Author: Daniel Minguez
A new year brought unexpected changes to Occidental’s Glee Club. Its members, who assumed they would return to last year’s Glee Club director Dr. Jeffrey Bernstein, were instead informed over the summer that he would not be returning. Glee Club member Steph Kay claimed that Bernstein told them he wanted to “focus on his compositions.”
Bernstein’s replacement is current Caltech Glee Club director, Desiree LaVertu. LaVertu has spent the last nine years at Caltech where, unlike at Oxy, Glee Club is commnity-based and does not hold tryouts. The Caltech Glee Club is a choir that LaVertu estimates is comprised of sixty percent students and forty percent faculty and neighbors.
The job is a step up for LaVertu, as Occidental is more selective about the ranks of its main choir. It has a strong tradition of excellence which she claims to have heard of. “When I was going to college, I heard about Occidental’s Glee Club, and I’m excited to be part of that,” LaVertu said. Maintaining the Glee Club’s prestige is a task that Music Department Chair Dr. Irene Girton thinks LaVertu is up to, which is why she made the call to the Caltech director asking her to step in. LaVertu is also familiar with Dr. Allen Gross, a professor of Music at Occidental and the director of the Occidental Caltech orchestra, “I’ve worked with him for years because he’s at Caltech. It’s nice to have a colleague that I know already.”
LaVertu is confident about the coming year, relying on experience which extends far beyond directing the community choir at Caltech.
LaVertu began her career as an educator by preparing young singers for their jury exams, a process in which a musician’s abilities are evaluated by a panel or jurors. It was in this situation that LaVertu found she liked teaching and “had a knack for it.”
At the performance level, she is a soprano and pianist with a Bachelor of Music in Accompanying from California State University Fullerton. LaVertu is a founding member of the female voice quartet “Diva Complex” and also performed with the Donald Brinegar Singers.
On the academic side, her studies with Brinegar coincided with a master’s degree of Music in Choral Conducting and Vocal Performance from the University of Nevada, Reno. She has spent the last nine years directing at Caltech, and the last four years on the voice faculty at Chapman University and Cal State L.A. Before that she directed the Choir at Ramona Convent Secondary School, an all-girls College Prep school in the San Gabriel Valley.
LaVertu will continue directing at Caltech and maintain a position as the vocal coordinator for the Idyllwild Arts Summer Program festival choir while she is at Occidental.
Despite the departure of Bernstein, attrition in the Glee Club is low. LaVertu only knows of one Glee Club member who is not returning this year, the reason being to take time out and study for the MCATs. Two other students will be rejoining the Glee Club after they return in the spring from study abroad.
LaVertu expressed that the Glee Club is overcoming all the challenges one would expect from the suddenness of Bernstein’s departure and her arrival. Glee Club members, who preferred not to be named, are struggling with the replacement. “It isn’t her [LaVertu’s] fault Jeffrey left, but the change is still hard to get used to,” one student said.
Yet the Interim Director is naturally optimistic about the upcoming season, and there will not be any changes in the concert calendar.
“That’s what I inherited, we won’t be making any changes,” LaVertu said. The Homecoming concert on Nov. 14 marks the first concert of the Glee Club’s season.
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