{"id":1400,"date":"2016-02-17T19:41:27","date_gmt":"2016-02-18T00:41:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2016\/02\/17\/furman-singers-alumni-prepare-for-18th-reunion\/"},"modified":"2022-11-07T14:15:18","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T19:15:18","slug":"furman-singers-alumni-prepare-for-18th-reunion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/furman-singers-alumni-prepare-for-18th-reunion\/","title":{"rendered":"Furman Singers alumni prepare for 18th reunion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In the past 67 years the Furman Singers have seen many students pass through their ranks. \u00a0Throughout all these years, there are two songs that will always be in their repertoire: \u201cBrown Eyes\u201d and \u201cThe Battle Hymn of the Republic.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFurman Singers always end their concert with \u2018The Battle Hymn of the Republic,\u2019 and invite Singers alumni in the audience to join on stage in the singing. Throughout the country, and even on European tours, there is seldom a concert that does not have at least one alumnus who joins us,” said Bing Vick, immediate past Furman Singers conductor and retired professor.<\/p>\n

When over 100 of Furman Singers alumni gather for their biennial reunion celebration this August, alumni can look forward to singing those songs again. \u00a0One of Furman\u2019s oldest choral ensembles and considered to be among America\u2019s best collegiate choirs, the Singers have represented the university\u2019s ideals of vocal performance since their creation in 1946 by former conductor and professor, DuPre Rhame \u201824.<\/p>\n

Now led by conductor Hugh Ferguson Floyd \u201984 (Bingham L. Vick, Jr. and Judith S. Vick Professor of Music),<\/em> the group continues to keep traditions from years past, including the biennial reunion celebration, which was started in 1979. Alumni returning for the August 2-4 event will enjoy musical direction from both Floyd and Vick, who retired in 2010.<\/p>\n

The group will spend the reunion weekend practicing in the Nan Trammell Herring Music Pavilion, a space the Singers alumni helped raised funds to support \u2013 to the tune of $2.8 million. \u201cThe Herring Music Pavilion created not only \u2018home\u2019 for Furman Singers but also space for a state of the art music library and teaching facility. The construction project was conceived in 1996 by a group of Singers alumni to mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of Singers. It is unique among Furman facilities in that it was entirely funded and endowed by the alumni before construction even began,\u201d Vick said. Gordon \u201865 and Sarah \u201866 Herring gave the lead gift for the project to honor Gordon\u2019s mother, Nan Trammell Herring \u201829, who was involved in many choral groups at Furman and introduced \u201cBrown Eyes\u201d to campus before it was copyrighted by Rhame in 1935.<\/p>\n

Over the years, many illustrious Singers alumni returned to join in the weekend reunion. \u00a0Carolyn Whatley Dennis \u201947, who was the first president of Singers, regularly attends. \u00a0Metropolitan Opera stars, Betsy Bishop (Weiss) ’89 and Keith Jameson Richards ’90, frequented reunions several times over the years. \u201cDespite the many achievements of numerous Singers alumni, (many college professors, successful business leaders, church leaders, even a college president and a Brigadier General), when these folks return to the campus and get together in rehearsal, they quickly return to their college selves,” Vick said. This year, David Ouzts \u201985 is traveling from Memphis to accompany as organist and Robert Haigler \u201974 will be pianist for the weekend.<\/p>\n

The weekend of music and reminiscing will culminate with a worship-concert at First Baptist Church of Greenville on the morning of Sunday, Aug. 4. The Singers will study a variety of repertoire from the decades represented in attendance, including traditional choral tunes and something new they can learn in two rehearsals. \u201cIt is a love fest as much as it is a singing weekend – -the Singers are a real family,\u201d Vick said.<\/p>\n

For more information about the Furman Singers reunion weekend, visit alumni.furman.edu\/furman-singers-reunion<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the past 67 years the Furman Singers have seen many students pass through their ranks. \u00a0Throughout all these years, there are two songs that will always be in their repertoire: \u201cBrown Eyes\u201d <\/em><\/strong>and \u201cThe Battle Hymn of the Republic.<\/em>\u201d When over 100 of the Furman Singers alumni gather for their biennial reunion celebration this August, alumni can look forward to singing those songs again. The weekend of music and reminiscing will culminate with a worship-concert at First Baptist Church of Greenville on the morning of Sunday, Aug. 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":1401,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,3,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-alumni","category-music"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}