HRCM:
An Introduction

The Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum, a student-run organization at Harvard College, is a select ensemble of musicians and students dedicated to the highest caliber of both a cappella and choral-orchestral masterworks performances. Spanning nearly five octaves and six centuries, our diverse repertoire has delighted audiences around the world, most recently in Australia, where the Collegium spent its 35th anniversary tour.

Singers in HRCM are also given the opportunity to perform with our two subset ensembles, the Chamber Singers, a smaller ensemble that specializes in Renaissance works, and the Collegium Underground, focusing on a cappella classics.

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Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum Auditions

The Holden Chapel Choirs (the Collegium, Harvard Glee Club, and Radcliffe Choral Society), Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus, and Choir in Progress (CHIP) hold auditions each year at the start of the fall semester. The process begins with preliminary auditions. This audition takes place privately with our conductor, and its purpose is to evaluate vocal ability/quality, musicianship, and musicality. It consists of vocalise, ear training exercises, and a short sight-reading excerpt. At the preliminary audition, auditionees are asked to rank the choirs in order of preference, and after all auditionees are evaluated, each choir draws up a list of preliminary acceptances.

Those who are accepted at this stage to one or both Holden Choirs appropriate to their gender are then asked to attend two rehearsals for each choir that has preliminarily accepted them. At these rehearsals, preliminary acceptees and returning members learn the piece of music that has been chosen for the quartet audition. The final step in the process is the quartet audition, at which each candidate sings the quartet piece for his or her choir of choice along with three returning members on the other parts.