"The Greatest of These is Love"

The Greatest of These is Love

Before I even came to Yale, I knew about the singing. Oh how I knew about the singing. One of my greatest dreams was to "get into" the Yale Glee Club. The happy day I learned that I was accepted into YGC, I told my father, Ronald Roseman, who was a colleague of Fenno's at the Yale School of Music, and he shared my excitement. He knew how much it meant to me and how wonderful an experience I was going to have singing under Fenno.

And wonderful experience I did have.

I learned so much from you musically, Fenno. How to make music, versus sing notes; how to breathe (or not!); how to since everything from spirituals to Berlioz to Ives to Yales songs to Heath…; how to sing oh-so-much better; how to sing ("How do they do it?") and how to SING.

But I experienced much more than "just" the wonderful music and singing. Through you and YGC, I made fantastic, life-long friends—my fellow YGCers, YGC alumni, other Yalies, you and Carol and your family …. Fenno and Carol, you welcomed us all into your family. And I have no idea how you did it, but you never seemed to forget any of our names. After 39 years, that's a lot of names! I travelled to exotic locales with the Glee Club—Europe, East and West, on my first trip out of the US (ex-Canada), all up and down New England; and of course, the Industrial Cities Winter Tour, for which I was the proud co-Tour Manager with Matt Ringel. And after a turbulent and emotional first-semester experience with Whim, for whom I left YGC to pursue a "glamourous" singing group experience, you welcomed me back into YGC for my second semester with open arms, love, and nary a scolding. Thank you.

Fenno, thank you for giving me the gift of making me part of the Yale Glee Club.

Fenno, thank you also for your music. Thank you for arranging the Yale Songs in SATB! Thank you for recognizing, enabling and promoting that women singing in the Glee Club would be a good thing. Without you, I may never have gotten the chance to experience—and still experience for the rest of my life through the Yale Alumni Chorus—the joys of choral singing with Yalies.

Thank you too for your own beautiful compositions—"Cascade", "Tiger, Tiger", "The Lamb", "Fern Hill"…to name a few. Your pieces are always a joy to sing, and the endings are always, well, so unmistakably "Fenno". I always particularly enjoyed singing your beautiful setting of Corinthians. There are so many parts in that piece where the harmonies and melodies make me feel like I am soaring on heavenly air—the music is so beautiful. "The greatest of these is love…" Indeed. Fenno and Carol, thank you for sharing your love with us, through your music, through your family, through your friendship, through your hearts. Fenno, we will always love you.

With Much Love,
Rémie Roseman Christ
Yale '91
YGC 1988 - 1991
remiekim@remiekim.com