Rebel song: A history of gay men's choruses

"Born out of a need for visibility and healing, they've become cultural institutions, blending music with unapologetic queerness and social justice. The story begins in 1978 in San Francisco, when activist-musician Jon Reed Sims founded the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus to march in the city's Gay Freedom Day Parade. It was the first chorus to include the word "gay" in its name. But a few months later, tragedy struck."

""The San Francisco chorus toured to D.C. and sang at the Kennedy Center in May or June of 1981," explains Michael Hughes, a longtime member of the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington, D.C. "It was the first time a gay arts group performed there. A woman named Marsha Pearson was so moved, she said, 'We need this in D.C.' She and her sister handed out flyers at Pride and around Dupont Circle. The first meeting of what became GMCW was on June 28, 1981.""

Gay men's choruses began in 1978 when Jon Reed Sims founded the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus to march in the Gay Freedom Day Parade. The chorus performed Mendelssohn's "Thou, Lord, Our Refuge" at a candlelight vigil after the assassinations of Harvey Milk and George Moscone. Other choruses formed in Los Angeles (1979), New York City (1980) and Washington, D.C. (1981), sometimes spurred by straight allies. The Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses organized a 1983 festival that drew over 650 singers and established a national movement. The AIDS crisis devastated communities and choruses, while choruses continued to perform publicly, mixing music, queer identity and social justice.

Read at Advocate.com