Glee Club
The Glee Club is one of the largest and most honored activities at the
Academy. Approximately twenty percent of Saint Dominic Academy students have been members of the Glee Club during Mr. Napoli’s 46 years at SDA. The Glee Club has long been considered the one of the most accomplished all girls parochial school choirs in the Archdiocese and in the tri-state area.
The Glee Club attended regional competitions every year from 1992 – 2018 and won Grand Championship awards in 14 of those 27 competitions. In December, 2004, The Glee Club performed a Christmas Concert in the Winter Garden Atrium at the World Financial Center. They were one of the first choirs to perform at this historic site following its restoration after the September 11, 2001 attack on Lower Manhattan.
On December 26th, 2015, members of the Glee Club traveled to Rome and performed at a New Year’s Day, 2016, World Peace Day Papal Mass celebrated by Pope Francis in Saint Peter’s Basilica.
On May 26th, 2023, the Glee Club performed Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s “Stabat Mater” with other treble choirs in Carnegie Hall. On June 29th, 2025, the Glee Club, along with the San Diego Women’s Choir, was part of a stellar matinee performance at Carnegie Hall, featuring songs by Gwyneth Walker, Katerina Gimon and Melissa
Dunphy.
The Glee Club has sung six times at the annual Radio City Christmas
Spectacular, opening for the renowned Rockettes.
The Dominoes
The Dominoes are Glee Club’s elite choir. The Dominoes have performed, by invitation, 13 times at Carnegie Hall. Other famous New York City venues they have performed at include the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the General Assembly of the United Nations, Saint Malachy’s Church in the theater district (the “Actor’s Chapel”), the
Waldorf-Astoria, Rockefeller Center and Radio City.
In January 2008, the Dominoes were invited by the Barack Obama campaign to perform at Senator Obama’s appearance at Saint Peter’s College. The next day, the Dominoes sang for and met the future president. The Dominoes performed with American composer Tim Janis at Caldwell College in April, 2010; Janis was so impressed with the choir that he arranged for the Dominoes to perform a featured number, Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song”, with international star André Rieu at the Nassau Coliseum in June, 2010. During the 2011 school year, the
Dominoes performed live on Fox 5’s Good Day New York and News 12 New Jersey’s “Sounds of the Season”.
On March 1st, 2018, the Dominoes performed with the Newark Boys Chorus at Saint Peter’s University Church. The Dominoes have sung twice as the featured liturgical choir at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart – the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark. In
December, 2017, 2018 and 2019, the Dominoes performed at the prestigious New York Athletic Club.
Locally, the Dominoes performed Christmas concerts for over twenty years at the Jersey City Women’s Club on Fairview Avenue, now Saint Dominic Academy’s Siena Hall, and many times at the Liberty House Restaurant’s “Snowflake Award Ceremony”, at various municipal tree lightings, for elderly members of the community and annually at the Cusack Care Center’s Blessing Tree Lighting and at the Mayor’s Annual Holiday Concert at the Landmark Loews Theater.
Most recently, they performed in a concert, “In Open Arms”, a benefit concert for refugees, organized by the Cantigas Women’s Choir and the United Synagogue of Hoboken. The Dominoes, along with the Glee Club perform an annual concert with Saint Peter’s Prep’s Vox choir each May.
Joseph P. Napoli – Director of the Glee Club and The Dominoes
Joseph P. Napoli has taught at Saint Dominic Academy since 1979 and this year marks the forty-seventh Saint Dominic Academy Christmas Concert under his direction. Mr.Napoli has also directed the Manhattan College Singers, Saint Peter’s College Glee Club and the Saint Dominic Academy Women’s Choir.
In 2005, the Council for American Private Education named Napoli New Jersey’s Non Public School Teacher of the Year. In 2006, he was honored as Italian-American Educator of the year by the Bayonne Columbus Committee and was similarly honored by Jersey City’s Dante Alighieri Society in 2011. In November, 2011, Saint Dominic Academy honored Mr. Napoli with the Dominican Pillar Award. In September, 2015, the Cusack Care Center honored him as “a partner in caring” at their 12th
annual Generations Benefit Luncheon.
Mr. Napoli’s choirs have made two recordings; “A Saint Dominic Academy Christmas” (Dominoes, 2002) and “Voices of Winter” (Women’s Choir, 2006).