Harold Dioquino
By Andy Armano
This series focuses on individuals who give to our community and make a positive impact on the lives of others. Often it is through our personal adversities that we discover who we are and transform the challenges into strength.
Harold Dioquino, the Artistic Director of the Gay Men’s Chorus of South Florida, infuses his work with his vision to share the arts to as broad an audience as possible. His is the great American success story: an immigrant to the United States, he enriches all our lives with his dedication, spirit, and talent.
Andy Armano: Before we discuss your work as the Artistic Director of the chorus, tell me a little bit about your background, where you came from, and your education.
Harold Dioquino: I came from the Philippines. I’ve been here in the United States for about 20 years. I had my education in the Philippines. I majored in piano, but my heart has always been in choral music.
AA: You are very involved with the arts, I know. Tell me about your artistic endeavors.
HD: I have two jobs right now. I’m the musical director of the Church by the Sea in Bal Harbor. And I am the artistic director and conductor of the Gay Men’s Chorus of South Florida.
AA: Was music and singing part of your childhood?
HD: Yeah, I grew up as a Baptist. My grandfather was a minister at our church, so I’ve been deeply rooted in religious music. But also, I love pop music and Broadway music. I really enjoy those three kinds of music.
AA: How did you find being gay with the church and what was your evolution?
HD: In the Philippines, especially 20 years ago, I had to hide that I was gay. Some of my friends knew and I had gay friends as well, but since my upbringing was in that conservative Baptist tradition, I had the fear of telling my family. Also, as a school teacher in a Catholic private school, you had to be very careful of being gay.
When I moved here, that’s when I really got the freedom to be myself and really let go, so it was easier for me to come out here in the United States. I kept it really like a secret from my family that I was gay. It took me a while to tell my parents about it.
AA: How did your parents handle it?
HD: They were very accepting about my coming out. Parents always have this sixth sense and they kind of know what’s going on with you. I think they were just waiting for me, even though they’re really religious people. They understood, you know? Mine is a boring coming out story. There’s no drama like those stories on TV. My relatives accepted it as well, so it wasn’t a struggle in my case.
AA: You’ve had great success as the Artistic Director of the chorus. What goals have you brought to the chorus?
HD: My job really is to handle all the musical aspects of the chorus. Our mission and vision is always to change hearts and minds. My goal, all the time, is to make sure that our programs are relevant. I want people to come to our program and get something out of it. I want people to go home with an energy or an idea of our message of what we were trying to say for the program.
AA: The Chorus is coming up on an anniversary, right?
HD: This year is our ten-year anniversary, so one of my proposals to the group is we’ll do ten community service concerts. We’ve been laying this out since last year and this year, and we’re starting the first of these community services concerts.
AA: Ten community service concerts in a year! That’s a big commitment.
HD: The wonderful thing is we’ve been bombarded with even new invites. Especially around December because that’s when everybody wants us to do performances. We are going to perform at an organization called ETC, Exceptional Theater Company. We collaborated with them before, on one of their presentations, and now we’re doing a full presentation to them of our guys singing to them. We’re looking forward to going to an elderly home, and next year, we are performing for gay veterans. Those are a few of the places that we’re going to go and perform. Some of these people have never been to our concerts, so we want to share our music with them.
AA: The arts have such an important function to nurture hearts and minds. It’s amazing your chorus reaches out to those who might not otherwise be able to experience it.
HD: Starting the last two years when I became the conductor, we share our music through more community service in addition to our regular concerts. It’s part of the long-term goal to be part of the community, to increase the visibility of the community, and to do whatever we can to help change the hearts of the people through our music. I feel it’s especially important now with our current situation in this country.
For more information on the Gay Men’s Chorus of South Florida visit www.GayMensChorusOfSouthFlorida.org.
