Tuesday, April 02, 2013

I Am Harvey Milk.


Everyone in the choral and theatrical communities are very excited about this new work, I Am Harvey Milk, by Broadway composer Andrew Lippa being presented in San Francisco by Dr. Timothy Seelig and the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus on June 27-28. (And I'm excited to have two choral pieces included in the first part of the program).

Andrew Lippa is the composer and, in reading about the origin of the piece, it says:
Lippa had initially been approached to contribute a short piece of music for the anniversary. "Some click went off in my mind. I didn't want to write a five-minute piece. I wanted to write a 60-minute piece," he said. "It felt like one of those `A-ha!' moments."
It's the best feeling in the world where you see the whole thing in your mind. You might not have the details, but you can see it.

What they asked us for were songs that might illustrate life After Harvey Milk. What would you tell him if you could see him face to face?

Immediately, I thought of three gay couples. One from the 50s, the 70s and today. Called "I Met A Boy," it's describes their daily lives in a (hopefully) humorous comparison.

The second came after I read, somewhere, some criticism of gay male choruses. Like, are they really relevant in this day and age? Look how far we've come! So, I wrote a big anthemy thing called Resolution, remembering that there are countries where gay people are hanged from trees. Just yesterday, another dictator announced executions for gay people. Music is the universal connector of people.

Get tickets! 


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