Wisconsin Singers was the brainchild of Arlie Mucks, the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Alumni Association and Donald Neuen, the head of choral music at UW Madison’s School of Music. Together, they envisioned a group of UW’s finest musical talents that would travel as “Official Ambassadors of Goodwill” promoting the Wisconsin Idea and “University Singers” was born.

In those first years, the “University Singers” show consisted of pop music including music by the Mommas and Poppas, John Denver, and recent Broadway shows. The Wisconsin Alumni Association (WAA) co-sponsored the program along with the UW School of Music. The troupe started out small, numbering around 20 undergraduate and graduate students who sang and often doubled as instrumentalists on guitar or horns. In 1973, the program was rebranded as “Wisconsin Singers.”

Over the years, as the size of the group grew, so did the variety of musical styles, importance of choreography, instrumentation, and technical requirements. Show schedules oftentimes included over 70 gigs a year for alumni chapters, corporate events, and service organizations. Many of these performances were aimed at fundraising UW scholarships and important dollars for booster groups.

The UW realized the first of many large state funding cuts in 1994 and the School of Music along with the Wisconsin Alumni Association made the difficult choice to discontinue funding for Wisconsin Singers.

Faced with the possibility of losing this invaluable program, a dedicated group of UW and Wisconsin Singers alumni, friends and parents joined together to form Friends of Wisconsin Singers (FoWS) to advocate for maintaining the Wisconsin Singers program on campus. FoWS agreed to provide full financial support for the program while the School of Music committed to providing rehearsal and office space, class credit and equipment storage. Each year, the FoWS was required to prove financial solvency in order to maintain this relationship.

In 2013, FoWS forged a new collaboration with the Offices of the Dean of Students (ODOS) and Wisconsin Singers became a departmentally sponsored student organization. FoWS maintained a limited relationship with the School of Music while ODOS provided the benefits afforded to campus student organizations. In 2020, the School of Music, citing a change in the direction of their central curricular mission, stepped away from Wisconsin Singers co-sponsorship.

Each of our campus partners provided benefits to the Singers program but none committed to creating a permanent, sustainable model for the future of Wisconsin Singers. Friends of Wisconsin Singers searched for a UW department or division that would not only provide a home for the Singers but really own the excellence of the program.

And…after months of discussion, Friends of Wisconsin Singers solidified an exciting new partnership with the Wisconsin Union to create a sustainable campus home for the Wisconsin Singers, providing additional structure and security around this 50+ year UW Madison tradition of excellence.