Music
Known as the "Singing College," Amherst has many a cappella and singing groups. Student-run a cappella groups include the Sabrinas and the Bluestockings (both all-female), the Zumbyes and Route 9 (both all-male), and the DQ and Terras Irradient (both co-ed, the latter being a Christian a cappella group).
The Music Department subsidizes some vocal ensembles, providing them with a professional director and the option to gain academic credit for membership (with some corresponding academic work). These groups, under the overarching umbrella of the "Amherst College Choral Society," include the Concert Choir, Madrigal Singers, Women's Chorus, and the Glee Club, which, at nearly 150 years of age, is the oldest singing group on campus.
Similarly, the Music Department supports a 60-70 member Symphony Orchestra, consisting entirely of students, which regularly performs challenging repertoire . The college also has a Jazz performance program, with one large Ensemble and several smaller Combos.
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Famous quotes containing the word music:
“The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.”
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And the mountain tops that freeze
Bow themselves when he did sing.
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung, as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)