The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus has no doubt that our SF Giants will handily win their 3rd World Series in 5 years. Should the KC Royals sneak their way to victory, the proud men of SFGMC will offer the following: 1. SFGMC Artistic Director Dr. Tim Seelig will conduct a rehearsal in a Kansas City Royalettes jersey. (He might even wear on of those little crown things that looks like a car air freshener gone wrong). 2. SFGMC will send See’s Chocolates, a San Francisco treat and Chorus sponsor, for the entire Heartland Men's Chorus to enjoy with their victory. 3. SFGMC will provide free 2 tickets and one night hotel accommodations in San Francisco to Heartland Men’s Chorus to use as they wish. 4. SFGMC will make a video singing whichever Kansas City “theme song” you can scrounge up, if there is one, for all your social media gloating. If there isn't one, we’ll sing “I Left My Heart In San Francisco” knowing most of you have. BONUS "BROOMSTICK SWEEP" BET: 5. If the Royals win in 4, SFGMC's Tim Seelig will leave the outgoing voicemail for Heartland Men's Chorus Director Dustin Cates.
Moments after Prop 8 fell and the first same-sex couple wed in San Francisco City Hall, the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus celebrated the marriage of Prop 8 Plaintiffs Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, singing to then an excerpt of a new song called "San Francisco" from Andrew Lippa's oratorio "I Am Harvey Milk", world-premiered by the chorus days before in its 35th anniversary concert Harvey Milk 2013. Also seen with the newlywed couple are San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, Human Rights Campaign President and Founder of the American Federation for Equal Rights Chad Hunter Griffin, Oscar-winning Producer Bruce Cohen and Oscar-winning Screenwriter for the movie "Milk" Dustin Lance Black. The chorus also sings "Give 'Em Hope", complemented by footage of the day when Prop 8 fell inside City Hall and that afternoon in the Castro neighborhood, as well as the wedding of Kris Perry and Sandy Stier.
Yesterday was the 34th anniversary of Harvey Milk's assassination. JMG reader Sean Chapin writes with a description of the clip below:
The video follows an original chorus member (Robert Rufo) who was at the chorus' first-ever public appearance, which was at the candlelight vigil on the steps of City Hall the night when Harvey Milk was assassinated. Robert Rufo remembers what it was like that night, and how the chorus has been living the legacy of Harvey Milk since then over the last 34 years. The video shows Robert Rufo and the SF Gay Men's Chorus singing at the 34th anniversary memorial service and marching with candles to the Castro. Speakers at the memorial service last night included Supervisor Scott Weiner, Harvey Milk's campaign manager Anne Kronenberg, Mayor Ed Lee, former Mayor Willie Brown, George Moscone's son Jonathan Moscone, California State Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, Supervisor David Campos and Harvey Milk's nephew Stuart Milk. The song/recording in the video is "Thou Lord Our Refuge", which the chorus sung that night at City Hall when Harvey Milk left us in 1978, as re-arranged by chorus member Edwin Morales and performed earlier this year in 2012. The chorus in June 2013 will be premiering a landmark concert called Harvey Milk 2013, Living The Legacy.
October 14th: San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus To Hold "Crescendo" Gala
I first mentioned this event a couple of months ago so this is your reminder that the SF Gay Men's Chorus will hold their fundraising gala this Sunday.
Crescendo delights with a classic Sunday champagne brunch, silent and live auctions overfilled with faraway exotic destinations, extra special events, wines, distinctive food experiences and rare treats. Guests will the mix and mingle with family, friends and local Bay Area personalities and hear a glorious and entertaining preview of selections from SFGMC’s upcoming Iconic Season 35 which includes SantaConcert, Snow White and Her Merry Men, and Harvey Milk: Living the Legacy. The Crescendo silent auction begins at 12:00PM, followed by brunch, live entertainment, and awards presentation at 1:00PM.
The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus is the world's first such group and celebrates its 35th anniversary this year. Get gala tickets here.
RELATED: The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus will hold their annual fundraising gala on Sunday, October 14th. I'll be there with Dan Savage and his husband.
October 14th: San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus To Hold "Crescendo" Gala
The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus will hold its annual fundraising gala on Sunday, October 14th at the Four Seasons Hotel on Market Street.
Crescendo delights with a classic Sunday champagne brunch, silent and live auctions overfilled with faraway exotic destinations, extra special events, wines, distinctive food experiences and rare treats. Guests will the mix and mingle with family, friends and local Bay Area personalities and hear a glorious and entertaining preview of selections from SFGMC’s upcoming Iconic Season 35 which includes SantaConcert, Snow White and Her Merry Men, and Harvey Milk: Living the Legacy. The Crescendo silent auction begins at 12:00PM, followed by brunch, live entertainment, and awards presentation at 1:00PM.
The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus is the world's first such group and celebrates its 35th anniversary this year. Get gala tickets here.
HORN BLOWING: Dan Savage and I are getting nice awards from the Chorus this year and I'll be attending the gala. There will definitely be another JMG meetup that weekend and this time I'll make sure to alert the bar management so we don't get chewed out again for dumping a crowd on unprepared staffers.
Clip description: "The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus ensemble group Lollipop Guild, Too Straight Polka, arranged by Deke Sharon, words by Paul Saccone."
In writing TESTIMONY, Stephen Schwartz collaborated with Dan Savage, creator of the groundbreaking "It Gets Better Project." Schwartz has set the heartfelt words from the "It Gets Better" videos to music, weaving them into a breathtaking, emotional new masterpiece that speaks to anyone who has ever felt out of place. The song urges LGBT youth to hang on, telling them they're not alone, and showing them that life gets better. TESTIMONY was recorded and engineered by Leslie Ann Jones, the legendary multi Grammy award-winning Director of Music Recording at Skywalker Sound. Performed by the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus under the direction of Dr. Timothy Seelig.
San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus Responds To The "It Gets Better Project"
At the end of this clip the chorus sings The Irish Blessing "in honor and memory of those who left us far too soon." This should wash away the bile of the Lot Project clip posted earlier.
FRESNO: San Francisco's Gay Men's Chorus Celebrates Harvey Milk Day
JMG reader Sean Chapin sends us his video of the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus celebrating California's first Harvey Milk Day with a concert in Fresno, far away from the gay-friendlier Bay Area. The chorus has been touring California's heartland in a campaign to bring the LGBT rights message to the places that most opposed Proposition 8.
SF Gay Men's Chorus Well Received On Prop 8 Tour Of CA Heartland
In a front page story, today's San Francisco Chroniclenotes the success of the SF Gay Men's Chorus as it tours California's central heartlands in a peace-making tour after the acrimony of Proposition 8.
They came. They sang. They wore pink cowboy hats. When the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus embarked on its Freedom Tour into the heart of Proposition 8 territory over the weekend, there were concerns. Would red-state towns like Redding and Chico turn out to see gay men in tuxedos singing "Over the Rainbow"? Would there be protests, threats or fear-mongering from Shasta County's fundamentalist community? But chorus artistic director and conductor Kathleen McGuire asked: "Who is afraid of a choir?" Make no mistake, this isn't a tour. It's a groundbreaking political action. In the upcoming months, they'll visit Bakersfield, Fresno and Tracy, all strongholds for Prop. 8, the measure that banned same-sex marriage. They hope their music will help personalize the fight for gays to marry.
It is more than a small gamble. They could face protests, fights or even worse - complete indifference. "When the tickets didn't sell at first, I thought, 'Oh God, no one is going to show up,' " said Amy Andrews, a welfare worker in Redding, who helped arrange the show at the 1,000-plus-seat Cascade Theatre. "And then tickets just took off. I have never been prouder of my hometown." Saturday's show was a sellout. So was Sunday's 450-seat event in Chico, where they received a standing ovation.
The tour resumes in May with dates in Fresno, Tracy, and Bakersfield.
SF Gay Men's Chorus To Make Concert Tour Of Proposition 8 Strongholds
The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus will conduct a tour of concerts through the heartland of Proposition 8 country in central California as part of an outreach program. Via press release:
The three-part tour will kick off at the end of January with concerts in Redding and Chico, continue in May with concerts in Fresno and Bakersfield, and end in July with a concert in Tracy. For chorus member Bud Dillon, the tour means coming home. Born and raised in Redding, Bud has a special understanding of the importance of the concerts. "So many people only hear about gay men within the context of heated controversy. The Freedom Tour will help to change that in an incredibly entertaining way. Nobody leaves our concerts without a huge smile on their face!" “It's simple." Witherington added. “We believe to accept us, you have to know us. So we tell our story through our music. Our message is one of coming together and recognizing those things we have in common.”
The chorus will perform a new original number called We Are Coming Out, which was written by JMG reader Sean Chapin.
At Davies Symphony Hall on Monday night, I attended the sold-out world premiere of Steve Schalchlin's New World Waking!, performed by the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus on their 30th anniversary, with Jennifer Holliday appearing as their guest vocalist.
I was there because I've been a huge fan of Steve's work for years, but also (as I semi-bragged here) because the third song in the work was Joe's Song: Dead Inside. I'm going to bet that this is only time you'll find the words "Inspired by the writings of blogger Joe.My.God" in a symphony program.
The evening began with a cocktail reception featuring a performance by the Lollipop Guild (a small ensemble of chorus members), then the start of the show had to be delayed because of the long lines at the box office. "My" song was amazing and I managed to hold it together even though I could feel people looking at me during its performance. (You really should read Steve's excellent recap of the evening.)
But like many in the audience, I lost it during the two songs dedicated to two mothers, Gabi Clayton and Carolyn Wagner, whose sons were the victims of anti-gay violence. Together they founded Families Against Hate and were in the audience and recognized from the stage, to many tears. Here's Steve's backstage video of the women meeting the chorus members. There's a few laughs in the clip, but you should get a hanky.
Via Bev Syke's Funny The World, here's a short montage of the world premiere of New World Waking!
Here's a short slideshow of the evening. Full-screen versions plus captions are here.
It was an amazing evening, a total triumph for Steve Schlachlin and the chorus. I was deeply honored to have been a small part of it.
I'm heading back to San Francisco this weekend to attend the SF Gay Men's Chorus' world premiere of New World Waking!, the latest work by my fabulous pal Steve Schalchlin, whom you may recall from his recent Off Broadway hit, The Big Voice: God Or Merman? Three-time Oscar nominee Piper Laurie will introduce the evening, which features Tony Award winner Jennifer Holliday as a guest vocalist. The show takes place Monday night at Davies Symphony Hall, get tickets here.
The night will be very special for me, because the closing song of Act 1 of New World Waking! is about me, sort of. Years ago, I belonged to an online discussion forum for aspiring writers and other artsy types, which is where I first met Steve Schlachlin. Back in January on JMG, I talked about how I met Steve in that forum, and explained how the song came to be:
Steve is a long-term AIDS survivor and he and I spoke many times about the horrors of the epidemic and the people we have lost. Discussion on the forum also often turned to the topic of dating, as those things usually do, and when questioned by Steve and other participants about my very long-running singleness, I would usually reply flippantly that I was burned out on losing people and was now officially "dead inside".
Steve was intrigued by the concept of the emotional surrender implied by the phrase "dead inside" and thought it could make an interesting platform for a song. He asked me for some sample lyrics and being the great songwriter that he is, he immediately discarded my very lame attempt and went to work. A few months later, he sent me an audio file of his performance of Dead Inside and I was instantly wrecked. He nailed it. Last year he recorded another version using noted Chicago-based transgender cabaret singer Alexandra Billings. You can download the demo of the recording here.
It's a beautiful/tough song - mournful and wistful - and I'm sure I'll be a complete wreck by the second bar. Steve writes about how his conversations with me brought about Dead Inside:
In describing his life, he would frequently use the term "Dead Inside," as a way to describe himself and other people who had simply stopped even trying to love because of the pain they've experienced. Expanding on his theme, "Dead Inside" evolved into a song about the kind of lost lives some GLBT people suffer as a result of homophobia that evolves into a kind of self-inflicted violence. In the song, which takes place in a bar, a man warns a prospective suitor that he has lost the ability to love only find out that that is precisely what the other man is seeking.
Luckily, there will be another nine songs in the show, during which I can hopefully pull it together enough to walk out under my own power. Below is a clip of the chorus rehearing the closing number, My Rising Up, which will be led by Jennifer Holliday. I hope to see and meet lots of you there.
