The Princeton Nassoons, also known as the 'Soons, are a ten to twenty-member low-voice a cappella group at Princeton University. The group has been officially self-selecting (and self-directing) since 1941, although the original group is known to have sung together as early as 1939. The Nassoons are the oldest a cappella group at Princeton University, and they are also the oldest continuously all-male collegiate a cappella group in the United States. Before the arch, rivals compete for newcomers - The Daily Princetonian
The Nassoons have performed at a number of prominent venues, including the White House,Musical Groups to be Featured at White House Holiday Events. Press release. Office of the First Lady, December 6, 2006. the US Open, and have also appeared on The Early Show,Nassoons on The Early Show and Good Morning America.Nassoons on Good Morning America Additionally, they have performed for various heads of state, such as Queen Noor of Jordan and the royal family of Liechtenstein. They also appeared in Admission (2013 film) starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd. In 2024, the Nassoons held a private performance for GRAMMY award-winning singer-songwriter Laufey.
Name
Nassoons founding member Charles Kennedy ’42 recalled proposing "Nassoons" during an informal discussion among the original members in 1942. From a window overlooking Princeton's FitzRandolph Gate, portions of the street signs for Nassau Street and Witherspoon Street appeared to overlap, visually combining "Nass" and "-oon". Other members later described the name as a combination of "Nassau" and "tunes", or as a wordplay involving Nassau Hall and the bassoon.
History Founding and early years, 1941–1948 The Nassoons were formed in 1941 by eight members of the Princeton University Glee Club who sought to establish a small-group a cappella ensemble at Princeton. The group first attracted significant attention during that year's Princeton–Yale Glee Club concert, where it performed an arrangement of Perfidia. The song was repeated as an encore and later became a traditional closing song and alumni anthem of the group.
During the early 1940s, the Nassoons expanded their activities beyond campus, performing at colleges, preparatory schools, hotels, clubs, and military camps. The group appeared at venues including New York's Rainbow Room and, within a year of its debut, sang in the presence of Ella Fitzgerald. It also performed music associated with bandleader Lester Lanin and recorded with actress and singer Gertrude Lawrence. Although the group remained affiliated with the Glee Club during its first years, it increasingly developed an independent performance schedule and repertoire.
The Nassoons also appeared in the Princeton Triangle Club's 1942 production of Time and Again, performing during scene changes and in several musical numbers. In May 1943, the group presented a twenty-one-song concert at Blair Arch, an early example of the outdoor singing performances that later became a feature of Princeton campus life.
The group disbanded in 1943 as Princeton students left campus during World War II. Before suspending its activities, the Nassoons released recordings and adopted a constitution providing that the group's name could not be revived without the participation of returning alumni, who would audition and select a new membership.
Nassoon alumni returned to Princeton in May 1946 and revived the group after a three-year hiatus. In September of that year, Princeton's Committee on Non-Athletic Organizations granted the Nassoons a charter as an independent student organization. The reconstituted group participated in the Triangle Club's first postwar production, Clear the Track, and made its campus debut with the Glee Club at Alexander Hall in November 1946. It also performed that evening at a Daily Princetonian dance with Les Brown and his orchestra.
In 1947, the Nassoons released their first recording since the wartime hiatus and resumed joint appearances with the Whiffenpoofs. That year, members of the two groups also began a touch-football game associated with the annual Princeton–Yale football weekend. The joint concert and football traditions remained active more than eighty years later. By 1948, the Nassoons held weekly informal performances at the Nassau Inn, rehearsed several times each week, and maintained a repertoire of approximately thirty-five to forty songs. New members initially served a probationary period before receiving full membership in the group.
Expansion and musical development, 1950s–1960s
During the 1950s, the Nassoons developed several features that became central to the group's long-term identity. The group established its headquarters in Room 100 of 1901 Hall, commonly known as the "'Soon Room", where it rehearsed and maintained its collection of arrangements and memorabilia. The four-tiger emblem associated with the group also took its enduring form during this period. A four-singer design first appeared on the group's 1949 album and was professionally redrawn for its 1951 release.
The decade was also important in the development and preservation of the group's repertoire. Nassoon arrangers increasingly moved beyond conventional block harmony, using the five voice parts to create independent inner lines, rhythmic accompaniments, and layered backgrounds beneath soloists. Alumni also undertook a systematic effort to recover and standardize the group's written music. Beginning in 1955, Herbert Spencer ’49 compiled surviving and reconstructed scores into a collection known as the Black Book. Completed in 1959, its first edition contained nearly 100 arrangements across 212 pages; supplements followed in 1964 and 1975.
Recordings became a regular part of the group's activity, with albums generally issued every two years. The Nassoons also appeared on the 1954 compilation WPRU Presents: Popular Music of Princeton and the 1962 release Traditional Songs of Princeton, which included performances with the Princeton Tigertones and the Princeton University Band. Touring expanded beyond the northeastern United States to destinations including Bermuda, Puerto Rico, Toronto, Florida, Jamaica, and the Bahamas. The group also made network-television appearances and maintained a regular schedule of performances at colleges, private events, clubs, and resorts.
During the early 1960s, arrangers including Richard Peterson ’60, Arthur Mellor ’63, and Kent Mullikin ’64 further developed the group's jazz-influenced five-part style. Arrangements from this period frequently alternated between featured soloists, smaller vocal ensembles, and the full group, while employing more complex internal harmonies. The group also expanded its body of Princeton songs and traditional material. In 1964, the Nassoons appeared on the RCA album Campus Hootenanny, recorded following an intercollegiate song festival at Brown University.
Later in the decade, the repertoire began to incorporate folk music, bossa nova, rock, and contemporary popular songs. Jackson Howe ’69's arrangements of "Cherish" and "Yesterday" were among the group's earliest sustained efforts to adapt contemporary rock and pop music to its established five-part format.
The Nassoons held their first large, formally organized alumni reunion in 1964. The event led to an annual gathering during Princeton's Reunions weekend, traditionally followed by singing at Blair Hall. Beginning in late 1964, the group also made recurring appearances at The Greenbrier resort in West Virginia.
Changes in repertoire and style, 1970s–1980s
The Nassoons substantially revised both their repertoire and performance practices during the 1970s. Music director Peter Urquhart ’74 reviewed arrangements that had been transmitted partly by ear and compared the versions being performed with surviving written scores. He restored several older works, revised others, and removed material that had fallen out of regular use. The project helped preserve arrangements whose harmonies and voice parts had changed after years of oral transmission.
The broader Princeton a cappella community expanded during the same period. The Princeton Tigerlilies were founded in 1971, and Urquhart and Tigerlily member Mimi Danley co-founded the Princeton Katzenjammers in 1973 as Princeton's first coeducational a cappella ensemble. Increased competition and coordination among campus groups later contributed to common rules governing auditions, song selection, and the scheduling of arch performances.
During the early 1980s, arrangers combined contemporary material with a renewed interest in jazz standards, Princeton songs, and older Nassoon repertoire. Songs by Van Morrison, Stevie Wonder, and the Doobie Brothers appeared alongside arrangements associated with Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington, and Charlie Parker. The group also adapted to changing recording technology, releasing its first album on cassette in 1986 and moving from vinyl records to compact discs with its 1990 album.
Transportation changes facilitated a growing performance schedule. The group acquired an automobile in 1980 and later purchased a used van, largely through the support of patron Frederick Koch. By the end of the decade, fall tours had expanded beyond regional travel; in 1989, the Nassoons undertook their first European tour, visiting West Germany and Switzerland.
International touring and performance development, 1990s
International touring became a regular part of the Nassoons' activities during the 1990s. The group returned to continental Europe in 1990 and subsequently toured Jordan in 1991, Japan and Hong Kong in 1992, Hungary in 1993, Switzerland in 1995, and the United Kingdom in 1996. These trips marked a transition from the primarily domestic and Caribbean touring patterns of earlier decades to a more extensive international schedule.
The repertoire also became more stylistically and culturally varied. Arrangements during the decade incorporated beatboxing, contemporary vocal-jazz techniques, choral works, and music drawn from Hawaiian, Indian, Israeli, South African, and other traditions. The 1994 album included "Lagta Nahin Hai Dil Mera", an arrangement of a poem attributed to the Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, and "I Need You", which featured Tigerlily Kara McClendon ’94 as the first female guest vocalist on a Nassoons album. The group also performed mixed-voice choral repertoire with the Katzenjammers, including Franz Biebl's setting of "Ave Maria".
In 1994, the Nassoons created the office of performance director, assigning a member responsibility for choreography, staging, and the visual presentation of concerts. The position reflected a broader shift toward more deliberately staged performances and became one of the group's principal undergraduate offices.
Recording activity expanded alongside the repertoire. Five albums released during the decade introduced nearly forty new recorded songs, and the group increasingly drew upon arrangements associated with professional a cappella acts such as The Manhattan Transfer, The Nylons, Rockapella, and Take 6. In 1998, the Nassoons released their longest album to that point, with a running time exceeding seventy minutes.
Membership changes and renewed visibility, 2000s-2010s
The Nassoons experienced a period of declining membership during the early 2000s. The group had no continuing members from the classes of 2000 or 2003 and, by 2003, had fallen to approximately eight active singers. Membership recovered through larger incoming classes beginning in the 2003–04 academic year. During the same period, the group created a tour manager position and continued to develop its performance-director system.