AUGUST 16, 1996 GAY PEOPle's ChroNICLE 11

COMMUNITY GROUPS

Ohio choruses sing in the Sunshine State for GALA festival

by Roger Durbin

NORTH COAST MEN'S CHORUS

From July 6 through the 14th, eighty-six gay and lesbian choruses, plus 23 or so choral ensembles, gathered in Tampa, Florida, for Festival V of the Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses. There were 5,000 singers and 6,000 total delegates in attendance at this largest gay-and-lesbian cultural event ever. We were out and loud in Tampa, despite a movement to keep the festival from being held in this city.

Every chorus received a standing ovation. Did they all deserve it? Absolutely. Perhaps not for the music, although they were at their best as they performed before peers from all over the U.S. and Canada, and from Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. Rather, they were lauded for simply being who and what they are, and for having the courage to stand up to the tensions, and sing.

It was a glorious week. As a singer from Voices of Kentuckiana said: "The festival was like a big village of people who were all taking the chance to live life the way it should be lived: with lots of humor, spontaneity, touchy-feeliness, compassion, music, affection, energy, and also with plenty of acknowledgment and understanding of each other's past and present pain."

Roy Aarons, president of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, saw it this way: It was “like a quadrennial Brigadoon, a mini-city of 5,000 [that] comes to life, flourishes for a week and disappears overnight. Within that week its citizens erect an environment of musical enchantment where melody, harmony, lyrics and spirit combine to lift voices and hearts to the spheres."

Ohio's choruses were there, attracting attention at choral gatherings by half the group chanting "Oh!" and the remainder filling in "Hio!" Whether during the Gay Pride march through the streets of Tampa, or the parade of choruses at the opening cermonies (arranged alphabetically by city-so the "C" towns of Ohio stayed close), we certainly made our presence known.

From Cincinnati came both the Cincinnati Men's Chorus, Patrick Coyle, artistic director; and Muse Cincinnati Women's Chorus, Catherine Roma, artistic director. From Cleveland, the North Coast Men's Chorus, Timothy Robson, music director; and from Columbus, the Columbus Gay Men's Chorus, David Price, musical director.

We should probably add in Detroit Together Men's Chorus, John Hartman, director; since their membership includes singers from Toledo and other spots in northwestern Ohio.

I've got to stop here to comment. The Detroit group performed a "Christmas in July" bit, with a segment that featured soloist Divina Pons. Miss Pons, "dragmatic soprano" and drag queen extraordinaire in long red sequined gown and big blonde hair, sang the solo line of "Oh, Holy Night." Her falsetto

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held, as did her make up. As the audience waited, breath held and hands clutching the arms of chairs, Miss Divina stood tall in her four-inch heels, soared into the stratosphere, and nailed the high note at the climax of the song. Is it any wonder the huge audience roared approval and screamed, “Di-va! Diva!"? She will be remembered.

While I'm at it, I need to remark on the Cincinnati women's chorus, Muse. They are amazing-a pure, blended, balanced, full, musically controlled sound. They received a standing ovation for every song they sang, an honor not given easily. They performed a set that included African, Latin-American, and freedom songs.

Composer and arranger Ysaye Barnwell joined them in numbers she had arranged. She is the composer of the most frequently sung song of the festival, the beautiful and moving "Wanting Memories." In fact, the North Coast Men's Chorus chamber group, the Coastliners, rendered a poignant version of this tune during the small group venue on the opening day of the festival. The Coastliners got an impromptu ovation for this number. They did us North Coasters very proud.

One of the things that the gay and lesbian choral movement is generating that was made quite evident at GALA V was new works, commissioned pieces written by our own or about our experience. Many gay men's choruses brought new voices and new songs to Tampa: from San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, Seattle, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Washington, D.C., San Diego, Denver, and San Antonio, and from the states of Connecticut, Florida, Maine, and New Jer-

sey.

Ohio's gay men's choruses added beautiful additions to this growing body of choral art. Cincinnati Men's Chorus presented one, "Listen to My Heart," music and lyrics by David Friedman. Columbus Gay Men's Chorus offered two new pieces, as did the North Coast Men's Chorus. The ones for Columbus are "Rhapsody on a Sonnet," music by John David Earnest, with lyrics from a Michaelangelo sonnet, and “Civitates Urbis," music of Morali, Belolo, Willis, Whitehead, arrangement by J. A. Kawarsky. From the Cleveland-based group came "The Gardener of Eden," music by Craig Carnahan, lyrics by James Broughton, and "Three by Parker," music by Frank Ferko, lyrics by Dorothy Parker.

The new compositions added a musically and socially important dimension to not only the festival, but to our lives as gay and lesbian people. The music, newly-created, or arranged, or simply sung by gay and lesbian people, becomes a force that articulates, embodies, encompasses, and transforms the experience we haved lived and are living. A most poignant moment of the festival came during the performance of the San Diego Gay Men's Chorus. One of its members, very sick and brought on stage in a wheelchair, played the piano and sang the

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solo part for his own composition, "I Will Be Your Brother, I Will Be Your Friend." If it gives you any idea of the impact of this man and his song on the audience and his chorus, I can tell you that the mere recollection of it undoes me.

In another vein, a highlight of the festival centered on the women's choruses. They came; they sang; they conquered all. And they are here to stay. Obviously they were well-prepared, and it showed. The range of performance seemed to go from tremendous to absolutely tremendous, with Muse being at the high end with the Women's Chorus of Dallas (the independent sister group to the famous Turtle Creek Chorale), Sound Circle from Jamestown, Colorado, and Anna Crusis Women's Choir of Philadelphia, the oldest singing group.

To sum up the week, a singer from Toronto, Canada, had this to say: “The music throughout the week (over 50 hours of it) was breathtaking. I laughed, I cried, I was moved, I mourned, I was empowered, I was proud, I loved my fellow gay man and lesbian, I felt unequaled camaraderie with all other participants in the festival, I soaked up the angelic sounds from the stage and breathed the atmosphere of gay pride and solidarity."

That pretty much says it all. One sad note came after the festival: Two members of Le Choeur International Gai de Paris died in the TWA Flight 800 disaster while returning home to Paris. They were David Hogan, the music director, and a new acquaintance of mine from GALA, baritone Jean-Paul Galland. They will be missed.

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