In the summer of 1989, the chorus welcomed visitors from Chicago before heading north.
“In Harmony as One”
Pride weekend opened on Friday, June 23, 1989, with a Gala Chorus Preview at Mission High School: eight choruses, including the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, the Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Men’s Chorus. The Bay Area Reporter’s Dennis McMillan called it a hit. Highlights included Janice Giteck’s commissioned “Home” for all five men’s choruses, conducted by Gregg Tallman, and a massed finale of Jesse Kane’s AIDS anthem “Hand in Hand.”
Chicago comes to town
On July 1, the chorus and Chicago’s Windy City Gay Chorus, on its first visit to San Francisco, presented “A Song of Two Cities” at First Congregational Church. It was the send-off before both choruses traveled to Seattle for GALA III, with more than 47 choruses. The chorus planned to open with the knights’ chorus from “Parsifal.” It would also sing a new, unreleased Peggy Lee song, “We Be Friends,” which Lee allowed Tallman to perform only twice, and Romanovsky and Phillips’s “Living with AIDS.” It was Tallman’s last San Francisco concert as director.
“The message in this is to stand by those who are afflicted.”
— general manager John McLeod, as quoted by the Bay Area Reporter
From the archives: this post retells reporting by the Bay Area Reporter and the San Francisco Chronicle. 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
- San Francisco Chronicle, “Events listings: Gay Musical Celebration”, June 23, 1989. sfchronicle.com
- Bay Area Reporter, “Chicago, SF Gay Choruses To Team Up / GALA Preview a Hit” by Dennis McMillan, June 29, 1989. ebar.com
- San Francisco Chronicle, “Events listings: A Song of Two Cities”, July 1, 1989. sfchronicle.com
