at 8pm in Sanders Theatre, Memorial Hall. There will be a dress rehearsal in Sanders Theatre on Thursday, July 30 from 7-10pm.
The culminating performance is scheduled for the evening of Friday, July 31, 2026 at 8pm in Sanders Theatre, Memorial Hall. There will be a dress rehearsal in Sanders Theatre on Thursday, July 30 from 7-10pm.
Repertoire
The Harvard Summer Chorus celebrates its 90th anniversary with Freedom’s Song: American Voices at 250, marking the 250th anniversary of the United States and the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Conducted by Andrew Clark, Harvard’s Director of Choral Activities, the program brings together powerful American works that reflect the nation’s ideals, tensions, and enduring creative spirit.
The concert opens with William Schuman’s A Free Song, the work that earned Schuman the first Pulitzer Prize for Music—a bold affirmation of democratic ideals drawn from the poetry of Walt Whitman. Lukas Foss’s Psalms follows, a work of striking vitality and radiant stillness, moving fluidly between rhythmic energy and moments of quiet transcendence. Dan Locklair’s Since Dawn sets Maya Angelou’s poem On the Pulse of Morning, written for President Bill Clinton’s first inaugural in 1993, offering a message of renewal, resilience, and collective responsibility. Rosephanye Powell’s Quiet Revolutionary honors the legacy of the late Eileen Southern, Harvard professor and pioneering scholar whose work reshaped the study of African American and American music. The program also includes the first movement of Hallelujah Junction by John Adams ’69, whose propulsive, rhythmically charged music captures the restless energy and invention of contemporary American life.
Together, these works trace a musical arc across two and a half centuries of American imagination—celebrating voices that challenge, inspire, and continue to shape the nation’s unfinished promise.
The concert opens with William Schuman’s A Free Song, the work that earned Schuman the first Pulitzer Prize for Music—a bold affirmation of democratic ideals drawn from the poetry of Walt Whitman. Lukas Foss’s Psalms follows, a work of striking vitality and radiant stillness, moving fluidly between rhythmic energy and moments of quiet transcendence. Dan Locklair’s Since Dawn sets Maya Angelou’s poem On the Pulse of Morning, written for President Bill Clinton’s first inaugural in 1993, offering a message of renewal, resilience, and collective responsibility. Rosephanye Powell’s Quiet Revolutionary honors the legacy of the late Eileen Southern, Harvard professor and pioneering scholar whose work reshaped the study of African American and American music. The program also includes the first movement of Hallelujah Junction by John Adams ’69, whose propulsive, rhythmically charged music captures the restless energy and invention of contemporary American life.
Together, these works trace a musical arc across two and a half centuries of American imagination—celebrating voices that challenge, inspire, and continue to shape the nation’s unfinished promise.
dues
More information will be available in early 2026
auditions
More information will be available in early 2026
Interest form (required for participation)
More information will be available in early 2026
