Boston Gay Men’s Chorus to give uplifting concert
They choose to sing about things that unite us rather than separate us.
The Boston Gay Men’s Chorus, 170 voices strong, will take to the stage of the Zeiterion Theatre on March 6 with their latest show, “Circle of Life.” The uplifting performance will begin at 3 p.m.
“We all go through the same stages,” says Reuben Reynolds, music director. “And our goal is to show the commonality of all people. We just want to share the simple joy of living life.”
The show will be presented in two sets. Opening the evening will be an original piece, “#twitterlider,” a lighthearted collection of 15 different lyrics presented as tweets that detail life in three segments – youth, middle age, and old age. Each of the 15 songs is less than 140 characters and addresses life events such as birth, marriage and the friendships we make throughout our journey.
“Most people want to have a lot of people in their lives. We’ll make as many friends as we can,” Reynolds says. “We hope that the chorus makes connections with people on a personal level. We don’t want to tell people what to think or do, we just want them to feel that they’re going to be OK and that they’re not alone.”
In the spirit of the common human experience, the first half of the show will close with music by Elton John featured in the movie “Lion King,” including the hit song “Circle of Life.”
“’The Circle of Life’ is everybody’s circle,” Reynolds says.
The second half of the show, made up of songs that the chorus performed last year when they toured the Middle East, including Israel and Turkey, will be familiar to much of the audience. The theme of the songs is “Peace” and will include standards and contemporary material, including “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” by Rodgers and Hammerstein; Vince Gill’s version of “Let There Be Peace on Earth”; “On Top of the World,” by Imagine Dragons; and “Firework” by Katy Perry.
The chorus’s Zeiterion performance will be the first of eight shows throughout New England. This concert is their first ever in SouthCoast.
The Boston chorus has been led by Reynolds for 16 years. He was previously the music firector for the Heartland Men’s Chorus in Kansas City. He says that while the Boston chorus is composed entirely of gay men, a majority of their audience members is straight.
America’s first men’s gay chorus got its start in 1978 in San Francisco. A few years after their beginning, six members mortgaged their homes to fund a national tour with the intention of inspiring similar choral groups throughout the country. Today there are as many as 135 throughout the nation.
Tickets are $35-$15, and may be purchased at the Zeiterion box office, 684 Purchase St., New Bedford, online at www.zeiterion.org, or by phone at 508-994-2900.
A portion of each ticket price for the Zeiterion show will be donated to A Perfect Place, the New Bedford Alliance of Gay and Lesbian Youth. The theater is presenting the concert in conjunction with Grace Episcopal Church.
This article originally appeared in SouthCoast Today on 3/3/2016 – see original article here