On the Front Page of The New York Times

For its tenth anniversary, the chorus reached the front page of The New York Times.

An audition

Jane Gross’s story, published May 14, 1988, opened with Dennis Haney, thin and shivering in a winter coat, auditioning for the new season. Conductor Gregg Tallman privately doubted he was strong enough, but Haney sight-read complicated pieces beautifully and insisted he would be in the chorus. Tallman let him in.

“I am going to be in this chorus.”

— Dennis Haney, as quoted by The New York Times

Pain and triumph

Gross described days of pain and triumph. AIDS had killed 35 members since 1982, and 16 of the 100 current members had AIDS. At the same time the chorus had been invited to sing with the San Francisco Opera that fall in “Parsifal” and “The Flying Dutchman,” and it was planning a tenth-anniversary concert at Davies Symphony Hall. It had become the prototype for more than 50 gay choruses.

The chorus adapted. Production manager Diane Kohne provided tall stools for singers who could not stand for a whole concert, and stage makeup to cover Kaposi’s sarcoma lesions. At rehearsals at First Congregational Church, deaths were announced. Gross remembered Gerry Lo Presti and Perry George, and told the story of the signature song “You Are My Star,” by member Bob Seeley, about separation from his partner, accompanist Terry Peterson.

Original member Bob Bercaw recalled the night in 1978 when the new chorus learned a hymn to sing at the Milk and Moscone candlelight vigil.

See our impact

From the archives: this post retells reporting by The New York Times. The original articles survive only in newspaper archives, so we have told the story here in our own words. Details attributed to those outlets are their reporting; see the sources below.

Sources