<p>Originally, it was old student drinking going back to the Middle Ages. It is sung at universities all over the world (and, some high schools). When Johannes Brahms received an honorary degree from Breslau University, he was expected to compose a piece for the occasion. He composed the “Academic Festival Overture”, which incorporates some parts of this song. When they first heard it, supposedly the University administrators were shocked that he incorporated a student drinking song into his composition, but the students loved it and sang right along.
<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaudeamus_igitur[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaudeamus_igitur</a></p>
<p>And this is a super nice video of a student named Matthew Smith receiving his PhD in 2009. Gaudeamus was dubbed in. Really colorful academic procession. I believe it was made in the UK (?). Just excellent!</p>
<p>No, not at my or children’s schools/colleges, but often played by orchestras with graduating seniors, in their honor. (Such as D’s independent youth orchestra.)</p>
<p>^^^When one looks at the “Gaudeamus” videos posted on Youtube, many of them are from Europe, so that’s not surprising. What was somewhat surprising to me, however, is that many of those were from East European countries. Except for Poland or the Czech Republic, I would have expected a Latin song of West European origin to be less popular or well-known (for historical-cultural and linguistic reasons) in Eastern Europe. If one reads the comments for those posted videos, “Gaudeamus” also seems to be quite common at the high school level in those countries as well.</p>
<p>We sang it in high school (in the U.S.), but not at graduation.</p>
<p>How many schools sing the song version of Blake’s Jerusalem? My mom’s very WASPy girls school in the Midwest did, and so did my kids’ Quaker school in Philadelphia.</p>
<p>This was featured in a West Wing episode when Sam references its being sung at Princeton. He gives the import of the words: Let us now rejoice because soon we will be old men (and won’t be able to is the sense I got.)</p>
<p>The movie, Chariots of Fire, has a wonderful rendition of “Jerusalem.”</p>