Transcripts

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[MUSIC PLAYING] [CHOIR SINGING]

DAVID ANDERSON: I'm David Anderson and I began singing with the chorus 18 years ago. So my first concert was actually the summer of 1988.

BRUCE JOHNSON: My name is Bruce Johnson. I am an elementary teacher and I joined the Gay Men's Chorus back in 1986.

GLEN OLSON: I'm Glen Olson and I've sung in the chorus since 1982. I'm the longest continuous member of the chorus, and I joined-- it's hard to remember that far back, but I joined because I had just come out of a straight marriage. I had two small children. I needed to affirm my identity.

BRUCE JOHNSON: There was a point at which, after growing up, with all the fears of living in the closet and thinking I'm the only homosexual in Minnesota, if not the United states, growing up in the '50s and '60s, and then being an elementary teacher and dealing with living in the closet as a part of that, I finally was out to family and community and then realized joining the chorus was the next step. I had it in performance and thought, this is a group that I want to be a part of.

DAVID ANDERSON: When I got the letter of acceptance, I got really frightened that, oh my word, I'm going to be on stage with a whole bunch of other people, and folks in the audience are all going to know that I'm gay.

GLEN OLSON: The chorus has outed me in ways I never imagined I needed to be outed, just because I'll invite folks at work to my chorus concert and they say, well, who do you sing with? Oh, the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus. It's a wonderful way to out yourself, to folks without having a sit down, serious kind of conversation because that's kind of silly these days.

CHORUS: (SINGING) We come from the fire

Living in the fire

Go back to the fire

Turn the world around

DAVID ANDERSON: It is really singing about our lives. I often said that when we sing, we change lives. I know for a fact that we also save lives. I had a man come up to me one night in the bar, and he just gave me this huge bear hug, and he says, you need to know that you've saved my life. And I said, yeah, thank you. Yeah, yeah.

He said, no, you don't know how many times I've been on the verge of suicide over the last year, and the fact that we sing together on stage gives me hope, purpose, brothers, and I am much better about myself. And that story was not an isolated event.

GLEN OLSON: We've toured to places where we've got picketed. We've had bomb threats at our concerts over the years. At Orchestra Hall, for example. And it's just, as long as I'm surrounded by these men, I feel very strong and I feel very protected, and that's one of the reasons I keep on singing, actually.

[CHOIR SINGING]

BRUCE JOHNSON: I think we sound wonderful. I enjoy making music with these guys, and the product is really quite good. And so I think that you have to immediately stop and say, this is really a good thing. Who are these people? Oh. Oh. And I think that that's-- just in that moment, Folks have to say, does this fit how I've understood gay people before?

GLEN OLSON: I look at men that I've known in the chorus, who bring their parents to a concert, and the parents are blown away. I mean, it changes their whole relationship, because for once in their lives, they see gay men being out and proud and not whatever image they had in their mind of what gay men do when they get together.

We sang at the Mall of America a couple of years ago, and a woman came up to our director afterwards and she said, I didn't know there were that many gay men in Minnesota. So it's that kind of-- people have strange ideas about what it means to be gay, and if they see some normal looking guys on stage in tuxedos, and they're like, oh, OK, well, they're not so scary.

[SINGING]

BRUCE JOHNSON: It is very hard to describe the sound when you're sitting with 100 men. All of them have very good voices, so it's a wonderful sound, and to be learning a range of music, a very broad range of music from not as difficult to very difficult and all musical genres. It's a wonderful musical experience.

GLEN OLSON: Minnesota is considered the choral center of the universe, and every four years we all get together. There's like 200 choruses around the world. Two years ago, it was in Montreal. 6,000 people got together.

They all expect us to be excellent musically because we come from Minnesota. They all expect us to be really nice because we come from Minnesota. And we don't usually disappoint them on either score.

CHORUS: (SINGING) Do you believe in life after love?

After love

I can hear something inside me say

I really don't think you're strong enough

Do you believe in life after love?

DAVID ANDERSON: We have a wonderful list of donors. Each member pays for the privilege of singing. We're all dues paying members, and we've gotten a fair amount of corporate and foundation support. A few years ago, I met with some staff of one of the local foundations, and she was just very blunt.

She said, I don't get it. We have arts organizations all over the Twin Cities that are really hurting, and you guys keep doing well and well, and it's obvious in terms of your attendance numbers, in terms of sticking to a bottom line. What's the secret? And I think it goes back to good leadership, I think it goes back to a powerful message, and a determination to have high quality.

GLEN OLSON: During our 25th anniversary, we've been doing a lot of looking back at our past, and I spent some time talking to the founders, the guys that had the idea in 1981. And they said, they'd never imagined that we would still need to be here 25 years later. But then you look around at our society and, my god, we're needed more than ever before. We still need to be out and very visible so that people know that we're still around and we're not going to go hide just because they don't like us.

CHORUS: (SINGING) Let the river run

Let all the dreamers wake the nations

Come, the new Jerusalem

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Silver cities rise

The morning lights

The streets that meet them

And sirens call them on

With a song

It's asking for the taking

Trembling, shaking

Oh, my heart is aching

We're coming to the edge

Running on the water

Coming through the fog

Your sons and daughters

We the great and small

Stand on a star

And blaze a trail of desire

Through the darkening dawn

It's asking for the taking

Come run with me now

The sky is the color of blue

You've never even seen

In the eyes of your lover

Oh, my heart is aching

We're coming to the edge

Running on the water

Coming through the fog

Your sons and daughters

It's asking for the taking

Trembling, shaking

Oh, my heart is aching

We're coming to the edge

Running on the water

Coming to the fog

Your sons and daughters

Let the river run

Let all the dreamers

Let all the dreamers

Wake the nations

Oh, the new Jerusalem

Oh, the new Jerusalem

[APPLAUSE]