Jul 16, 2004  |  By: BRYAN ANDERTON  | COMMENTS     

A WISE WOMAN once said, “Music makes the people come together.”

Granted, that wise woman was Madonna, but the message is no less true. There are few things in this life that are more uniting than music. Ask anyone who has ever felt the love among an excited crowd at a large concert.

That unifying principle will be felt in Montreal this weekend, when thousands of gay and lesbian singers from around the world perform as part of a weeklong gay choral festival sponsored by GALA Choruses (the Gay & Lesbian Association of Choruses Inc.).

“One of the things I’ve heard over and over again is if you want to sing, join a chorus, and if you want to change the world, join a queer chorus,” says TC Duong, a tenor from Ties Optional, a six-member ensemble of the Lesbian & Gay Chorus of Washington. “It’s great to hear a repertoire that really reflects our lives.”

Ties Optional is one of five local choruses and ensembles that will be traveling to Canada to participate in the 7th International Festival presented by the D.C.-based GALA Choruses from July 17-24. Comedian Lily Tomlin is scheduled to perform during a night of comedy at the festival on Wednesday, July 21.

The festival is scheduled to draw about 5,500 gay and gay-supportive singers to Montreal, representing 167 choruses and ensembles from seven countries, according to Barbara McCullough-Jones, executive director of GALA Choruses.

“Certainly they enjoy the music, which is the primary focus,” she says. “But a lot of people get very empowered to go back to their communities
and live their lives more openly and more honestly.”

DUONG, WHO SAYS he has been to the festival before, describes the experience as “amazing.” Ties Optional typically includes pop music and “fun” songs in its repertoire, he says, and the group will perform a few original pieces at the festival as well as a song in French “to show how bad our French really is.”

GALA was founded 21 years ago, after 14 choruses banded together to share ideas and repertoires. The international festival is held every four years; the last one took place in San Jose, Calif., in 2000.

“What we want to do is to provide to the GALA community a better sense of what Jewish music has to offer,” says Michael Resnick, the director of Tach’shitim, a choral ensemble from Washington’s egalitarian synagogue Bet Mishpachah.

“For so many years, the general populace has looked at Jewish music as either an Israeli folksong or a couple of Hanukkah songs at the holiday program — mostly the latter,” Resnick says. “What we want to do is show folks that there’s a lot more to Jewish faith-based music than just religious music and Hanukkah songs.”

In addition to an Israeli folksong, the eight-member chorus plans to sing a liturgical piece inspired by the Italian Renaissance, a lullaby in a Spanish dialect, and several songs in English that Resnick says might be very familiar to Christians.

Bread & Roses Feminist Singers, another local choir, plans to send 11 of its 16 members to the festival. Carol Wheeler, a 14-year veteran of the chorus, says the group has a wide range of song styles, but that it never forgets its political roots, having been formed in 1978 as a result of the women’s movement.

“We do folksongs, arrangements of Broadway stuff, original music from members, so it’s a little bit of everything,” Wheeler says. “But we never forget the ‘feminist’ in our name.”

This will be the third International Festival in which Bread & Roses has participated. “We’re looking forward to it because it’s always a wonderful way to pick up a new repertoire and to hear other choruses from Europe and Australia that we wouldn’t normally get a chance to hear,” Wheeler says.

One other local musical group, the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, also will be heading to Montreal in two distinct capacities. About 125 members of the overall chorus will be participating, as will 16 members of Potomac Fever, the chorus’s a cappella ensemble.

Now in its 23rd season, GMCW has participated in a number of previous international chorus festivals, according to David Bielenberg, the group’s executive director. And members are excited about taking part in the festivities next week.

“Having so many organizations participate — having 5,000 people converge on a city — it just shows the power of who we are as a community,” Bielenberg says.