KU’s Vespers Tradition plays on 30 years after the long-standing heritage nearly went up in flames

Photo Courtesy of KU School of Music

In the winter of 1923, Donald Swarthout—in his first year as Dean of Fine Arts at the University of Kansas—began a Vespers tradition that is ongoing today. Taking place in old Fraser Hall’s 700-seat theater—what was then known as Christmas Vespers—would gradually become an event that would draw in enough people to fill the campus’ Hoch Auditorium, capable of seating 5,500 attendees.

Now taking place each December in the Lied Center—fitting a capacity just shy of 2000—it continues to be an annual event that draws in just as many attendees from the surrounding Lawrence community as it does from the university itself, and this year’s installment is the 100th anniversary. 

KU’s Vespers has two performances—one in the afternoon and another in the evening—another tradition that dates back decades. According to the university, by 1936 some people were driving 200 miles to attend—so they began having both afternoon and evening performances, featuring the orchestra, multiple choruses, and candlelight processions.

For the vast majority of its existence, KU Vespers took place in Hoch, until June 15, 1991, when the 64 year-old building was struck by lightning and burned to the ground, leaving little but its iconic facade. 1991 and 1992 Vespers were thus a little rough, explains Laura McCorkill—events coordinator at the KU School of Music.

“There were already plans to move it to the Lied Center once construction was complete,” McCorkill says. “Unfortunately, construction took two more years to complete on Lied Center, so there were two of them that were held in Allen Fieldhouse.”

As with many of the people who have strong attachments to KU Vespers, McCorkill’s connection dates back to when she was a child, as her parents collected the offering.

“It used to be a free admission, and we took a free will offering, and that supported the Vesper scholarship,” McCorkill recalls. “My mom worked for endowment and they literally collected the money. My dad would stand in the lobby of Hoch and we’d all run in with our baskets and dump them in his Santa bag.”

Photo Courtesy of KU School of Music

After the performance began, KU police would escort McCorkill’s father to the car to put it in the trunk, and he’d go watch the rest of the performance.

“We would go home, count money, and we’d do it between performances,” McCorkill says. Some of that has changed—The Lied Center sells tickets, although, in some years, various donors have underwritten the cost of Vespers in order to make it free to the public. There is also the occasional Jazz Vespers, which has done the likes of Duke Ellington’s take on The Nutcracker, as well as having saved the beloved tradition.

During peak COVID in 2020, Vespers were nearly canceled, but thanks to a live streamed performance by Jazz Ensemble 1 on the stage of the Lied Center in the midst of the pandemic, it’s never missed a year.

Vespers has also changed and expanded over the years in other ways, with the scope and the subject matter having expanded to be more inclusive.

“Very necessarily,” says McCorkill, noting that the tradition has recently focused more on inclusivity. “We do generally include something in Hebrew—Sometimes it’s Hanukkah related, sometimes it’s not, but something in Hebrew or tied to Hanukkah. Something tied to Kwanzaa. There could be other seasonal things—“Winter” from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, or Nutcracker or something like that that’s more secular in nature, but seasonal, and sometimes some really cool stuff that’s not necessarily tied to any holiday.”

One of the cool things about the 100th KU Vespers, in addition to the fact that it’s an enormous anniversary, is that the performances will feature a family with three generations all taking part in the event. Susan Ralston, wife of Dr. James S. Ralston, former Chair of the Department of Ensembles and the Director of the Choral Division at The University of Kansas, will be singing with the alumni choir being assembled with the event, as will her two daughters.

As if that wasn’t enough, her granddaughter is a member of the Lawrence Children’s Choir, which is also part of Vespers. Given that Dr. Ralston directed KU Vespers for 30 years and was a student of Clayton Krehbiel, who was the previous choir director, it’s quite a connection to the past in more ways than one, because the sole surviving KU choir robe from the Hoch fire exists only because of Dr. Ralston.

“We have it because the robe storage was up behind the top balcony in Hoch Auditorium,” McCorkill explains. “And, at the end of the second performance of Vespers each year, he just did not want to walk up all those stairs, so he would take it home and hang it in his closet. That’s why it survived.”

Photo Courtesy of KU School of Music

Susan Ralston says she is beyond excited to be a part of Vespers again, along with also having another two generations of her family performing with her.

“It’s just like a special gift to my husband,” Ralston says. “He loved Vespers. And what a way to honor him, to know that the legacy goes on. Vespers is a time where the whole community comes together to something at KU and it’s not the music people that usually come to the concerts. This is a whole city-wide thing, and it’s nice to share music that’s not always so stuffy.”

The fun part about Vespers, continues Ralston, is that you can have stuffy music, but because it’s seasonal, she thinks it’s music that most folks know. One could argue that The Nutcracker is stuffy, but it’s also appealing to the masses, along with a lot of choral pieces done by the choirs. She recalls a time in the ‘60s when the Voices of Jimmy Joyce released an album entitled This Is Christmas: A Complete Collection of the Alfred S. Burt Carols.

“They were kind of a fresh look. Jim would feature these carols and that would come from the balcony choir,” Ralston says of the contrasting styles during concerts at Hoch. “They would do some grandiose piece, and then, here would come this delightful carol from the balcony. It was just a stunning effect.”

The last special note for the 100th KU Vespers is that Forrest Pierce—Professor of Composition at the KU School of Music—has composed a new piece that will premiere at this year’s celebration. Entitled “I Only Want to Say: Blessing for the New Year,” it sets a text by American poet and writer Elias Amidon on the subject of changing to music for large chorus and piano.

“There’s a lot of beautiful imagery of water flowing to the sea, of letting go of our attachment to being right, of our enthusiasm for convincing people of our opinions, and looking to where it is that we all end up, which is, after all, in the same place,” Pierce says.

The KU School of Music’s 100th Vespers takes place at the Lied Center of Kansas on Sunday, Dec. 8, with performances at 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.