You have joined the cast of the dynamic

You have joined the cast of the dynamic, creative entertainment organization called Ball State University Singers. Welcome aboard! At home, across the state, and around the world, we’re known as Indiana’s Official Goodwill Ambassadors. Our reputation for fresh, innovative, quality entertainment was built through nearly four decades of pioneering achievements--a harmonic blend of dedication, creative genius and plain hard work. This handbook will introduce you to our vital University Singers traditions and policies, and at the same time provide you with an overview of the entire University Singers team, of which YOU are now an important part. Our challenge together is to

continue to give our best possible effort to maintain the highest possible standards.

Again, we sincerely welcome you to our Ball State University Singers cast. Congratulations and best wishes for a successful year. Now, on with the Show!

The University Singers story isn’t new to our loyal friends and fans: Nearly forty years ago we barged in with simple idea that concerts should be fun. The “long-hairs” dismissed our informalapproach as a passing fad, but we experimented with innovative ideas--singers who dance, instrumentalists who sing, staging, costumes, sound and lights--and found a ready audience for our brand of music. Perhaps we had a good idea after all! Here is our story.

Among the treasures in our archives is a letter dated November 18, 1964 to John R. Emens, president of Ball State Teachers College, from the director of the Department of Music, Dr. Robert Hargreaves:

Applied Arts) the desirability of developing a “sharp” choral organization

President Emens enthusiastically ap

proved the faculty proposal because just a few months later (February 1965) the Indiana General Assembly would grant University status to Ball State “in recognition of phenomenal growth, variety, and quality of programs and in anticipation of its future role.” The entertainment organization called University Singers was founded to represent the progressive spirit of the new Ball State University to the world.

After auditions were held in November 1964, twenty-seven student performers were invited to the first rehearsal just before Christmas. On the day Ball State became a University, it was the University Singers who entertained the capacity audience who gathered in the brand-new Emens Auditorium to wait for the legislative proclamation to be approved and hand-delivered from Indianapolis.

Did you know.....?

Joe Cianciolo, a 2001 graduate of Ball State, wrote his Honors College undergraduate thesis on the history of Ball State University Singers. You can read his thesis in PDF format online. Simply go to http://www.bsu.edu/web/vcarnes/Honors_Theses/author_list.asp and scroll down to Cianciolo, Joseph. In the right column click on the Acrobat icon, and his thesis will appear on your computer screen!

philosophy of this department is one of all-out efforts to go “straight up.”

This group is in direct line with this effort. It is also important to note that,

simply because a great variety of “Lighter Music” will be performed, it will

be quality choral performance of a completely entertaining type of literature.

The “sharp choral organization” which Dr. Hargreaves described to President Emens did go “straight up” under the direction of Don Neuen. An innovative and multi-talented ensemble was drawn from every area of the University, a tradition which continues to this day. The group proved to be immediately popular and was in constant demand. A lighthearted musical variety format included choral singing (accompanied by piano, bass, guitar, and banjo) and individual and small-group specialty acts.

To celebrate our first birthday in January 1966 the University Singers presented a show called Spectacular in Emens Auditorium. The sold-out performances raised more than $7,000 for music scholarships (another continuing tradition) while unprecedented sales of a live performance album established the fanatic loyalty of an admiring and growing audience. The series of annual Spectaculars, interrupted only by restricted travel during the energy crisis of 1978, continued for nearly twenty years and was resumed to celebrate our twenty-fifth anniversary.

Founding cast member Jack Trussel, a Ball State graduate student who went on to a career as an internationally renowned opera star, served as acting director after Don Neuen's departure. Under his leadership University Singers accepted invitations to perform in an ever-widening circle. The challenge of balancing careers as full-time students and as popular entertainers began to face the cast. A strictly limited performance schedule was established and immediately filled as more than twenty-five bookings were accepted more than a year in advance. A demanding audience proved too much for the restricted schedule as educators, statesmen, and leaders of business and industry clamored to host the remarkable students from Muncie, and the state of Indiana became our stage!

In 1968 Larry Boye became director of a rapidly growing performance ensemble. He introduced imaginative costumes, choreography, and state-of-the-art technology while guiding University Singers to national prominence and critical acclaim. In the span of a decade the cast toured through twenty states performing for the Nixon and Carter presidential inaugurals, Worlds Fairs in Spokane and Knoxville, and national and international conventions. In 1978 the Bob Hope Collegiate Talent Search judged the University Singers to be the nation’s Number One Entertainment Group.

Along the way, the star-struck Ball State students performed with entertainment notables Red Skelton, Lawrence Welk, Rich Little, Lorne Green, Dionne Warwick, Jimmy Durante, Liza Minnelli, and Olivia Newton-John. In a continuing series of Legislative Concurrent Resolutions the Indiana General Assembly has named the Ball State University Singers "Indiana’s Official Goodwill Ambassadors," a title we’ve been proud to carry across America on concert tours to Great Britain, Iceland, Newfoundland, Greenland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Greece, Poland, Labrador, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Latvia, and twice to Romania and the U.S.S.R.

Given the University Singers performance record and reputation, the idea for a professional-scale concert tour had been considered for years. On two occasions in the 1980s the Ball State administration arranged for the group to make extended promotional and recruiting tours through the Midwest and to Indiana schools. Selected cast members took time from their academic

pursuits to "bus-and-truck" around the state to fulfill a backlog of performance commitments and to represent the image of an expanding Ball State University. The tours were an overwhelming public relations success, but a financial disaster! The dedicated casts proved that student entertainers can withstand the rigors of a full-scale professional schedule, but our otherwise outstanding School of Music is not in show business, but rather the business of education.

As a result of our tour experiment the School of Music, College of Fine Arts, and University administrators pledged renewed support to the original concept of an outstanding, but limited performing ensemble. The organization was restructured to offer students time to explore a variety of entertainment arts, as well as for assuming mature professional production responsibilities. To lead the revitalization of our dynamic entertainment organization, nationally-recognized showman and educator Fritz Mountford was appointed Director of University Singers in the fall of 1985. He joined the Ball State faculty after a show business career that includes credits with Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians and with Walt Disney Productions. In addition, "Mr. Mountford" founded the nationwide festival of choral concerts and workshops called "The Art of Entertainment" and continues to appear as a guest conductor and teacher all over the United States and in Europe. Under his direction, the University Singers were featured in a series of choreography and production-oriented videotapes through which we continue to reach a world-wide audience! During his tenure, two of Fritz's graduate assistants--Rob Lawrence and Michael Davis--stepped up to the plate at various times as acting directors of University Singers, both of them carrying on the tradition of entertainment and cast effort that marks this group.

On January 29, 1994 we celebrated our Thirtieth Spectacular Season, a hallmark anniversary of ideas, events, and people that have become The Show called University Singers. The current cast was joined onstage by representatives of more than seven hundred former cast members for a spectacular once-in-a-lifetime finale on the Emens Auditorium stage. Governor Evan Bayh’s proclamation recognized that "the Ball State University Singers have given voice to the spirit of Indiana through their songs of faith and laughter and love." He congratulated us as influential pioneers and educators. He proclaimed January 29 Ball State University Singers Day in Indiana. In celebrating three decades of musical magic, we’d rediscovered our roots and recommitted our resources to the Quality, Sincerity, and Fun that have become the foundation of the Ball State University Singers.

Dr. Jeffrey Carter assumed the mantle of producer/director with the 2000-2001 school year. His renewed emphasis on a broad span of musical styles, on vocal as well as visual excellence

, has been noted by audiences and teachers across the Midwest. Dr. Carter led University Singers to perform in the East Room of the White House and at the Pentagon just three months after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. And under his leadership, Ball State University Singers is undertaking a series of school concerts and clinics in addition to performances in some of Indiana's major theatres and community auditoriums. In 2003, University Singers also mounted their first-ever Mid-America Show Choir Championship, hosting show and concert choirs from fourteen different high schools on the Emens Auditorium stage. The 2004-05 season featured University Singers performing for Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels' inaugural banquet, for the Indiana state House of Representatives, and for audiences in the People's Republic of China. These performances came on the heels of the previous season of performances for music educators, at both the Indiana state music teachers' convention and the divisional convention of American Choral Directors Association.

Through nearly forty spectacular seasons 700 student singers and dancers, instrumentalists, technicians, choreographers, costume and set designers, writers, and arrangers have shared their talents as Ball State University Singers. As Indiana’s Official Goodwill Ambassadors we’ve represented the spirit and aspirations of hundreds of thousands of Ball State students and faculty around the world and up and down the heartland of America. Appearances change through years, but we all hold in common cherished once-in-a-lifetime memories that run the gamut from humorous to glamorous. Clippings and photographs chronicle our activities and achievements both onstage and backstage—forty years of challenges and thrills, experiences joyful and sorrowful, and individual accomplishments both great and small.

Ball State University Singers before performing with Kenny Rogers, December 2002

1964 In November the Music faculty votes to establish a popular vocal ensemble named in recognition of the elevation of Ball State to university status. Ball State University Singers begin rehearsals under founding director Don Neuen.

1965 In January the first performance in Indianapolis meets critical acclaim. University Singers perform for legislative ceremony in Emens Auditorium.

1966 First Spectacular held in Emens Auditorium. Attendance: 7,212. Raised $7,000 for School of Music Scholarship Fund.

1968 Larry Boye begins seventeen-year career as Director. First of a series of summer State Fair performances.

1970 University Singers hosts the first in a continuing series of official Parents Day Variety Shows.

1971 Indiana General Assembly proclaims University Singers to be "Indiana’s Official Goodwill Ambassadors." Entertained National Governors Conference in French Lick.

1972 Dedication show for the Indianapolis Convention Center. USO tours to military bases in the southern United States and first tour abroad to Iceland, Greenland, Labrador, and Newfoundland.

1974 Performance schedule tops 140 shows in a single season. National Governors Convention in Dallas. Shows in Spokane, Washington for EXPO ’74.

1975 Tenth Anniversary Spectacular expands to record-breaking three SRO performances. In Emens auditorium this achievement is shared only with comedian Red Skelton and Broadway musical CATS.

1976 First experiments with state-of-the-art clic track accompaniment recordings. Patriotic bicentennial Spectacular features guest star William Warfield.

1977 Shows in Washington D.C. for inauguration of President Carter. Spectacular goes "on-the-road" to South Bend.

1978 Bob Hope Collegiate Talent Search names University Singers the Nation’s Number One Collegiate Entertainment Group. Spectacular cancelled due to national energy crisis. Concert tour to Latvia, Poland, and U.S.S.R.

1980 Spectacular features Dancing Waters on the Emens stage. Concert tour to Romania, Greece, and Cyprus.

1982 Midwest Tour: 107 shows in 61 cities, including World’s Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee. Second concert tour to U.S.S.R., Romania, and Bulgaria.

1984 Second Midwest Tour: 120 shows in 10 weeks. Featured artists with Muncie Symphony Orchestra.

1985 Fritz Mountford named Director. Command performance for the Indiana Society of Chicago with the Smothers Brothers.

1987 General Assembly again names University Singers Goodwill Ambassadors. Concert tour to London, England.

1988 Pacers National Anthem with Nancy Reagan at Market Square Arena. Rob Lawrence named Acting Director. Film America Sings! and Hal Leonard educational video tapes.

1989 Rob Lawrence serves as Acting Director. Year-long Production Center renovations due to School of Music fire. Spring Break tour to New Orleans.

1990 University Singers celebrate a Quarter-Century of Musical Magic with a twenty-fifth anniversary Spectacular in Emens Auditorium. University Singers named Honors Show Choir by a panel of Broadway and Hollywood professionals at the Collegiate Showcase Invitational in Chicago.

1992 Hoosier Holidays TV special and cassette raise $57,000 for Indiana’s homeless. Concert tour to Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein.

1993 Guest Artists with Muncie Symphony Orchestra. Benefit performance to restore historic Paramount Theatre in Anderson. Christmas show with Judy Collins. Series of shows at Walt Disney World in Florida.

1994 University Singers celebrate Thirty Spectacular Seasons with over 200 current and former cast members onstage in Emens Auditorium. PSI Energy "Powerful Performances" to benefit local Arts Councils.

1995 Concert tour to The Netherlands, Belgium, and France. Spectacular goes on-the-road to Pendleton to benefit Chris Coyle Memorila Scholarship fund.

1996 Entertained Ball State Alumni Family Night in the Indianapolis Children’s Museum. Ball Memorial Hospital Festival of Trees and Lights benefit performance. Shipboard shows on Spring Break Bahamas cruise. Guest artists with Muncie Symphony Orchestra and former cast member Jack Trussel.

1997 Opening ceremonies of World Championship Triathlon. Series of Florida-area Alumni receptions with President Worthen. Hosted University Relations Ball State Fellows Banquet. Introduced "Cool Clothes for Kids" campus-wide clothing drive. Public television broadcast of Spectacular’97.

2000 Jeffrey Richard Carter named new Director of University Singers to lead into new millennium.

2001 Performances include the Indiana Special Olympics opening ceremonies and by invitation at the White House for a Christmas program. Joined forces with Indiana Public Radio and Muncie Center for the Arts for special projects.

2002 Growing presence in Indiana as major philanthropic groups call on University Singers for performance. Relationship with Habitat for Humanity established. Holiday show performance with Kenny Rogers.

2004 Performances at Indiana Music Educators Association annual convention, and at the divisional American Choral Directors Convention

2005 Performance tour to the People's Republic of China, with performances in five cities