I'm pleased, excited, elated and thrilled to announce that on Dec. 19, 2008, the great San Francisco Gay Mens Chorus, under the direction of Dr. Kathleen McGuire, will be performing my new "cantata for peace" called "Pantheon Bar & Grill" with full orchestra at Davies Hall in San Francisco as half of their annual Christmas concert.
I began writing this piece four years ago, beginning with a core of four lyrics written by my friend, Rev. Peter Carman, who you might remember is the pastor of Lake Ave. Baptist Church in Rochester, New York.
Beginning with those songs, I began adding numbers one at a time as I pondered the philosophies of relentless non-violence and watched the conflicts in the Middle East. If you're been reading this blog and following the videos, you've seen some of the songs: My Thanksgiving Prayer and Holy Dirt are but two.
One new song, which you might enjoy listening to, examines the deadening result of violence on the soul. It's called "Dead Inside" (title inspired by my friend and blogger, Joe.My.God.) and the demo recording is sung by Alexandra Billings.
What makes this even more thrilling is the fact that this next year will be the 30th anniversary of the San Francisco Gay Mens Chorus, the FIRST gay mens chorus ever assembled. Few organizations have represented the gay community as well as gay choruses, which has sprung up in cities all over the country.
It's also the 30th anniversary of the death of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to public office. He was assassinated by a crazed homophobe who blamed it all on having eaten too many Twinkies, an absurd defense accepted by the jury which gave him a light sentence, infuriating our community and leading to a renewed vigor to fight against the prejudice, hatred and discrimination leveled against us.
And as exciting as it has been for me to have written the scores for two off-Broadway shows, the idea of sitting in a huge concert hall and having my songs sung by a 250-voice choir accompanied by an orchestra on a major anniversary of the community I love so very much is about as thrilling a notion as I can possibly imagine.
And best of all, it's real and it's going to happen.
8 comments:
Punkin,
WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
CONGRATS, Steve. A great honor but you truely deserve it.
Big Hugs,
Chet
WOWIE! ZOWIE!
This is absolutely FABULOUS Steve. Remember you taught me to use that word. :-)
It's in my calendar and Alec and I are going to really try to be there. My sister and brother live north of SF so we have a place to stay (I think). We just need to teleport south.
Steve - this is really great news. We are going to put it on our calendar right now.
John and Mark
Congrats on the concert! Very exciting.
I've never heard of Dan White or Harvey Milk, even though I'm from the Bay Area, but I have heard of Twinkie defense, so I looked it up on Wikipedia.
Have you seen this?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/11/23/INGRE343501.DTL
Good read, about how what happened was so much worse than just Twinkies.
Wow, that there Dead Inside song sure packs a wallop every time I come back to listen to it. (Hope you don't mind I downloaded it.) I've been through times like that, but not being creative enough I always had to borrow other people's songs. So I would have Pet Shop Boys' Numb on repeat - or simply playing over and over again in my head, "I wanna be numb".
Now all I've got to do is figure a way to be there in December to hear the whole thing...
I just noticed the "atheism discussion" on YouTube concerning Holy Dirt. Here's how my faith looks at it:
A devout Christian was arguing with a Unitarian Universalist about the existence of God. He said, "Ok, just prove there is no God."
The UU quipped, "You can't prove there is no God - you have take it on faith."
PS. I hope you don't mind me posting Holy Dirt on a little blog I keep about religion?
subtleknife, thank you for your interest in "Dead Inside." When Alex hits that last note, shivers go up and down my spine.
As for the UUs, I have had many happy experiences with the UUs. I sang at First UU Church in Houston. We also sang at one of your national conventions in Long Beach. That was a GREAT experience. It's here. And I'm so glad you reminded me. Check it out and tell me what you think.
Post a Comment