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The Morehouse College Glee Club Concert

We're excited to host the Morehouse College Glee Club’s return during their Spring Break Tour for their annual midday performance.

Before the library's renovation, The Morehouse Glee Club performed at the historical Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Library in downtown Washington D.C. annually. Now, we are inviting them back to continue this cultural tradition and would love to invite you and your family for an afternoon concert to kick off the spring season. An ASL interpreter will be available for the entirety of this performance. 

The Morehouse Glee Club consists of juniors and seniors, led by Dr. David Morrow. Learn more about this year's Quartet below.

Meet the 2022-2023 Morehouse College Quartet

The Morehouse College Quartet has been in existence even longer than the Morehouse College Glee Club.  Campus oral tradition has it that from 1870 forward, there were notable quartet competitions on campus. These frequently included mandolins from the Mandolin Club and Quartet and the Atlanta Baptist (Morehouse) College Quartet with mandolins. These competitions between quartets of classes also made for exciting performances on campus.  The Morehouse College Quartet is the survival of quartet emphasis at the College.

This group of four was the first official singing organization at Morehouse College, and can boast of a number of memorable performances in its history. These include command performances for the late Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 in Warm Springs, Georgia, and a performance prior to the 1930s at the White House. In 1989, the Morehouse College Quartet performed on several occasions: a special luncheon sponsored by the 3M Corporation and the Morehouse Alumni Association's Minnesota Chapter, at which Morehouse President Emeritus Leroy Keith spoke; the Men's Day Concert at the St. Paul A.M.E. Church in Hamilton, Bermuda; and the Fifth Annual Conference on the Music of the Black Composer at the Smithsonian Institution, which honored Dr. Wendell P. Whalum and Hall Johnson and featured the Quartet.  During the 1993-94 academic year, the Quartet took part in a celebration of the music of African-American composers at Carnegie Hall in New York City.  They also performed at the Smithsonian Institution in honor of Dr. King's birthday on a program with Dr. Neil Rudenstine, then president of Harvard University, as keynote speaker.

In the spring of 2001, the Quartet sang for President George Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush at the Morehouse School of Medicine. In the Fall of that same year, they performed for Ray Charles at a special reception honoring him at Davidson House on the Morehouse College campus. Earlier that day, during Morehouse's Opening Convocation, Ray Charles received an Honorary Doctor of Musical Arts degree and donated $1 million to Morehouse College for the second time in 2001.

The Quartet has also performed for National Public Radio's A King Celebration. They also performed in 1997 at the Chicago Club reception hosted by Oprah Winfrey and Sara Lee Corporation Chairman and CEO John H. Bryan, where Ms. Winfrey donated $1 million for scholarships to Morehouse College (see Jet Magazine, December 8, 1997, p. 22). In December, 2008 the Quartet returned to Bermuda to sing for the annual Christmas concert at St. Paul A.M.E. Church.

In September of 2017 the quartet traveled to Baltimore, Maryland to participate in the HBCU-9 Sesquicentennial Summit. This summit was a celebration honoring the nine historically black colleges and universities that were founded in 1867. In March 2018, the quartet performed at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, honoring the life of Dr. King in the place that he was murdered.

The Morehouse College Quartet performs at the discretion of the President of the college and continues to represent the college throughout Atlanta and beyond.

About Dr. David Morrow

David Morrow is a native of Rochester, New York. He earned the Bachelor of Arts degree from Morehouse College in 1980. While at Morehouse, he became a member of Phi Beta Kappa, was awarded the Kemper Harreld Award for Excellence in Music, received departmental honors, and graduated Valedictorian of his class. He received the Master of Music degree from the University of Michigan in 1981 and was elected to Pi Kappa Lambda. He received the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music in 1995. He has studied conducting with Wendell Whalum, Thomas Hilbish, Elmer Thomas, John Leman, Earl Rivers, Elizabeth Green, Teri Murai, Fiora Contino and Donald Neuen.

Dr. Morrow has been a member of the Music faculty at Morehouse College since 1981. In 1987, he succeeded Dr. Wendell P. Whalum as Director of the Glee Club. He is also Director of the Wendell P. Whalum Community Chorus, Co-Director of the Morehouse-Spelman Chorus. He was recently appointed chair of the music department.

Dr. Morrow’s conducting honors include, conducting the Morehouse College Glee Club for the 1991 Kennedy Center Honors as part of the tribute to Robert Shaw, Conductor Laureate, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, conducting soprano Jessye Norman and the Spelman-Morehouse Chorus at Atlanta's Symphony Hall celebrating the 1994 Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday, conducting the combined choruses of the Atlanta University Center and Natalie Cole singing the National Anthem for Super Bowl XXVIII, conducting the Morehouse College Glee Club for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 1996 Atlanta Centennial Olympic Games. In addition, there are numerous performances with the Glee Club in the United States including its centennial celebration, performances with the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra and the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, and international performances with the Glee Club include tours of Poland, Bermuda, the Bahamas, South Africa, Canada, Puerto Rico, Honduras, Algeria and Nigeria.

In 2002, Dr. Morrow was guest conductor for Centro Ecuatoriano Norteamericano’s first Festival of Spirituals in Guayaquil, Ecuador, was the conductor of the 2009 “105 Voices” HBCU Concert Choir at the Kennedy Center, is a recurring conductor on the masterworks series for the Colour of Music Festival in Charleston, South Carolina, and recently conducted works by R. Nathaniel Dett and Adolphus Hailstork in Carnegie Hall on MidAmerica Productions 39th Season.  In addition, he has conducted honors choruses across the country, lectured or conducted workshops in public schools, colleges and universities, including the Detroit Public Schools, University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, Cornell University, University of Cincinnati, Westminster Choir College, Rutgers University, University of Arizona and Portland State University.  His choral arrangements of spirituals and other African American folk music have been published by Alfred Music Publishers, Hal Leonard Music, and Oxford University Press, and GIA Music Publishers.

Dr. Morrow is a member of Metropolitan Atlanta Musicians Association, past president of The National Association of Negro Musicians, and is a member of the Georgia Council for the Arts. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Intercollegiate Men's Choruses, Inc. and Chorus America, Inc. He is a member of the American Choral Directors Association, Chorus America, the Georgia Music Educators Association, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, is a “Friend of the Arts” member of Sigma Alpha Iota.

This program is made possible by the DC Library Foundation. 

The DC Public Library Foundation partners with the DC Public Library to enhance Washington, DC’s public libraries, bringing private philanthropy together with government support to ensure that our libraries deliver the highest quality of service to the District’s residents. With the help of many generous people, the Foundation provides educational programs for children and youth, workforce development training, cultural events, and collection enhancements for DC’s libraries.

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