Founded back in 1941, the Princeton Nassoons are one of the world’s finest collegiate performance ensembles.

The Beginnings

Formed as a close-harmony a cappella alternative to the University Glee Club in the late 1930s, the group’s early days were spent practicing in the basement of Princeton’s Murray-Dodge Hall. The yet-unnamed group mainly rehearsed for and performed in small on-campus shows. However, the turning point came on a cool autumn New Haven evening in 1941.

Seven men, as the story goes, stood before the sold-out Princeton-Yale Weekend Glee Club Concert audience. Having obtained permission from the Glee Club director, they launched into a short set in the middle of the Princeton program. The dishearteningly lukewarm reaction of the audience began to take its toll on the ensemble, who, in desperation, pulled out an arrangement which the Glee Club director had explicitly prohibited them from using.

Its racy lyrics and bawdy five-part harmonies, he feared, would offend the tender sensibilities of the stodgy New Haven audience. That song was Perfidia, and as the last robust chords echoed throughout the hall the audience rose to its feet in a chorus of applause, demanding an encore. The seven Princetonians had no choice but to launch into Perfidia for a second time— and the Nassoons were born.  

Some Nassoon Lore

  • In the early years, the Nassoons rehearsed in the basement of the Presbyterian Church on Nassau Street. In 1949, however, the Class of 1901 deeded their Reunion Room (100 1901 Hall) to the young group, forever establishing it as the “Nassoon Room.”

  • On May 28, 1943, the Nassoons gave their spring concert underneath Blair Arch, inaugurating the Princeton tradition of “Arch Sings.” The group holds the deed to the arch to this day.

  • In 1942, the Nassoons performed for Ella Fitzgerald in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel, after which Fitzgerald told the group that she preferred their set to the Whiffenpoofs’, who performed earlier that evening.

  • Nassoon group photos are called OJTs after Orren Jack Turner, the man who took the photos for almost 50 years. You can easily find the president in any OJT from 1959 onwards—he wears two watches (for punctuality) and holds the President’s Cup.

  • The Nassoons disbanded in 1943 as its members left to fight in World War II. The group was re-established on May 18, 1946 by its original founders.

  • Every year, on the day after the Princeton-Yale football game, the Nassoons and the Yale Whiffenpoofs face off in touch football. The winner takes home the coveted TF trophy.

  • The Katzenjammers, Princeton’s first co-ed a cappella group, and the first co-ed group in the nation, was founded by a Nassoon and a Tigerlily.

  • Every piece of furniture in the Nassoon Room has a story; for example, the chair for our Business Manager is engraved with the initials of every past BM.

  • SFC, the Nassoons’ community motto, was adopted in the 1950s. Nassoons tell no one what it means—not even their spouses. In short, no one who is not a Nassoon knows the true meaning of SFC.