By John Hayden
In most years, once the curtain falls on the Gay Men’s Chorus of South Florida’s (GMCSF) Pride concert, they’re finished for the season. But this year they need to keep the hot tea and honey on hand because they have another big weekend in front of them.
They’re headed to Minneapolis for the GALA Choruses Festival, a gathering of LGBTQIA+-centric choruses from around the country. “It’s going to be one great, big gay choirfest,” GMCSF Artistic Director Gabe Salazar told OutClique. “It’s going to be so much fun.”
They’ll join about 8,000 other LGBTQ+ chorus members from around the world. This is an opportunity for the members to share ideas and make the entire community stronger. The festival happens only once every four years. Due to the pandemic in 2020, the group hasn’t met since 2016. Salazar says that makes this year’s gathering extra special.
“Every once in a while, I get to be around these like minded people. Even if we’re not singing, just being around their energy is an incredible experience.”
Being such a big event with so many participants and only happening every four years, you may think this is a sort of choral olympics. But Salazar disagrees.
“I have not once, in my last three years being with this chorus and working with other directors, seen any sense of competition. It’s always been ‘what are you doing’ and ‘tell me about this.’”
In January, GMCSF hosted other directors who will be at GALA, and they were excited to be in Fort Lauderdale during winter and heading to Minneapolis in summer. One common theme among them was that over the past eight years, choruses have become much more diverse.
“We’ve been taking in a lot of new members and fresh faces,” Kevin Corbett of the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus said. “Our membership is more diverse and younger than ever.”
For Salazar, it’s also a professional breath of fresh air. “It’s something that I need to recharge. You get bogged down in the daily tasks of meetings and stuff like that. That can take the artistry away from me. We have to do all these other things in order to make the music.”
The weekend will have a ‘film festival’ feel with a concert nearly every thirty minutes at venues spread over the twin cities. For Salazar and the GMCSF, that means sharing ideas and sharing the love.
“The main thing is coming together and seeing what each chorus and each group is doing in their own respective cities and towns and supporting them.”
