The Rise of GLBT Choruses and Community through Song

When considering the concept of community music, few groups demonstrate its power more vividly than minority populations striving for social acceptance. The term raises immediate questions: What community? Whose community? Where did this community originate? Similarly, we must ask: What music? Whose music? Where did this music come from?

Typically, we examine community music as a means of illuminating the intrinsic values and cultural norms of an already-established group. In most cases, music emerges as a by-product of a specific culture—something created by the group to reflect shared ideology. Whether written or performed as expressions of historical traditions or as reflections of racial, religious, geographic, idealistic, or linguistic identity, music usually grows out of a preexisting cultural community.

This perspective, however, rests on a crucial assumption: that a community exists before its music develops. It seems reasonable to suggest that most communities emerge, evolve, transform, and establish their sociological and ideological principles as part of creating a unified voice. The Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgendered (GLBT) community developed along a different path. In this case, music brought the community together. Song unified a group of socially disenfranchised individuals who lacked any unified voice in society.

The concept of a GLBT community barely existed before the early 1970s. It was then that large numbers of primarily gay men began occupying neighborhoods in culturally diverse cities like San Francisco and New York. They settled in areas such as San Francisco's Castro District and New York's Greenwich Village—neighborhoods free from conservative ideologies—where they felt secure enough to plant the seeds of living communities with stores, entertainment, and people who would not judge them as societal outcasts.

A few local tabloids served this growing population, but their collective voice did not truly emerge until November 1978. An embittered San Francisco city councilman walked into City Hall and murdered the mayor and an openly gay councilmember named Harvey Milk. Milk was an emerging political voice for gay rights and the first public official to openly declare his homosexuality. Beloved by San Francisco's gay population for his progressive views, a group of men gathered on the steps of City Hall during a candlelight vigil and began to sing. At that moment, the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus was born, and a long-elusive voice began to spread its wings in song, unifying a culture.

As news of Milk's assassination reached larger urban areas across the country, so did word of the newly formed chorus. Almost immediately, Los Angeles and Seattle—west coast cities with large gay populations—formed choruses in response. In July 1979, Edward Weaver, a former member of the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, moved to New York City to create the New York City Gay Men's Chorus. This became the fourth chorus in the United States to identify itself as gay, and it helped spread the gay choral movement across the continent.

In 1981, the Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses (GALA) formed in Washington, D.C., to support the growth of these ensembles within their communities. GALA helped create national mission statements, by-laws, governance rules, and financial strategies for fledgling choruses, adding credibility and organization to this new voice. By 1983, the First National Gay Choral Festival took place at Lincoln Center in New York. Titled Come Out And Sing Together (COAST), the event featured 650 singers and 11 choruses performing in both Alice Tully Hall and Avery Fisher Hall. Thousands packed the halls to hear works speaking of peace, tolerance, acceptance, and freedom. Commissioned pieces by noted gay composers such as Libby Larsen and Ned Rorem were performed to critical acclaim. Through song, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered individuals were beginning to join together as a community.

Singers across the country, unified by their music, began spreading the emerging values of this new community. GLBT choruses sprang up throughout North America. While major urban areas were the first to produce choruses, mid-sized, isolated communities soon witnessed growth through their own GLBT groups.

Today, over 200 community choruses worldwide associate themselves with the GLBT community, incorporating over 10,000 singers. GALA Festival VII in Montreal, Canada (July 2004) may have been the largest choral festival to date, with 200 choruses representing 6,000 participants. The Seattle Men's Chorus, founded in 1979, is now considered the largest community chorus in North America. Though participation has grown dramatically since that first candlelight vigil, GBLT choruses still sing the same message of love, peace, and tolerance to anyone who will listen.

According to Kenneth Cole, former executive director of GALA Choruses from 1994 to 2001, the three main motivations for joining a GALA chorus are community, politics, and artistic quality. In a 2005 article by John D. Sparks for Voice (a publication of Chorus America), Cole explained:

Singing in a gay choir is essentially a political act because society has made it so. Still, not all choristers are thinking primarily about the politics, especially now that society is more accepting of gays. They come because of the music, of course, and to socialize, but also for the sense of community and friendship. Although this can also be said for their non-gay counterparts in other choruses, in the Gay community, the chorus plays a major community role. There is a very, very strong support network within the chorus.

While many of these motivational factors have remained constant throughout the movement's growth, audiences have changed dramatically over the past twenty-seven years. Growing awareness and acceptance of the GLBT movement has lessened the novelty of attending a GLBT choral performance. As a result, GLBT choirs now seek funding from the same sources as non-gay counterparts and non-profit organizations. They must match the artistic quality of their communal counterparts while addressing different needs within their communities.

The GLBT Youth Choir movement has developed within many larger GALA choruses. New York, Seattle, Vancouver, and San Francisco have established choirs linked to community social services organizations that help GLBT youth with self-identity issues. These youth choruses provide a safe, nurturing, closely monitored environment where members and their families can address difficult topics. Original works like Alan Shorter's mini-musical based on Tomie DePaola's book Oliver Button is a Sissy are being written to confront issues facing GLBT youth early in their social development. As the need to address social issues among GLBT youth grows, so do efforts to build bridges between these young people and their non-GLBT counterparts. One method involves educational outreach programs that place members of GLBT choruses in non-GLBT educational settings. Another is forming smaller outreach choruses focused directly on education.

One such group is The Ambassador Chorus of the New York City Gay Men's Chorus. Formed in 2002, its 30 members serve as educational representatives of the larger ensemble. The Ambassador Chorus performs throughout New York and New Jersey, singing to promote tolerance and acceptance for all peoples, not just the GLBT community. They have sung at New York Public Library branches for children under 10, and at Bergen Community College for the school's GLBT Pride Week. The group also travels extensively throughout the United States, recently appearing at Georgia Tech University's First Center for the Arts in a concert celebrating GLBT Broadway composers and performers. Their concert "Our Voices Win Freedom" addressed broader issues related to struggles for freedom. The centerpiece was its venue, Brooklyn Heights' Plymouth Church of the Pilgrim, which served as the "Grand Central Station" of the Underground Railroad during the American Civil War.

Together with their guests, Panache from the Atlanta Gay Men's Chorus, the ensemble sang on the same platform where Henry Ward Beecher's congregation once bought slaves to set them free. Many church members attended, hearing music that may have been sung in the tunnels winding under the foundation. Through performances like these, GALA choruses' educational outreach programs reach new audiences and further the GLBT community's hopes for acceptance, tolerance, and equal rights.

As with many volunteer community organizations, funding remains a primary concern for The Ambassador Chorus. The group is a performing ensemble within Big Apple Performing Arts of New York (BAPA), the non-profit corporation that also oversees the New York City Gay Men's Chorus. BAPA and its board handle the day-to-day financial operations. All Ambassador members, like members of every BAPA ensemble, pay a yearly fee of $200. Individual members also absorb additional performance costs, including uniforms, travel, and food. Membership dues, combined with corporate sponsorships from companies like American Airlines and Absolut Vodka, help build a solid financial base for support staff and programming expenses. Yearly budgets reflect projected needs, including staff travel and the costs of commissioning new works from emerging GLBT composers.

Additional funding comes from private donors who support the ensemble's educational mission. In the 2003-2004 season, individual contributors provided about 32% of The Ambassador Chorus's budget line. At the same time, The Ambassadors also function as a fundraising ensemble for BAPA; their monetary contributions to the organization greatly exceed yearly expenses. Since its founding, the chorus's ability to travel and perform outreach on a day's notice has allowed them to triple the funds they bring in each year relative to what is spent on operations and special projects. The ensemble reaches populations in serious need of education regarding GLBT tolerance and also provides a financial windfall for its umbrella organization.

As GLBT choruses find innovative ways to reach ever-changing audiences, they will continue to serve as a strong voice within the larger GLBT community and beyond. A central theme for GALA Choruses is "Building Bridges through Song." Song helped create and bind the community during times of immense turmoil, and that same song continues to affect all who listen with open minds and open hearts.