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Brothers in Song
Buffalo Gay Men's Chorus
Most of us have stored some favorite songs in our memory banks. We have associated certain words of songs with particular moments in our lives: romances, tragedies, departures, breakups, or events that we could never fully re-experience without recalling those particular songs. When we remember a song, or hear a song that transports us back to our pasts, our lives become enriched with that personal and intimate sense of continuity.
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Singing with Pride
Buffalo Gay Mens Chorus
The contemporary American teLevision industry may give the mistaken impression of having invented the gay sensibility with Queer as Folk and Six Feet Under. It might come as a surprise to a contemporary-driven media that American and European film narratives about gays before the nineties do have a history and include such classics as Suddenly Last Summer, Midnight Cowboy, Cruising, Death in Venice, Prick Up Your Ears, Taxi zum Klo, and many others. And gay art films from other cultures have far outpaced the American mainstream's need not to be shocked by nontraditional sexual behavior with the more recent portrayals of a sometimes raw contemporary gay sensibility in the South American films, Our Lady of the Assassins, Burnt Money and the box-office hit, Y Tu Mama Tambien. Many of the less contemporary films and those from South America seem to portray gay life as highly closeted, predatory, self-destructive, and street-driven; they are also more apt to move into the more dramatic side of art, which has generally meant the more tragic, naturalistic, or Darwinian. In spite of portraying intense bouts of realism, these films don't seem to have suffered from the restraint of censorship or heterosexual peer pressure. However, it would seem that the romantic gay sensibility still has to compete with the classic school of gay Continental naturalism to gain some reputable solidity and acceptance by a wider group of gays who may have never felt the right to appropriate a more idealized, romantic gay sensibility with any degree of permanent confidence.
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If Music be the Food of Love Play on!
Buffalo Gay Men's Chorus
"Love Thy Neighbor" is a phrase that most of us have grown up with as part of our Judeo-Christian heritage. Although few of us here tonight have probably ever been totally consistent in going beyond merely tolerating those we don't like or agree with, the word "neighbor" resonates more deeply than a short-term or casual relationship. Even as metaphor, "neighbor" suggests the kind of long-term proximity requiring a consistent attempt not to offend, a certain form of behavioral restraint with the knowledge that, in most cases, our neighbors are going to be there the next day, no matter what we feel about them. As a next door neighbor, we can build a fence to maintain our own privacy or to protect us from any intrusions from the neighbor's children, the stray dog, the inevitable tire tracks on the backyard lawn after a spring thaw. Having a gay neighbor is not going to change that inevitable American dynamic.
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Songs of Freedom
Buffalo Gay Men's Chrous
Welcome to the Spring concert of the Buffalo Gay Men's Chorus. This is our fourth concert since our founding in 2001 and we've grown from 50 men for that first concert in February of 2003 to 70 men tonight. Our mission is not only to entertain, but also to present different kinds of choral music that a talented male chorus under the leadership of an experienced and skilled music director can perform. So we have a very broad repertoire for a discriminating, eclectic audience that includes both vocal and instrumental pieces, classics, Broadway, and somewhat lighter selections. As well, because we are a Chorus created by ai1d out of the gay culture of Buffalo, we make every attempt to include and promote music by gay composers and artists or music that has a gay theme. Tonight, we have prepared a program that we believe will have something to please just about everyone. so sit back, unwind, relax and let us entertain you tonight.
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Festival of Voices 2003
Buffalo Gay Men's Chorus
Welcome to the first Festival Of Voices. It is our goal to make the Festival Of Voices an annual showcase concert to feature the wonderful GALA choruses from the Northeast USA and Canada, and to build community between GALA choruses and other local musical performance ensembles. To this end we are pleased to welcome the Cayuga Chimes Women's Barbershop Chorus as our local guest chorus. Out Loud Chorus is a member chorus in the Gay and Lesbian Association Of Choruses, Inc. (GALA) which has over 200 member choruses with over 10,000 active musicians world-wide. The motto of GALA is Our Voices Win Freedom. Festival Of Voices is a perfect expression of the GALA motto and the Out Loud Chorus Mission Statement, particularly where it reads Out Loud Chorus was "established for the education, enjoyment and cultural enrichment of its members and its audience." Out Loud seeks to foster a spirit of pride to present positive image to all.
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Of Sweet Harmony
Buffalo Gay Men's Chorus
A concert of music about music was the theme proposed for tonight's program, with a title taken from the lyric beauty of Act V of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. The scene describes the joys of listening to music and describes someone who is unable to enjoy music as "fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; the motions of his spirits are as dull as night, and his affections dark as Erebus; let no such man be trusted."
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Sounds of Summer
Buffalo Gay Men's Chorus
Sumer Is Icumen is one of the oldest written down melodies in the English language and originally was an Easter carol (Yes, there are carols for Easter, Lent, summer, harvest as well as Christmas). The original manuscript, now in the British museum, was transcribed by a Benedictine monk in 1226. The Easter words have long been forgotten, and the tune is now forever associated with summer. It is an ingenious bit of writing with an unmistakably English quality to it. Benjamin Britten incorporated it into the finale of his Spring Symphony where it makes a stunning conclusion to the work.
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Music from the Heart
Buffalo Gay Men's Chorus
"You'll Never Walk Alone" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel and he great Quaker hymn "How Can I Keep From Singing" represent our response to the nightmarish events that occurred in our nation on September 11th. It was a significant date for the chorus, as it was the first rehearsal; rather than cancel after two years of planning and struggling, it was decided to go on and remember those who had perished in the terrorist attacks on that day. The Quakers, or Friends, are a nonviolent peace loving, pacifist religious group and this is their greatest hymn.
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