Princeton Nassoons - About The Group

About The Group

The Nassoons are an all-male group, and consist of ten to twenty members covering all class years, from freshmen to seniors. Auditions for prospective members are held at the beginning of both fall and spring semesters; however, only freshman and sophomores can join the group. Most musical arrangements are split into five-part harmonies (First Tenor, Second Tenor, Tenor-Baritone, Baritone, Bass), and most feature at least one soloist. The group rehearses four to six nights a week in the basement of 1901 Hall (Room 100), a room that was deeded to them by the University and which they have been singing in since 1949. They perform at University functions, as well as corporate events, dinner parties, country clubs, schools, and other engagements up and down the eastern seaboard during the academic year. They also officially tour three times a year to both domestic and international locales.

The group had its beginnings as part of the Princeton Glee Club in the late 1930s, rehearsing for small on-campus shows in the basement of Murray-Dodge Hall. The turning point for the yet-unnamed group came on a cool autumn evening in 1941. During the annual Princeton-Yale Glee Club concert on the weekend of the schools' annual football game in 1941, the seven men sang a short set in the middle of the program to a dishearteningly lukewarm reception. In a move of desperation, they decided to unveil an arrangement that the Glee Club director had explicitly asked them not to perform, fearing its bawdy five-part harmonies and scandalous lyrics would offend the sensibilities of the stodgy New Haven audience. But as the final chord rang out, the crowd broke into thunderous applause, and the group sang it again as an encore. That song, Perfidia, remains the alumni song of the Nassoons, and it ends their performances to this very day.

Within the Ivy League a cappella music tradition, the Princeton Nassoons are fourth in age, following The Whiffenpoofs (est. 1909), The Spizzwinks(?) (est. 1914), and The Yale Society of Orpheus and Bacchus (est. 1938), all of Yale University. It is the oldest such group at Princeton and an early performer in an Arch sing setting.

The Nassoons are members of Acaprez, an organization of eight Princeton University a cappella groups who organize "arch sings" and abide by regulations regarding the audition process and song ownership. The other member groups are the Tigertones (male), the Footnotes (male), the Tigerlilies (female), the Tigressions (female), the Wildcats (female), the Katzenjammers (co-ed), and Roaring 20 (co-ed).