Holden Reunion 2010: A Farewell to Jim

Program

(Subject to change)
We're expecting this to be the largest pan-Holden reunion ever! Plan to come to Harvard by mid-afternoon on Friday, April 30 2010 and register at Holden Chapel in Harvard Yard. You may pick up your registration packet and tickets starting at 3 pm.

• At Friday night’s concert, each of the three student choirs will perform a selection of favorites and Jim will say a few words. We want to pack the house with alumni and raise the roof with our applause!

• The concert will be followed by a reception in Memorial Hall’s recently restored Annenberg Hall (previously Alumni Hall), one of the most impressive spaces at Harvard. Unless you graduated before 1927 or after 1998, you won’t likely have spent too much time eating here. It’s now the Freshman dining hall and not open for public viewing. It’s rarely made available to student or alumni groups, and has only been secured as a special favor to the Holden Choruses.

• Saturday begins bright and early with a Pan-Holden group seminar, and then we'll split into our three respective groups for organized singing rehearsals, conversation and general gathering. We’ve invited conductors and accompanists from over the years to make a guest appearances alongside Jim at the individual group sings, and encourage pre-Marvin era alums to join in. You might even hear from your tour organizer about a mini-tour reunion during this time period – or organize one yourself!

  Later, we’re back together again for a celebratory group sing-through of a major work conducted by Dr. Jameson Marvin. Current contenders include the Brahms Requiem and Bach’s B-Minor Mass.

• We’ll have just enough time afterwards to get gussied up for the elegant banquet at the Kendall Square Marriott, the only banquet hall in Cambridge with a ballroom large enough to contain all the expected alumni from all three Holden Choruses, plus their guests! With delicious hors d’oeuvres and plated dinner choice of lobster crusted haddock, brie stuffed chicken or a vegetarian/Kosher option, the banquet will be a great opportunity for mingling and conversation with some of your best friends from your Holden years. Why not give them a call to make sure they are coming?

  After dinner, we plan to have a keynote speech in Jim’s honor by his friend Reverend Peter Gomes, and Jim himself will say a few words. If you like, bring a personal card with you to drop in the box for Jim to read later. We expect to round out the pan-Holden part of the weekend with an afterparty that is still in the planning stages.

• Sunday is reserved for individual group reunions. The Radcliffe Choral Society, the Harvard Glee Club, and the Harvard Radcliffe Collegium Musicum will each have their own brunches in separate locations. These brunches, held on a smaller scale than the preceding large-group events, encourage a more intimate reunion of close friends. They are family-oriented, and the perfect place to reconnect or show off your kids and family to your college friends. Impromptu singing will undoubtedly occur over the orange juice and coffee. We guarantee that you won’t want to leave until long after the last crumb has been swept up.

We want this reunion to be fun for the whole family! For your guests who aren’t singing, or if you can stick around Sunday afternoon, why not take some time to stroll around campus or along the Charles River? The Sackler museum will be showing some of the major works from the Fogg and Busch-Reisinger which are closed for renovation. Did you know there are 8 different war memorials inside Memorial Church, including one to the World War I Women of Radcliffe College? The Harvard Museum of Natural History, the Glass Flowers, and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography are great places to visit with your family, or you can revisit the Coop and go shopping in the Square. It’s Arts First weekend at Harvard, and student art exhibits will be on display.