Tag: GALA Festival

From Longing to Belonging

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I’m back home. Inside the furnace, better known as the Valley of the Sun.

I have begun to reemerge from an affirming, magical, inspiring five days of LGBTQ bonding and music with my chosen family at the 2024 GALA Festival in Minneapolis.

From July 10-14, 7,000 singers (representing nearly 300 choruses and presenters from around the world) inhabited the Twin Cities.

We owned the stages. Occupied the hotels. Flooded the restaurants, bars, shops and streets with gaiety and glee.

But it was more than the magnitude of this quadrennial event that has left an indelible imprint on my creativity and identity. It was the sense of joy, kindness, support, and human possibilities that dazzled me most.

At a time in this country and our world where so much hatred abounds, I was reminded that when love is present–when people truly come together to care for one another and cheer each other on–we can be that Bridge Over Troubled Water (one of the songs my Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus mates and I performed) of hope for one another.

This was my third GALA. I shared all of them with my husband Tom: 2012 and 2016 in Denver; 2024 in Minneapolis. Each one has nurtured me, deepened my sense of artistry and compassion, and reinforced the importance of rekindling/kindling old and new relationships.

In this 2024 installment, over a five-day period I was able to reconnect and celebrate with friends from Chicago (who perform with the Windy City Gay Chorus and the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus), Washington, Seattle, and–of course–Phoenix.

A friend and ex-colleague (from my past consulting career) who lives in the Minneapolis area, also surprised and delighted me by attending our performance on July 12. It was a treat seeing her again.

If you follow my blog, you know I have written five books. One is a book of poetry; the other four are memoirs or creative nonfiction. I’ve also written lyrics and librettos for the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus.

Already, I have begun to scribble ideas in a spiral notebook that were sparked by my latest GALA experience. Who knows? This may lead me to a stream of poems or lyrics I have yet to compose.

For now, I will leave you with an idea and image that captured my attention on Saturday as Tom and I watched a series of choruses perform inside the auditorium of the Minneapolis Convention Center.

A few rows in front of us, a couple neither of us knows relaxed and leaned in. Away from the heat and fire in the world, they rested their heads against one another. They held each other. They listened to beautiful music in a safe space.

Many of us in the LGBTQ community have spent large portions of our lives searching for answers, longing for love and understanding.

The beauty of the GALA Festival is that–through the power of music, relationships, and community–we can move from longing to belonging.

Moving beyond this amazing and affirming five days in the upper Midwest, we will continue to raise our voices inside our choruses and be our authentic selves outside in the everyday world.

Truly, we are much more than a large collection of singers. Together, we represent a movement of kind, talented, and diverse humans with the power to change hearts, minds, and attitudes.

I’m Still Standing

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It may or may not surprise you to learn that I’m sipping hot herbal tea–lemon and ginger–as I write this.

Ordinarily, that would feel counterintuitive to surviving the summer desert heat. (We are expecting 115-degree temperatures in the Phoenix area again today.)

But I am determined to eradicate the nagging remnants of Covid congestion. Plenty of rest, fluids, hot tea, Sudafed, and throat lozenges are helping me slay this beast. (I am no longer Covid positive or contagious.)

I want to be clear-headed for my sixty-seventh birthday on July 6th. (Actually, it’s OUR sixty-seventh birthday. In a gift from the cosmos, Tom and I are exactly the same age. I’m no mathematician, but what are the odds of that?!)

We will celebrate by seeing a production of Fiddler on the Roof at the Phoenix Theater–it’s getting rave reviews–followed by dinner at a Phoenix restaurant.

Then, early next week, Tom and I will travel to Minneapolis for the quadrennial GALA choral festival. 7,000 LGBTQ singers (representing hundreds of choruses from the US and around the world) will be participating in this massive community choral event.

It will be more than five days of non-stop music, singing, listening, cheering, and applauding. It will be a giant uplifting and affirming dose of camaraderie, which all of us in the LGBTQ community–the entire world really–need right now.

If you aren’t familiar with GALA, it’s a phenomenal program–gay music camp, of sorts–which happens only once every four years. Of course, the 2020 program was Covid-cancelled.

Therefore, GALA 2016 in Denver was the most recent festival. I still have fond memories of standing on stage with my mates from the Windy City Gay Chorus.

We were asked to perform the song I Love You More from Tyler’s Suite at the closing ceremonies in front of 3,000 people. It is a positive moment seared in my memory … and it happened on my 59th birthday.

Evidently, the GALA 2024 organizers were able to repurpose countless stacks of 2020 lanyards, which someone must have purchased four years ago. Look closely, and you’ll understand what I mean.

Anyway, on Friday, July 12th, at 12:30 p.m. (Central Time) I will perform with my Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus mates on the Minneapolis Convention Center auditorium stage.

We will sing six songs: Bridge Over Troubled Water, You Are Enough, Proud, For Me, I’m Still Standing, and Sing to the World Our Light.

For more information, go to http://www.galachoruses.org. If you love choral music, you can purchase a live stream pass for $35 and see any/all of the chorus performances you like.

Trust me. No matter where you live, the quality, scope, magnitude, magic, and healing power of the music at this exhibition will dazzle you.

This Bow’s for You, Tyler

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On the last day of the last year in a decade of euphoric highs and historic lows, I learned that Tyler passed away. Complications from cancer took my friend, who lit the stage with a wide and tender smile.

Five years ago, Tyler was my tenor-two singing comrade with Windy City Gay Chorus (WCGC). We stood in the light together and performed for two years in our tuxedos in Chicago … and on one other impromptu occasion at the GALA choral festival in July 2016 in Denver.

Even though he had moved to the Cincinnati area with his husband the year before, Tyler rejoined WCGC in the Rocky Mountains for our showstopper finale performance of I Love You More, the beautiful and haunting signature piece from Tyler’s Suite.

I remember hugging Tyler that day … welcoming him back on stage to sing the piece we had rehearsed, cherished and performed together the previous year. (Ironically, it’s a tribute to the life of another Tyler … Tyler Clementi … the Rutgers University student who jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge in 2010 after his roommate used a webcam to capture him sharing an intimate kiss with another man.)

After our mile high performance with WCGC, I recall a darker day … perhaps two years ago … when my friend Tyler, about twenty years my junior, posted a message online saying he was battling cancer.

Over the next year or so, we traded messages two or three times. I followed his progress on his blog. Sent warm wishes from Arizona. Rooted him on as he faced his cancer treatments. But that musical moment in Denver … on July 6, 2016 … was the last time I would see him.

This morning I cried as I read the message Tyler’s husband posted online. Telling us Tyler had lost his battle with cancer on December 30, 2019.

Tyler is gone … but never forgotten. Bright. Engaging. Sweet. Handsome. Enthusiastic. Talented. Adventurous. Ever-optimistic. That’s the Tyler I’ll remember standing by me in Chicago and Denver.

This bow’s for you, Tyler.