For more than 60 years, the Alice Millar Chapel Choir has been a place for students — from classical singers to chemical engineers — to come together and make music.
But on Aug. 14, the University notified choir students by email that it had chosen to discontinue the Chapel Choir, effective immediately. According to a University spokesperson, Chapel Choir was among the programs cut in response to the Trump administration’s freezing of $790 million in federal funding for Northwestern in April.
“The discontinuation of the Alice Millar Chapel Choir was a result of a review of the programming offered by Religious & Spiritual Life, as well as University-wide budget constraints, which required difficult choices across programs,” the University spokesperson said to The Daily in an email.
The spokesperson said faculty were notified of this decision a few weeks before students. Stephen Alltop, the former director, will remain at Northwestern as a senior lecturer at the Bienen School of Music, and Eric Budzynski, the former accompanist, will remain in his position as Associate Director of Spiritual Wellness and Contemplative Practice.
Chapel Choir has served as an ambassador for NU in the community, Alltop said. Just in the past year, the choir performed a masterwork alongside the other Bienen choral groups, held a joint concert with high school students from the surrounding area and sang on Sundays at three different churches in Chicago.
Alltop said the pieces Chapel Choir performed, including Mozart’s “Requiem” and Monteverdi’s “Vespers of 1610,” served as “educational gold mines” for students. Beyond the opportunity for students to grow as musicians, Alltop said the choir has been a place for students to grow closer as friends.
“The choir, quite simply, has represented the very best that Northwestern has to offer,” Alltop said.
Kelsey Norton (Weinberg ’24) joined Chapel Choir virtually at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. In an otherwise isolating time, she said it allowed her to find community.
As a pre-med student, Norton said she often found that the choir provided a break from the large, competitive nature of her classes. Now a second-year M.D. candidate at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences she said she looks back fondly on her four years in the choir.
“Being able to come to Chapel Choir and be creative and supportive and collaborative was so crucial for my soul, and mental health and well-being, throughout college,” Norton said.
Despite running the NU Dance Marathon, working as a researcher and even writing a novel while at NU, Norton still said Chapel Choir was the single most important part of her college experience.
She said she was “floored” when she found out Chapel Choir was being discontinued this year.
“I am almost at a loss for words for how heartbroken I am that this opportunity is not going to be available to students in the coming years,” Norton said.
Norton said the choir is a place for people from all different backgrounds to unite behind a common goal. It’s where she met Logan, her partner of almost four years.
Norton isn’t the only one to find love through Chapel Choir. Kaylee Feller-Simmons (Bienen ’19) said she met her husband, Paul, while she was getting her master’s at NU.
“The way he tipped me off that he was interested in me romantically, not just as a friend, was that he showed up at a Chapel Choir performance with flowers. And that just kind of became a tradition for us,” Feller-Simmons said.
Feller-Simmons served as the manager of the choir for a year. She said she learned a lot and was even able to use the experience to get future jobs, with Alltop’s encouragement.
After that, she moved out of and back into the Evanston area a couple of times, but said she always had a place in the choir.
“I think I’m not the only person who found Northwestern to be a very socially isolating place,” Feller-Simmons said. “Chapel Choir was the way to meet people.”
Rising Weinberg senior Kenny Ryu said he found a home away from home in Chapel Choir after moving to Evanston from South Korea.
Ryu said he didn’t know much choral music in English at the time of his audition. When Ryu told Alltop, he immediately offered to play “Arirang,” a traditional Korean folk song he had learned decades prior on a children’s choir trip.
“From the beginning, I felt very welcomed by (Alltop),” Ryu said. “It was always just nice to know that the conductor I was singing for has a wide appreciation of multiple cultures, and he embraces it.”
Safe to say, Ryu got the part. Since then, he took a break from his studies at NU to serve his mandatory military service in South Korea. When he returned, Alltop welcomed him with open arms.
Rising Weinberg sophomore Owen Rucins also said he joined Chapel Choir as a freshman because of Alltop’s warm personality. By the time he showed up for his first rehearsal, he was sold.
“It felt like I had immediately found my home on campus,” Rucins said. “I knew over the next four years here, I would always be welcome, and I would always get to contribute, and I would always meet great people and grow as a musician, as a person, as a student.”
Rucins thought it was an incredible find, which is why he was so disappointed when he learned that his new home on campus would no longer exist.
He said he will miss weekend trips into Chicago to sing at local churches, chatting on car rides with fellow members and meeting new people out in the community.
“I had such an amazing time, and I will be so sad if it doesn’t continue,” Rucins said. “But if that one year is all I got, I’m happy. I will always be a member of Chapel Choir.”
David Samson contributed reporting.
Email: [email protected]
X: @SQPowers04
Related Stories:
— ‘A once in a lifetime opportunity’: NU Symphony Orchestra and Choirs perform Britten’s War Requiem
— Community choirs come together for musical celebration of L. Stanley Davis
— Holiday magic returns to Alice Millar with Chapel Choir, brass and orchestral ensembles concert
