A journey to a beach with Stan Hill and his chorus of gay men

Minneapolis, Minnesota


"Acts of creation are acts of faith. This is what gives the arts their intrinsic value. Some of us are called to create human life. All of us are called to live life daily."


I penned those words in New Orleans in 2006, at the end of a week-long performing tour of four Southern states by members of the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus. Traveling in a caravan of three chartered buses – from Nashville to Birmingham, to Jackson, to Mobile, and to New Orleans – 130 people experienced "eight days of collective worship, of living life daily."

Dr. Stan Hill • Photo: Paul Nixdorf

Watching Dr. Stan Hill conduct the TCGMC at the Ted Mann Concert Hall in Minneapolis last evening called to mind memories of that week and of other occasions with Hill and members of the Chorus. Rob Hubbard's review for the Pioneer Press this morning is a 'keeper.' 


Hill served as the artistic and spiritual leader of the Southern tour, as he has of the TCGMC for the past 12 years, and as he did for the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus for 11 years prior to that.


Following this weekend's performances in Minneapolis and next month's in Denver, Hill will retire to his native California. This personal ending and new beginning of his journey shares a certain circularity with those of the chorus and community from which he takes his leave.


When the Twin Cities Men's Chorus formed in 1981 (the word "Gay" was added in 1991), I was working as a legal assistant for a Minneapolis law firm, and was the sole closeted gay man operating in a very straight milieu in a very straight civic culture. Many of us, on whom its existence registered at all, viewed the Chorus as a novelty, as one more way for gay men to act flamboyantly flashy and fabulous, including cruising past us in their hired limo as we left the bars on Hennepin Avenue. 


However, as closet doors opened throughout the community, familiarity and friendships formed. One example was the potluck gathering of friends at my West Bank apartment on Christmas Day in 1982, when a Chorus member, the late John Bisciglia, and his partner joined us for great food and provocative conversation.


With plodding and sometimes painful steps, the Chorus worked, wormed, and wove its way into our brains and hearts, getting inside our skins with its songs about our lives as gay men and as general human beings. In part, they did it by showing up and always standing present for our activities and events.


They stood present in Loring Park on a night in 1985 or 1986 for a rally against the violence and muggings that regularly visited gay men in the park in those days. As co-host of Fresh Fruit, the weekly gay radio program on KFAI FM, I recorded them singing their signature anthem "Walk Hand In Hand" that night; it probably was the first time the song was broadcast on the airwaves. 


In 1986, my partner, James Davies, presented a Fresh Fruit feature on the art songs of the composer Ned Rorem, who performed with the Chorus at the (then) Ordway Music Theatre in St. Paul. (Davies joined the TCGMC as a singing member in 2005.)


Fast forward to the spring of 1999 when I was working as executive director of the James Sewell Ballet. The Chorus' artistic director, Craig Carnahan, came by our office at the Minnesota Opera Center to outline a project involving chorus and dance for the following season. Exigencies of our finances and planning structure at the time precluded participation. Four years later, when Stan Hill came by, we were able to sign on for "Metamorphosis," the epic commissioning project that debuted on TCGMC's Ted Mann season in March 2004. 


Almost immediately after saying 'yes' to Hill, however, JSB was invited to present its first week of performances at New York's Joyce Theater in the winter of 2004. Those engagements, plus a  choreographic commission from the Wharton Center at Michigan State University, also in March 2004, meant we would be short of time and money to create a new ballet for our own St. Paul ballet season in April 2004.


Our solution was to invite the TCGMC to perform "Metamorphosis" with us as half of our April program. We were wary if it would work because members of the Chorus would have to commit extra rehearsal time and two weekends of performances as volunteers. In the event, more than 100 men agreed to sing with us. Later that summer, our dancers accompanied the singers to Montreal to present "Metamorphosis" for the quadrennial GALA Choruses Festival. 


In 2006, when partners of Chorus members were invited to join the Southern tour as groupies, it was a no-brainer that I would be a boy on a bus. Similarly, when Hill and the TCGMC premiered "Through a Glass, Darkly" for the GALA Choruses in 2008, I flew with the flock to Miami for a week's worth of music. 


These and shorter trips to Duluth and Bemidji, Minnesota, and Ashland, Wisconsin, have provided an opportunity to view Hill as the consummate showman and heartfelt evangelist that he is. He frequently poses the question "If we don't tell our stories, who will?"


The circular completion of one of my own stories involves the current vice chair of the TCGMC board of directors. A somewhat-younger-than-me Jeffrey Bores is a current partner in the law firm where I worked in 1981, and some of my colleagues from those days now attend Chorus performances and galas. 


As the song goes, "Love is rare, life is strange; Nothing lasts, people change." 


Hill's inspiration and insistence that one particular story be told provides additional proof of that. The story led to one of my half dozen, life-changing experiences. It took place during the Southern tour on Thursday, July 13, 2006, when three buses stopped next to the Gulf of Mexico: 

They formed a tight circle on the white beach sands of Biloxi, Mississippi. In the center stood Richard Long, 61, and words written for the occasion by a black woman in Minneapolis were read. 

They formed-up in two facing columns, two-deep, perpendicular to the Gulf of Mexico shoreline. 

Between the columns, they unrolled a white fabric runner leading to the water. 

As Richard was led through the columns, they joined hands and sang their signature, "Walk hand in hand with me." 

Stepping into the Gulf of Mexico, Richard was surrounded by more than 100 brothers singing, "We shall overcome." 

No dry eyes on Biloxi's waterfront. 

Several of those present were not born in 1965 when Richard was stationed nearby at the Keesler Air Force Base. Black people were not welcome on the Gulf beaches in those days. The power of the federal government, represented by 17,000 soldiers, was no match for the power of attitude in Biloxi, Mississippi. 

"An afternoon on a beach in Biloxi" • July 13, 2006

A reporter-with-camera from the local newspaper was present to record the scene, as were the archival cameras hired by the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus to follow their tour of four Southern states.

Before we left New Orleans a couple days later, Hill observed that all of those who had gathered for the tour would probably never again be present at the same time and place. He expressed his hope that whatever became of us in life we might, on occasion, recall an afternoon on a beach in Biloxi.


So we shall, Stan. That journey and so much more.

Gay men's chorus kicks off Plymouth's summer park season

Plymouth, Minnesota

Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus, Hilde Performance Center

The Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus performed an evening of free choral music, June 7, to inaugurate the 2012 season of Entertainment in the Parks at the Hilde Performance Center in Plymouth, Minnesota. A typical summer audience of 150 heard 11 selections drawn from the program for "They Sang To Me,"  TCGMC's upcoming performances at the Ted Mann Concert Hall in Minneapolis, June 22-23.


Dr. Stan Hill, TCGMC's music director since 2000, led 72 men, half of the  total membership, all attired in full tuxes with open collars. The performance represents one of the last for Hill, who will retire at month's end. The chorus has named Ben Riggs, from Denver, Colorado, as Hill's successor.

Audrey Britton, legislative candidate

The Hilde is an open-air facility, 45 feet high, situated in an amphitheater behind the city hall of Plymouth, a community of 70,600 people located 12 miles northwest of Minneapolis. The center's architects, Bentz/Thompson/Rietow, have designed outdoor facilities throughout Minnesota, including Red Wing, Itasca State Park, St. Louis Park, and the Lake Harriet Band Shell in Minneapolis.

July 3, 2012

As they have for the 12 years of Hill's tenure, TCGMC's members concluded their performance by standing hand-in-hand with the audience for their signature song, "Walk Hand In Hand With Me."


The audience at the Hilde Amphitheater included Audrey Britton, a candidate for state representative in Minnesota District 44A, and members of her campaign team. 


As part of Plymouth's summer music series, the Minnesota Orchestra performs annually at the Hilde. Its 2012 appearance is scheduled for Tuesday, July 3. 

Sharing space with 70 gay men in Bemidji, Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minnesota

 

While most Minnesotans at least know of one person who is gay or lesbian, most people have never been present in the same room with 70 gay men. The opportunity for that to happen made for interesting and merry mingling between members of the Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus and their sold-out audience in Bemidji, Minnesota, March 19, 2011.

Walker, Minnesota, Muskie capital of the nation

For the Chorus, the encounter began with a four hour drive that started earlier that Saturday with a 12:15pm departure by bus from the parking lot of the Ridgedale Shopping Center in Minnetonka, a western suburb of Minneapolis. 

After advancing north through Monticello, Big Lake, Little Falls, Pine River, Backus, and other hamlets, the bus stopped at 3:50pm for lunch in Walker, on the shore of a bay belonging to Leech Lake. The lake, Minnesota’s third largest, is huge, while the town of Walker is a bit less so.

Thirty miles further on from Walker is Bemidji, home of Bemidji State University, 229 miles north and west of Minneapolis. The city boasts 13,541 residents. The campus serves 5,300 students. 

BSU, 5,300 students & 89 acres on the shores of Lake Bemidji

I accompanied the Chorus as one of 15 staff, groupies, and miscellaneous hangers-on. It was my first visit to the city and campus since October 1970, when I was doing advance work there and in Bagley and Park Rapids for Hubert Humphrey’s campaign for the U.S. senate. 

Bemidji State University is situated on 89 acres (with a 240 acre private forest) on the shores of Lake Bemidji (6,400 acres). "Bemidji" is an Ojibwe word for "lake with cross waters." The Mississippi River crosses Lake Bemidji, 30 miles from its headwaters at Lake Itasca.

70 gay men & audience in Beaux Arts Ballroom, Bemidji

A demographically diverse, sold-out audience of 270 rocked the Thompson Recital Hall in a 90-minute program sung without intermission. Many of them came for good music, well performed – it did not matter who was singing it. Music is music, after all, and state budget cuts had recently caused the university to send packing two of its six professors of music.

Afterward, audience members, singers, and sponsors from the Phoenix Gay-Straight Student Organization and Servant Hearts, an organization for marginalized and at-risk youth and adults, visited in the lobby and at the Beaux Arts Ballroom of the student union. 

Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus, March 19, 2011, Lakeland Public Television, Bemidji, Minnesota

Santa, baby!

Minneapolis, Minnesota

In a season long and rich in performances, the best holiday show happened Dec. 12, when 12 members of the touring cast of Les Misérables, led by Jason Forbach, presented "It Might Be Hope," a benefit concert for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, at The Lab Theater in Minneapolis. 

The performers, who have toured together for a year, devoted their weekly night off to a performance of personable and engagingly-intimate, solo and ensemble renditions of tunes secular and religious, sublime and ridiculous.

Forbach, a native of Overland Park, Kansas, hosted the show which included a star turn by the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus singing three numbers from its just-completed holiday concert. 

A believer in "the power of faith when following a dream," Forbach gifted each attendee with a copy of his holiday EP, "Remembering to Dream."

Since 1988, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS has raised and granted more than $123 million. 

Under the leadership of its entertainment empress, Mary Kelley Leer, the 350-seat Lab Theater continues to evolve into one of the most exciting and flexible performance spaces in the Twin Cities. 

The Minneapolis run of Les Miz continues at the Orpheum Theatre, through Dec. 18. 

Commissions anchor spring TCGMC concert

Minneapolis, Minnesota


As a child attending Sunday services of the new St. Timothy's Lutheran Church, held in the Nelson Grade School gymnasium in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, I once heard our pastor make a point in his sermon about the weakness of the human voice. "If all the people in the city of Chicago started talking at one time," he said, "they would generate barely enough energy to illuminate a light bulb."

In those days that preceded the Stonewall Rebellion by 10 years, the pastor had never heard a gay men's chorus, the collective voices of which now have power to change and illuminate the world.


For Glenn Olson, such voices have provided at least one life changing experience. As a baritone singer with the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus since its second season in 1982, he has attended seven quadrennial choral festivals sponsored by GALA Choruses. The 1996 GALA gathering in Tampa, Florida, he says, had a special buzz about it.


Word had it that the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus had commissioned a hot new work, NakedMan, to close the festival and honor the memory of the 254 singers it had lost to AIDS. For everyone, like Olson, who shared the moment, the outside air crackled with electricity as they emerged afterward from the packed hall.


With its soaring melodies, "NakedMan" sings the story of all people who have felt different, and celebrates their courage to face the unknown. The song suite, by Philip Littell and Robert Seeley, grew out of interviews with gay men, and is set in 15 movements adding up to 53 minutes of music. The movements cover the range of human experience: coming out of every kind, getting married, serving in the military, wrestling with God, and experiencing loss.

At the debut of "NakedMan" in 1996, Dr. Stan Hill had served as artistic director of the San Francisco chorus for seven years. He continued there for four more years before assuming the same post with the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus in August 2000.


With the two organizations, Hill has commissioned some of the most successful repertoire in the gay and lesbian choral literature. In addition to "NakedMan," he has shepherded to creation "Exile," "ExtrABBAganza," "Metamorphosis," "Through A Glass, Darkly," and "Misbehavin'!"


Hill also has led the TCGMC on a number of remarkable, groundbreaking journeys, including its 25th anniversary season in 2006. That season culminated in the Great Southern Sing-Out Tour through four states and five cities in six July days.


The chorus launched the Southern tour at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, becoming the first gay organization to perform on the historic stage of the Grand Ole Opry. From Tennessee, three buses of singers and supporters then traveled to performances in Birmingham and Mobile, Alabama, Jackson, Mississippi, and New Orleans, Louisiana. "Marry Us," one of the movements from "NakedMan," was featured at every stop.


Accompanied by the GLBT Minnesota Philharmonic Orchestra, "NakedMan" will open the first half of TCGMC's spring concert, LifeSongs: The Music of Living, Mar. 26-27, at the Ted Mann Concert Hall, Minneapolis. In its publicity, the MPO states that, speaking for itself, its members "will be fully clothed."


The world premiere of "The Kushner Trilogy" will highlight the program's second act. Lyrics for the three sections – "It is Very Simple," "There is a Little House in Heaven," and "I Want More Life" – are drawn from texts by the playwright Tony Kushner.


The TCGMC performed the third section on four occasions during the Guthrie Theater's Kushner Celebration in 2009. Its text comes from "Angels in America, Part II: Perestroika," a monologue by Prior, a man wracked by advancing AIDS, who pleads before a cosmic tribunal for more life despite the pain of his disease. The music transforms the repeated phrase, "I want more life," from plea to confident claim for the gay man's place at humanity's table.


Jeffrey Bores, TCGMC's board chair, and his partner, Michael Hawkins, underwrote the trilogy's choral setting by Michael Shaieb, who also composed "Through A Glass, Darkly" for the chorus in 2008. Meet the Composer's MetLife Creative Connections Program provided additional funding to support post-performance conversations with the composer.

The spring chorus program also will include "The Promise of Living" from Aaron Copland's "The Tender Land," "The Impossible Dream" from "Man of La Mancha," "This is the Moment" from "Jekyll and Hyde," and "Here's Where I Stand" from the film "Camp."


More than 750 men have served in the TCGMC's singing ranks since its first concert at the Heritage Hall of the Minneapolis Public Library. The group has recorded 10 CDs and performed with the Minnesota Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, VocalEssence, Ballet of the Dolls, James Sewell Ballet, composer Ned Rorem, Harvey Fierstein, Ann Hampton Calloway, Michael Feinstein, and Holly Near.


The Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus will present its 2010 spring concert performances with the Minnesota Philharmonic Orchestra at the Ted Mann Concert Hall, University of Minnesota West Bank Arts Quarter, Minneapolis, Fri. & Sat., Mar. 26 & 27, 8pm. For tickets call 612.623.2345. Photos by Paul Nixdorf.

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A marriage in Iowa

Mason City, Iowa

Civil Marriage Ceremony for Gary Swenson and Dean Genth
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Music Man Square, Mason City, Iowa


Officiant: The Reverend Dr. Mel White
Members of the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus
Directed by Dr. Stan Hill
Accompanied by Timothy De Prey

Food, glorious food!

Minneapolis, Minnesota


You can help alleviate hunger in Minnesota by buying and eating loads of bananas.


Through a mechanism of recovery and donation, the empty cartons in which the Chiquita company ships bananas to wholesale grocers and retail stores find their way to a 65,000 sq. ft. warehouse in New Hope, a suburban community of Minneapolis. There, an army of volunteers packs 35-40 pounds of food into each box for distribution to a network of 200 foodshelves and relief programs in 35 Minnesota counties.


This distribution process is the centerpiece of the programs operated by the Emergency Foodshelf Network, a nonprofit foodbank founded in 1976 to collect, warehouse, and distribute high quality food and provide essential support services.


The foodbank system can be reduced to numbers, each number ultimately representing individual people in the system.


EFN's warehouse itself would be a performing artist's dream facility. The second floor of the Hennepin Center for the Arts in downtown Minneapolis has two, freespan dance studios – each two stories high – and accompanying office space that occupy roughly 7,500 sq. ft. The EFN space is larger by more than 8-1/2 times!


Volunteers provided EFN with more than 200,000 hours of service last year, worth $3.9 million. Nearly 75 hours were donated today by 27 members of the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus in an outing organized by Jason Schuck, the chorus president.


The day's efforts were inspired by the theme of the chorus's March concert performances: "Food, Glorious Food!" Songs with a culinary flavor will be accented by advice from guest food diva Lynne Rosetto Kasper, host of The Splendid Table® on American Public Media.


Under the direction of Volunteer Coordinator Sarah Cobb, 17 guys sorted through tons of donated canned and packaged goods for 2-1/2 hours, discarding a motley variety of paper bags and boxes while checking expiration dates. For present purposes, all peanut butter items, a considerable number, were set aside. Then, they assembled a balanced collection of foodstuffs into the Chiquita cartons – whose ratio of tops to bottoms was duly noted by some to be equal. Packed cartons were stacked on pallets, three deep, three wide, and five high. Just shy of eight pallets were stacked containing nearly 13,000 pounds of food.


Ten other men re-packed meat into 365 "mega-meat packages," each providing servings for an average family unit of four.


Once the statistics are entered into the tracking system, EFN will send an email to its member agencies telling them it has 13,000 pounds of food ready for distribution. Agencies will then order what they need, either for delivery by EFN or pickup by the agency. Approximately 4,900 people will eat food from today's packaging.


The average foodshelf site in EFN's network receives 800 pounds of free food per month, equal to 50 bags of groceries. On average, this translates into a distribution of one bag of food per person, per family.


According to EFN's website, for each individual, corporate, foundation, and government dollar donated, 92¢ is expended directly on programs. The agency does not charge its members fees of any kind for its services, and operates with a lean staff of 27 and a fleet of five vehicles. In addition to distributing free food, EFN makes bulk purchases at discount to resell without markup to its members.


The United States does not lack for sufficient food to feed its people. What is lacking is the capacity of individuals to purchase what is needed. A recent survey by Hormel Foods reported that one in four Minnesotans said they or a family member had visited a food shelf. One in 10 said they or someone in their family went to bed hungry in the past month because of lack of money for food.


Each year, 96 billion pounds of food, 27% of the U.S. food supply, is wasted and thrown away. EFN's Lost Harvest program attempts to salvage some of this. Here's how.


Consumers have become accustomed to purchasing produce of uniform size and color from their grocery displays. Consequently, at the U.S./Mexico border at Nogales, Arizona, thousands of tons of perfectly good, fresh produce are sent to landfills because they are misshapen or off-color. One truck, 35,000 pounds, of such produce is worth $100,000 and can feed 8,000 individuals. EFN's only cost is that of its transport from Arizona to Minnesota for $4,000 per truck. In 2008, EFN transported and distributed 1 million pounds of produce – with a value of $2.8 million – at a total transport cost of around $114,000.


Like the rest of this operation, that is nonprofit and free market efficiency at its best. Even our new, Wall Street socialists should support that!


The Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus will present "Food, Glorious Food!" at the Ted Mann Concert Hall, 2128 4th Street South, Minneapolis, Fri-Sat, Mar. 27-28, 8pm. Tickets: $23-$43, 612.624.2345.

spark24

Minneapolis, Minnesota


If you want anything cultural promoted in the Twin Cities, Scott Mayer is the go-to guy to get it done, even on Labor Day weekend when any resident who has not left town is either sleeping-in or preparing for a day at the Minnesota State Fair.


Mayer's latest project, spark24, showcased the Minneapolis-St. Paul arts scene to a global audience in a 24-hour marathon, running from 5pm, Aug. 30, to 5pm, Aug. 31.


Activities centered on Orchestra Hall and the adjacent Peavey Plaza in downtown Minneapolis. The Minnesota Orchestra kicked things off, followed by 27 half-hour blocks filled by the likes of VocalEssence, the Minnesota Opera, Zenon Dance Company, Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus, Mu Daiko, Arena Dances, Chanhassen Dinner Theatres, and many more.


More than 60 public and private venues around downtown got into the act with some form of live entertainment between 10pm and 2am. At 4am, 800 people were attending activities inside Orchestra Hall.


When performances moved back outside to Peavey Plaza at 6am, five hardy souls had been present since 5pm. By 9am, one stalwart remained and vowed to stay the full 24 hours! A complimentary breakfast was served from 6am to 9am to anyone on the scene.


The excuse for this activity was the presence in the Twin Cities of 50,000+ visitors, including global media, for the Republican National Convention, which opens tomorrow. A press center for spark24 was set up in the IDS Center, three blocks from Peavey Plaza.


Mayer's prolific promotional activities have been chronicled for more than 20 years. I interviewed him on my radio program in the 1980s when he inaugurated the annual Hollywood Academy Awards events in Minneapolis. When the mayor needed help organizing and funding MOSAIC, an annual summer arts festival, he turned to Mayer six years ago. More recently, Mayer founded the annual Ivey Awards to celebrate and honor professional theater in the Twin Cities.


Peavey Plaza has become the outdoor venue of choice for summer performances in downtown Minneapolis. Located on the Nicollet Mall and adjacent to Orchestra Hall, its bubbling fountains and the historic spires of Westminster Presbyterian Church across the street provide an open air, jewel-box setting.

if you only knew...

Miami, Florida


What would you do – if you only knew – that you are beautiful?


That ambiguous and unresolved question lingers in the air and a listener's mind as Through a Glass, Darkly fades into silence. It is a question that substance abusers confront in "the silence of beading sweat" when they have exhausted indulgence and options.


The Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus commissioned Through a Glass, Darkly from composer Michael Shaieb, and presented it for the first time at the Ted Mann Concert Hall in Minneapolis, March 29, 2008, where it was filmed for broadcast on Twin Cities Public Television and turned into a DVD. Its subject is methamphetamine addiction and the effects it has on meth users and everyone they know.


One hundred TCGMC members, led by Dr. Stan Hill, reprised a fully-staged version of the 47-minute rock opera in two performances, Wed., July 16, at the Symphony Ballroom of Miami's Hilton Hotel. The three character leads were acted and sung dramatically by tenors Paul Brekke, Justin Scharr, and Bryan Fisher. Enthused audience members were drawn from 5,000 delegates to GALA Choruses Festival 2008.


Meth is highly addictive and tolerance to it develops quickly. Its most prominent effects include depression and physical decay. Its use among some gay populations on the North American coasts reaches 13%, but it is not confined to gays. In Minnesota, 69% of the state's 87 counties report that child protection cases have increased due to meth abuse. The Minnesota Financial Crimes Task Force reports that 90% of the state's financial crimes, including identity theft, are connected to meth or crack abuse. In 2004, meth treatment accounted for almost 20% of all admissions to Twin Cities hospitals. The Minnesota County Attorneys Association maintains an informational website on the subject.


TCGMC's chief aim in creating and disseminating Through a Glass, Darkly is to grant people permission to talk about addiction. According to a rumor circulating in the Festival hallways, the work will be presented by choruses in Washington, D. C., San Diego, and San Francisco. All DVD copies of the TCGMC production were sold out within hours of Wednesday's performances.


The concert halls of the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts were silent Wednesday afternoon and evening as delegates took an afternoon break to gather at the Miami Convention Center for a 25th Anniversary Celebration of the founding of GALA Choruses. Buses then transported everyone to an evening of picnic and play at Miami's Jungle Island.

Siren songs

Miami, Florida


Flying House Productions is the third largest of Washington state's music organizations in budget, audience exposure, and ensemble size. The organization houses the Seattle Men's Chorus -- the largest community chorus in America, and the largest gay men's chorus in the world -- and the Seattle Women's Chorus. It also operates a publishing arm and a concert presenting series. More than 40,000 people attend its annual subscription series.


Formed in 2002, the Seattle Women's Chorus has grown to more than 200 singers, more than 100 of whom traveled to Miami this week for GALA Choruses Festival 2008. The Chorus joined with women's music legend Cris Williamson to present Siren Song, a morning concert of Cris's work, Tue., July 15, in the Symphony Ballroom at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Miami.


Lori Surrency arranged the selections, which included Waterfall, Sweet Woman, Songbird, Sister, Mercy, Blue Rider, If I Live, Peter Pan, Midnight Oil, Live Wire, Sound of the Soul, and Lullabye.


A group of 21 gentlemen from Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill opened that evening's concert block at the Ziff Ballet Opera House. Formed in 1995, the Triangle Gay Men's Chorus, in black formal wear with long black ties, performed a pleasing set led by Artistic Director John-Philip Mullinax. In a GALA premiere, Kevin Michael Tillman soloed in "Winter Before the Fire," a movement from his composition Where is Love. The program included When I Hear Music (Michael G. Martin, composer); How Do I Love You (Penny Rodriguez, composer; E. B. Browning, lyricist); The Quest Unending (Joseph M. Martin, composer; words by Alfred Lord Tennyson); In Whatever Time We Have (Stephen Schwartz, composer; Mac Huff, arranger); and Holy is the Lord (Jeffrey I. Ames, composer).


Half of the 50-member Capital City Men's Chorus made the Miami music scene. Directed by Dr. Jeffrey Jones-Ragona, this fun group from Austin, Texas, will celebrate its 20th anniversary next season. Their performance opened with Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy (Tchaikovsky, composer) and was followed by Stars I Shall Find (David Dickau, composer; Sara Teasdale, lyricist); A Love That Will Never Grow Old (Gustavo Santaolalla, composer; Jeffrey Jones-Ragona, arranger; Bernie Taupin, lyricist; John Lopez, soloist); Resurrection (Karl Logue, composer; George Klawitter, lyricist); Live-A-Humble (traditional spiritual; Peter Bagley, arranger; Timothy Ryan, tenor, James Gaeta, baritone, soloists); and There Won't Be Bad Hair Days In Heaven (Jerry Garrison, composer). Gaeta and Freddy Herrera, Jr. added fine solo touches to The Parting Glass (Irish traditional; Jones-Ragona, arranger).


I really liked the Calgary Men's Chorus from Canada's Alberta province. The group embodies a sepia-tinted classicism. Jean-Louis Bleau conducted a quintet of strings and piano, an angelic boy soprano, and 22, tux-clad singers. Their perfectly lovely set of offerings in English or French included Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen, composer; Roger Emerson, arranger); Caresse sur l'Ocean and Vois sur ton Chemin (both works: Bruno Coulais, composer; Christophe Barratier and Coulais, lyricists); and One Voice (Greg John, composer; Greg John and Heather John, lyricists). Dancer Gessuri Gaitan performed the modern dance role of Sebastian in Homage a Sebastian (John Bouz, composer; R. McGinnis and L. Montgomery, lyricists).


Audience members waving green, white, and orange Irish flags greeted Gloria, Dublin's Lesbian & Gay Choir as it took the stage for its third GALA appearance (previously seen in San Jose and Montreal). John Francis Murphy directs the group, formed in 1995. As always, it was nice to hear Danny Boy (Weatherley, composer; Jonathan Rathbone, arranger). The 32 singers also presented Pai Duli (composer unknown; Steven Samitz, arranger); Change The World (Kirkpatrick/Kennedy/Sims, composers); Virga Jesse (Anton Bruckner, composer); Wanting Memories (Ysaye Barnwell, composer); Don't Stop Me Now (Mercury, composer); and Dúlamán (McGlynn, composer).


The men from Lakewood, Ohio, beamed individual character and oozed sex appeal in a playful set. Accompanied by percussion and piano, 42 of 100+ members of the North Coast Men's Chorus, dressed in black pants and pink polos, entertained with tunes conducted by Music Director Richard Cole. The line-up included Think Pink (Roger Edens, composer; Ralph Raymond Hays, arranger; Leonard Gershe, lyricist; James J. McPeak, soloist); Gonna Build a Mountain (Leslie Bricusse, composer; Norman Leyden, arranger; Anthony Newley, lyricist); You Made Me Love You (Joe McCarthy, composer; Robert W. Thygerson, arranger; James V. Monaco, lyricist); In What Ever Time We Have (Stephen Schwartz, composer; Patrick Sinozich, arranger); Coffee in a Cardboard Cup (Kander and Ebb, composers); Stand Up for Love (David Foster and Amy Foster, composers; Steven Milloy, arranger; Stephen Adams and Virgilio P. Fajardo, soloists). Twelve singer-dancers employed pink and white feather fans in Let Me Entertain You (Jule Styne, composer; David Maddux, arranger; Stephen Sondheim, lyricist).


The evening finished with Michael Shaieb's Through a Glass, Darkly, edited closely to fit the 30-minute limit. Commissioned and performed by the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus, led by Artistic Director Stan Hill, the work examines the effects of methamphetamine addiction. A filmed version of the March 2008 premiere has been broadcast multiple times on Twin Cities Public Television in Minnesota and is available in DVD format. Two full stagings of the work will be presented on Wednesday morning at the Hilton Hotel. [Another posting to follow.]


Before taking the stage of the Ziff Opera House, 20 TCGMC members attended the One Voice Mixed Chorus performance in the Knight Concert Hall across the street. Directed by Jane Ramseyer Miller, the men and women of One Voice presented TJAK! (Stephen Hatfield, composer; lyrics from Balinese Ketjak ceremony); How Can I Keep From Singing? (Robert Lowry, composer; Gwyneth Walker, arranger); Sicut Cervus (Giovanni Palestrina, composer; lyrics from Psalm 42); A Palette to Paint Us as We Are (Elizabeth Alexander, composer; Gerald Rich, lyricist); Distinctions (Kevin W. Wojahn, composer; Shams Tobriz, lyricist; commissioned by One Voice in 2006); I am Flying (Nan-Chang Chien, composer; Britt Abel and Joy MacArthur, soloists); and Musical Risotto (Jonathan Willcocks, composer; Darcy Juhl and Kristen Schweiloch, soloists).

Opening...Sunday afternoon and evening

Miami, Florida

The Miami Gay Men's Chorus, founded in 1999, took the stage of the Ziff Ballet Opera House shortly after noon on Sun., July 13, to launch the first of this week's 27 concert blocks at Festival 2008. With 67 delegates, led by Conductor Anthony Cabrera, the group presented a lovely rendering of Bobby McFerrin's 23rd Psalm. The 30-minute program also included My Own Creation, composed by MGMC's Chris Lobdell, with lyrics by Jerry Chasen; Amor de mi Alma (Z. Randall Stroope, composer); The Masochism Tango (Tom Lehrer, composer); and Alleluia (Paul Basler, composer).


Twenty seven members of the New Orleans Gay Men's Chorus, founded in 1982, gave the group its strongest GALA presence in years, presenting excerpts from their spring concert, "HOME." Under the baton of Artistic Director Cedric Bridges, the men offered In His Eyes/My Friend (Chuck Effler, composer); What a Wonderful World (George David Weiss, composer; Effler, arranger; George Douglas, lyricist); Opening Medley (Effler, composer); and Family (Henry Kreiger, composer; Effler, arranger). NOMGC's vice president voiced his members's thanks to GALA Choruses for the tangible and moral support they have provided in the three years since Hurricane Katrina.


In a reflection of good karma, the website of the New Orleans chorus encourages visitors to join in donating assistance to The Quire, a GLBT chorus affected by recent flooding in Eastern Iowa.


The MCC San Francisco Worship & Praise Team has some great male and female soloists among its 21 delegates. Gary Colman and Jill Sizemore composed and soloed in Gloria and I See You, God, respectively, while Rick Rosser and Larry Novida poured it on in Surrender (Cheri Toney, composer). The program also included Benedictus (Ilyas Iliya, composer). Music Director Stephanie Lynne Smith heads the Gospel ensemble.


Conductor Jerry Foust and the San Diego Men's Chorus provided a rousing finish to the afternoon set with highlights from Jersey Boys (Bob Gaudio, composer; Mark Brymer, arranger; Gaudio and Brymer, lyricists); He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother (Bobby Scott, composer; John Coates, arranger; Bob Russell, lyricist); Trashin' the Camp (Phil Collins, composer; Moses Hogan, arranger); and Stayin' Alive–Bee Gees Medley (Barry, Maurice, and Robin Gibb, composers; Teena Chinn, arranger). Let It Be (John Lennon/Paul McCartney, composers; Antonio Barazza, arranger) featured soloists Antonio Barazza and Jeff Crawford.


They have played in Europe and at Carnegie Hall, and now the five members of Uptown Express can add Miami's Ziff Opera House to their resumes. With a pop repertoire covering the last 80 years, the energetic lads presented selections from their new CD, "Walk Like A Man," backed by percussion, bass, and piano. John Followell, music director, arranged most of the tunes, including Who Loves You (Bob Gaudio & Judy Parker, composers); It's All Right With Me (Cole Porter, composer); Goin' Out of My Head (Randazzo/Winstein, composers); Can't Take My Eyes Off of You (Gaudio/Crewe, composers); Come To My Window (Melissa Etheridge, composer); I Want Love (Elton John, composer; Bernie Taupin, lyricist); Constant Craving (k.d. Lang/Ben Mink, composers); Never Can Say Goodbye (Clifton Davis, composer); and Love Grows Here (Gross/Koutrakous/Perreaux, composers). Soloists Christopher Caswell, John DePalma, Alex Goro, and Brad Parks were terrific, respectively, in the Etheridge, John, Lang/Mink, and Davis.


Full group dancing, in platform shoes, lent a comic, 1970s flair to the 14 singers from the Connecticut Gay Men's Chorus, led by Greg McMahan, guest music director. In its 22nd year, the group presented selections from its spring concert, including Dancing Queen: The Best of Abba (Andersson & Ulvaeus, composers and lyricists) and Seventies with a Twist (various composers, arranged by Mac Huff).


Now in its sixth season, Our Song: The Atlanta Gay and Lesbian Chorus brought 34 singers, resplendent in black tie formal wear, to Miami to deliver several short tunes, directed by Dr. Robert Glor, artistic director. The selections included My Spirit is Uncaged (Paul Rardin, composer; Walt Whitman, lyricist); Breath of Heaven (Chris Eaton & Amy Grant, composers; Lloyd Larson, arranger; Eaton & Grant, lyricists); Whirligig (Chuck Cogliandro, composer; commissioned by Our Song); Bonse Aba (Traditional Zambian Song; Andrew Fischer, lyricist); Bach (Again), Come Sweet Death (J. S. Bach, composer; Rhonda Sandberg, arranger); There Will Be Rest (Frank Ticheli, composer; Sara Teasdale, lyricist); and Ain't That Good News (William L. Dawson, composer and lyricist).


Sixty one singers of the 100+ member Philadelphia Gay Men's Chorus also made the scene in black ties, accompanied by the Community Women's Orchestra from San Francisco. Artistic Director Joseph J. Buches led the group through Open Road (Robert Maggio, composer); Bridge Over Troubled Water (Paul Simon, composer; Kirby Shaw, arranger); and Joyful, Joyful (Beethoven, composer; Warren, arranger; Emerson, adapter).


The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus holds a special place in GALA Chorus history. Established in 1978, a month following the assassinations of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, it was the first chorus to include the word "gay" in its name. Choruses formed in New York City, Dallas, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, and other cities between 1979 and 1981. In 1981, the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus went on tour, visiting 12 cities around the country. The tour inspired the formation of many new lesbian and gay choruses, including the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus in 1981.


San Francisco's artistic director, Dr. Kathleen McGuire, led a delegation of 129 delegates to Miami to close out Sunday's performances with highlights from its recent seasons. The singers upped the sartorial ante, attired in white tie formal wear complete with white pocket handkerchiefs and sailor's hats for excerpts from U.S.S. Metaphor (Sir Arthur Sullivan, composer; Kathleen McGuire, arranger).


The program also included Gay vs. Straight Composers, abridged (Eric Lane Barnes, composer and lyricist, with help from many); Love (David Conte, composer; Philip Littell, lyricist); and "Tonight" from West Side Story (Leonard Bernstein, composer; McGuire, arranger; Stephen Sondheim, lyricist).


A commissioned work by Ilyas Iliya, Safeer el-Layl (Ambassador of the Night), addressed a powerful plea for freedom to Muslims around the world, sung in Lebanese Arabic "so they can understand it."

Beside Biscayne Bay

Miami, Florida


Twenty five years ago, GALA Choruses, the Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses, took flight on its mission to serve the fledgling GLBT choral movement.


Now, with 120 member organizations in the United States, Europe, and Australia, ranging in size from five singers to 250, GALA represents the artistic, communal, and political aspirations of 7,500 singers and, by degrees of separation, their audiences.


More than 5,000 of those singers are gathered in the center of Miami this week for Festival 2008 to celebrate and perform from a growing body of GLBT choral work as well as "mainstream" standards.


The assembled ensembles will present 141 performances in 27 concert blocks at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts through July 19.


I traveled here from Minneapolis on Sat., July 12, with 122 delegates of the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus and 38 delegates of One Voice Mixed Chorus. Most of us are lodged at the Miami Marriott Biscayne Bay, Double Tree Hotel, or Hilton Hotel, located within a block of each other.


They build structures tall and skinny here to maximize views and income potential. James Davies and I are on the 18th of the Marriott's 31 floors, with a balcony view of the marina below and across a sparkling Biscayne Bay to South Beach. We stayed here in 2002 while attending Dance/USA's Roundtable conference.


While many more are under construction, I am told there are 40,000 condos for sale in the immediate area; people can't or won't pay for the hurricane insurance.


Saturday's opening ceremonies, sponsored by acfea Tour Consultants, featured engaging and spirited performances by Ann Hampton Callaway and the massed choruses of Florida.


There are lines everywhere for everything. Surprisingly, despite the scale of its convention and hospitality facilities, Miami feels under-prepared in some respects to handle 5,000 people; there is a degree of "not quite right." Maybe, it is just us.


People have located the IGA grocery store, four blocks from the hotels, and are stocking in-room refrigerators. Everyone is settling in for the duration.


The positive energy is infectious!

A touching time to be alive

Minneapolis, Minnesota


Last Friday, my friend G and I attended "Love Is A Many Splendored Thing," the summer concert of the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus. It was a lovely and splendored evening at Ted Mann Concert Hall on the University of Minnesota's West Bank campus. Going to and from, all of the electric power was "out" in the nearby 7-Corners neighborhood, including at the Southern Theater where TU Dance had to cancel a performance and re-schedule it for Sunday. The Southern is within a stone's throw of where the I-35 bridge collapsed and is being rebuilt, so traffic in the best of times is a mess. With no stoplights, no traffic cops, and no street lights, it was a wild and woolly time.


Saturday morning, G and I spent three hours working at the Obama booth at the Pride Festival in Loring Park. Steady, non-stop visitors the whole time. After our shift, we walked over to St. Mark's Cathedral where my partner, James, and colleagues were wrestling to keep the 70-foot rainbow banner attached in one piece to the bell tower. They won the battle on Saturday, but on Sunday the whole thing ripped in two.


Sunday morning found James tuning up and marching in the Pride Parade through downtown Minneapolis with the Minnesota Freedom Band. I marched with 100+ others in the Obama contingent. The mayor of Minneapolis led our group down Hennepin Avenue where we handed out 15,000 "Obama Pride" stickers before they ran out. The enthusiasm and cheering that went up all along the route as our banners -- and a life-size cutout of Barack -- proceeded ahead of us was amazing. It was very easy to rev the crowd into chants, "Yes we can!" People reached for stickers with such enthusiasm -- leaning forward to be touched.


Being touched. That's what politics and the arts are all about. And religion, too.


Later Sunday afternoon, James and I attended Mass at St. Mark's along with nearly 100 others from the Pride Festival. A special part of the service was the touch of affirmation and the laying on of hands given to those who chose to go forward.


We ended the day at an evening bar-b-que fundraiser for Zenon Dance Company. The troupe will perform four times next week at Dance Theater Workshop in New York City. I managed this group for five years once upon a time, something like 20 years ago. We wish them well.


I have been touched by quite a few dance performances in the last three months: Ragamala Music & Dance Theatre, Minnesota Dance Theatre, Minnesota Ballet, James Sewell Ballet, Ananya Dance Theatre, Zenon, and a combo of Ballet of the Dolls/Live Action Set/Zorongo Flamenco Dance Theatre. Also touching were theater performances by Open Eye Figure Theatre and Theatre de la Jeune Lune.

New Orleans: Coda and Capo

New Orleans, Louisiana


Six summers ago, my brother and I wept in each other's arms in Dodge City, Kansas.


We were parting at the end of a journey where we had found our grandfather's roots, roots that extended back to Delaware and the first Peterson's arrival around 1638.


Our lives had been changed on the hot plains of southwest Kansas, and we wanted to hold on and savor the grace of the moment.


Different ones had tears at the end of last night's performance at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in New Orleans.


We all wanted to hold on.


Yet, it is time for this tour to end. As someone remarked, “It feels like we've been down here forever!”


In five minutes, a third of our group will leave for the airport and Minnesota. The rest of us will follow tomorrow.


Finding a New Orleans venue - any kind of venue - had been problematic until very recently. Fifteen churches had said “no” before The Rev. Susan Gaumer at St. Andrew's said, “Yes, of course.”


Afterwards, Susan told James Davies that it all came together for her with a single image: 102 singers massed beneath a 16-foot figure of a resurrected Christ, arms raised in blessing.


In many ways, this was the best performance even though the venue imposed technical limitations.


In one of the week's countless sweet moments, the mother of tenor Michael Lahr flew down to hear his solo in “Michael's Letter to Mama,” by Armistead Maupin.


Several other Minnesotans joined us for the finale.


Acts of creation are acts of faith. This is what gives the arts their intrinsic value.


Some of us are called to create human life. All of us are called to live life daily.


In an interview on the bus on Thursday, Richard Long observed that “When a part of you is smothered, a part of you dies.”


Large portions of New Orleans were smothered, and much of it will die. Many people who left will never return. Those who remain have a hard journey.


However, I feel no guilt about our boutique hotel digs in the French Quarter: we are bringing much needed cold cash to a place that will need tons of it for decades.


The city will grow again. What was not broken will be stronger.


The Great Southern Sing Out Tour has been eight days of collective worship, of living life daily. The grace of the moment, the faces, names, and places, will abide with us always.

Biloxi: You Raise Me Up

New Orleans, Louisiana


They formed a tight circle on the white beach sands of Biloxi, Mississippi. In the center stood Richard Long, 61, and words written for the occasion by a black woman in Minneapolis were read.


They formed-up in two facing columns, two-deep, perpendicular to the Gulf of Mexico shoreline.


Between the columns, they unrolled a white fabric runner leading to the water.


As Richard was led through the columns, they joined hands and sang their signature, "Walk hand in hand with me."


Stepping into the Gulf of Mexico, Richard was surrounded by more than 100 brothers singing, "We shall overcome."


No dry eyes on Biloxi's waterfront.


Several of those present were not born in 1965 when Richard was stationed nearby at the Keesler Air Force Base. Black people were not welcome on the Gulf beaches in those days. The power of the federal government, represented by 17,000 soldiers, was no match for the power of attitude in Biloxi, Mississippi.


A reporter-with-camera from the local newspaper was present to record the scene, as were the archival cameras hired by the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus to follow their tour of four Southern states.


The day started with a 90-minute bus tour of Mobile, Alabama, narrated by three community volunteers.


Our Magnolia Express bus had the gracious stories of Linda, who told us "You can say anything you want about somebody in the South if you finish with the words, 'Bless their heart!'"


The City of Mobile (pop. 250,000) is built on a swamp, Mobillians claim to have started Mardi Gras with the arrival of the French in 1702. That other city, further west, did not start its Mardi Gras until "missionaries" arrived there from Mobile in 1850.


Live oak trees, 150-200 years old, are everywhere throughout the city. Unlike some people, they are protected by law, and cannot be trimmed in the slightest.


Mobile receives the highest annual rainfall of any urban city in the continental U.S., operates the 15th largest port, and provides 24% of the nation's seafood.


Mobile Bay is only 3-to-10 feet deep in all of its 30-mile stretch to the Gulf.


TCGMC's Mobile partner, Bay Area Inclusion, was exceedingly well organized, and obtained full underwriting for the performance. They feted all of us handsomely afterward, and many went clubbing with some of the guys until the wee hours.


The only hitch in the proceedings occurred when the air conditioning in Bishop State Community College went out yesterday afternoon. Fans were on, wool tuxedos were dispensed with, and artists and audience got "pitty" together.


Seven Mobile police officers volunteered their services for security on their day off, and one of them gave his phone number to one of the soloists.


The three bus drivers who have been with us all week attended for the first time and said they enjoyed themselves a great deal. Their previous gigs have included multi-state transport for at least one George Bush campaign.


Driving along the Gulf Coast today, and into New Orleans, was a sorrowful, sobering experience of disbelief. It is as bad -- and then some -- as the pictures on television.


We have a few hours before starting the pub crawl to hand out publicity for tomorrow night's performance. And -- best news -- we don't have to be checked-out and on a bus by 9am in the morning.


Time to see this city, up close, on foot.

You raise me up so I can stand on mountains.
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas.
I am strong when I am on your shoulders.
You raise me up to more than I can be.

-- Act 1, TCGMC, Great Southern Sing Out Tour

Jackson: Jeers, Tears, and Many Cheers

Mobile, Alabama


Jesus told us to feed the hungry.


Last night's TCGMC audience in Jackson, Mississippi, was famished. Although our boys looked a touch tired on stage, they acted and sounded anything but as they served a stirring and satiating soulfood.


The audience appeared younger than those in Nashville (Sun.) and Birmingham (Mon.). Individuals later attributed their somewhat reticent responses to not knowing how to act.


"We've never seen or heard anything like this before!"


Invited to stand in place and have their relationships recognized, it took until the last 15 seconds of "Marry Us" before a few dozen couples dared to do so.


This audience, including an 80-something-year-old man, also probably did the most silent weeping throughout the evening.


The first two protesters of the tour, one with a bullhorn, appeared outside the Thalia Mara Hall in downtown Jackson and maintained a vigil all evening. Police restricted them to the sidewalk and away from the city-owned hall. A security guard was posted at the back door, and doors were locked during the concert. After the show, several performers went out to confront the two with song: "We shall overcome!"


We sold as many TCGMC CDs in Jackson as were sold in Nashville and Birmingham combined.


Following the show, Thalia Mara's eight unionized stage crew members donated their labor for the day -- worth $1,200.


Also after the show, a recently-widowed woman offered to write a check to launch a new, Jackson Gay Men's Chorus, and pledged to support it for five years. I am told that she actually wrote the check. She reportedly told a Chorus member, "Every straight person in Jackson should have been here tonight!"


If you have checked TCGMC's web site, you may have noted the story about bass singer Richard Long. When serving in the Air Force in Biloxi in 1965, he was not allowed to join his Caucasian colleagues on the Gulf beaches. Richard has been across the aisle of our Magnolia Express for three days, and tomorrow we are stopping at the Biloxi beach where he will walk and dip a toe in the water.


Last night, a former Biloxi resident sought him out and offered her personal apology for 1965.


During the Civil War, the Union General, William Sherman, burned Jackson three times.


The ornate and monumental state capitol building in downtown stands as a solid testament to the principle of self-government.


Dake Dorris, a Magnolia passenger, served as "City Ambassador" for Jackson activities. As a native of Mississippi, it has been interesting to have his insights about the state and descriptions of the unfamiliar flora.


If this tour was a fashion photo shoot, then Jackson was the "money shot." It would have made the whole trip worthwhile.


TCGMC is a great group of people, doing their best to look after each other. One has spent two free afternoons laundering tuxedo shirts. Another has devoted two days of bus riding to patching and stitching rips and tears.


We lunched in Hattiesburg today. The caravan's arrival in Mobile a short time ago was filmed by a television crew for the evening news, with singing filling the hotel lobby.


The local partner, Bay Area Inclusion has put out the word, which also has spread from earlier stops. Let's see what tonight brings.


If you know people in New Orleans, let them know "curtain time" is 7:30 Friday night, at St. Andrew Episcopal Church, 1301 S. Carrollton Avenue. Admission is free, with a nominal donation of $15 requested. If $15 is a problem, have them ask for me at the door and I will pay their way.

Musings on the Road From Birmingham

Jackson, Mississippi


An enduring conundrum for artistic directors may be found in the differing expectations that audiences bring to performances about the proper mix of high- and low-brow art.


This tour is not all about lifting people up and promoting social change. Some attendees take the music seriously as music.


This morning's Birmingham News carried Michael Huebner's music review under the headline "Message from chorus is it's ok to be gay." Huebner gave four out of five stars for last night's performance to "a taut group with power and precision." [www.bhamnews.com]


I learned about touring in the summer and fall of 1970, when traveling Minnesota's parade and county fair circuit with Hubert Humphrey's Senate campaign. Us minions drove VW microbuses around the state while the candidate flew by helicopter or plane. (It remains true today that to generate an instant crowd anywhere, all you have to do is land a helicopter in any clearing.)


Most of my touring in recent years has been with dancers, and then only with nine or 10 other people. We have sent them to more than 300 venues, but never with the logistics of moving 130 people across four states this week.


Planning by this largely volunteer organization, TCGMC, started two years ago, and staff members made a phantom foray along the route in March.


Tour Coordinator Jeff Brand is an icon of effective organization. Had he been in charge of our Iraq adventures, the enemies of freedom would have been defeated and the troops returned home years ago. Our arrivals and departures all happen within five minutes of schedule.


Captains of our three buses -- Southern Belle, Magnolia Express and Delta Queen -- hand out donuts and candy (the Twizzlers just came by), collect trash, and tell jokes. James Davies and I are on Magnolia, the "quiet bus," chosen for reasons of age and temperament.


Tall, green trees line the Interstates in Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, not unlike northern Minnesota in summer. Today's 240-mile jaunt along I-20/59 is the longest segment of the week; more than yesterday's 183 and less than tomorrow's 140.


It's called "hump day," falling in the middle of the five performances. In other words, everyone needs to conserve and renew energies in order to go the distance.


Just after crossing the Mississippi line at 11am this morning, for about 1,500 yards it seemed as though my worst stereotype about the state was true -- that of a snake-infested swamp. The landscape quickly improved, however.


At our lunchstop in Meridian, we talked about how Jackson was never on any of our lists for a visit or vacation -- certainly not in July. But here we are.


There are many reasons why the TCGMC took on this tour. Not being a member, I won't get into their thinking.


Why did I come? First, because I have never been down here. It's also vacation time, and it was a chance to spend time with James Davies. Life has been so relentlessly busy for both of us for too many years. Certainly, I have been mindful of analogies to the civil rights activities of the 50s and 60s, but those were not romantic draws for me.


There are forces abroad in our land that are trying to claim our patriotism, our country, its flag, and its ideals as their exclusive, private property. They use the tools of language and symbol all too well to serve their own crass and selfish ends. They care not who they hurt in the process.


They hide behind symbols and words about "family," "decency," and "Christianity," to hide their efforts to divide and conquer in exchange for 10¢ worth of power. That 10¢ goes a long way.


We need to meet them word-for-word and symbol-for-symbol.


Two younger men stopped by our lobby table in Birmingham last night. They fear for their
jobs and cannot tell friends along this route about the performances.


Of course, we have fearful people in Minnesota, and we can find as many wackos in the woods
of northern Wisconsin as we can here.


We have arrived in Jackson. About 184,000 people live here, the largest city in the state.