Fenno Button

The first time I saw Fenno's face, it was on the button on the lapel of a Glee Club member before a Harvard-Yale Concert. I was a freshman, and didn't quite understand why one would put one's conductor's face, no matter how dashing, on a button.

Then I joined the Glee Club, and discovered a man whose passion for music, for community, for tradition and for people created one of the formative experiences of our lives. While conducting, Fenno was strong and kind, impatient and wry, always trying to draw out of us that elusive performance that only he could hear. He weaved song into our lives so powerfully that to hear a fragment of one of our shared songs is to revisit that time and place when Fenno's passion and guidance helped transform each of us into something far greater than ourselves. He taught us love, grace, humor and joy, in rehearsal, on stage, and everywhere in between.

Fenno Heath, you profoundly influenced my life. I still have your button. I always will.

Craig Motlong
YGC 1989-1992