From a first song on the City Hall steps in 1978 to a home of our own, San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus has brought people together through extraordinary music, community and advocacy. Scroll through the decades to meet the people, places and performances that have shaped our story.
A call to sing becomes a public act of hope.
Jon Sims’s call for singers brings about 100 men to the first rehearsal on October 30, with Dick Kramer as musical director. Just weeks later, the assassinations of Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone draw the new chorus to the City Hall steps.
Its first public song becomes an act of solidarity on one of San Francisco’s darkest nights. The first formal concert follows at Everett Middle School on December 20.
The new chorus finds an audience and a purpose beyond the rehearsal room. At Grace Cathedral, singers raise money for the Harvey Milk United Fund and celebrate gay musical community. A journey to Hollywood High School in Los Angeles carries that visibility beyond San Francisco, while Pride performances begin shaping traditions that will endure.
Read more: A gay musical celebration
SFGMC at Hollywood High School, Los Angeles, spring 1979. SFGMC Archives.
National visibility grows as the chorus confronts profound loss.
Dick Kramer leads the chorus into the Herbst Theatre, bringing openly gay voices to a major concert hall. Men About Town adds choreography and swing to the program.
Away from the stage, Christmas carols aboard historic Streetcar No. 1 bring the music directly into the city’s neighborhoods.
Read more: Onto the big stages
An ambitious national tour carries an openly gay chorus to audiences across the country. A Warfield Theatre send-off begins a journey through Dallas, Minneapolis, Lincoln, Detroit, New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Seattle.
Thousands welcome the singers home on Castro Street. The trip inspires new choruses and a wider movement, even as its financial demands test the community that made it possible.
Read more: Taking our voices across America
The 1981 national tour send-off at the Warfield Theatre. SFGMC Archives.
The vision sparked by the national tour grows into shared organization and celebration. Eleven choruses gather for the West Coast Choral Festival in San Francisco, and singers help mark the first Gay Games.
GALA Choruses takes shape as a network connecting the emerging LGBTQ+ choral movement. At home, Dick Kramer’s departure opens a new chapter in artistic leadership.
Read more: A movement takes shape
The financial aftermath of the 1981 tour continues to shape the chorus’s choices. SFGMC cannot attend the first national gay choral festival in New York. Sustaining the organization becomes its own act of commitment: the singers and supporters work to keep the music, and the community behind it, alive.
Founder Jon Sims dies of AIDS at 37. The loss reaches far beyond one chorus: his vision has helped inspire a family of gay musical organizations across the Bay Area.
In a very different expression of public visibility, SFGMC records the San Francisco 49ers’ fight song. Grief and new opportunities sit side by side.
Read more: Remembering Jon Sims
Guest conductors bring fresh perspectives during a period of transition. Vance George leads a concert, and Dennis Coleman travels from Seattle to work with the chorus. Gregg Tallman begins his tenure as music director. Tom Burtch joins as a singer; his later work as historian will help preserve the memories of this year and the decades around it.
Under Gregg Tallman’s musical leadership, the chorus faces the increasing toll of AIDS. At the GALA festival in Minneapolis, the audience welcomes SFGMC with a standing ovation before it sings.
Back home, members establish the Golden Gate Choral Foundation to help secure the chorus’s future. Music becomes both public witness and a way to care for one another.
The San Francisco Examiner brings the chorus’s experience of AIDS to its front page. Rehearsals and performances offer connection amid repeated loss.
Barbara Cook and Charles Pierce join “A Night to Remember” at Davies Symphony Hall, bringing artistic celebration and community support together. Members also travel to Washington, D.C., for the march and the AIDS Memorial Quilt.
Read more: Voices of life amid death
A New York Times front-page story gives the chorus national visibility as it marks ten years. At Davies Symphony Hall, an AIDS Quilt panel bearing members’ names makes remembrance part of the anniversary concert. On November 27, the singers return to City Hall with Joan Baez, linking their founding night to a continuing promise to remember.
Read more: Ten years, and a promise to remember
“A Signature Show” opens the chorus’s second decade. An exchange with Chicago’s Windy City Gay Chorus and a trip to GALA in Seattle strengthen its connections with fellow singers.
Stan Hill takes the podium, beginning a long artistic partnership. The chorus also joins artists including Carol Channing in Arts for Life, a citywide response to AIDS.
New music, shared journeys and enduring traditions tell queer stories.
“Home for the Holidays” moves to the Castro Theatre on Christmas Eve. The concerts create a gathering place for people seeking community during the holidays and become one of the chorus’s most beloved traditions. On a visit to San Diego, the singers insist that “gay” appear in their name on the theater marquee—a reminder that visibility remains part of the performance.
The release of “How Fair This Place” gives the chorus its first recording since the 1981 tour album. A decade after that landmark journey, recorded music offers another way for its voices to travel. The album preserves an evolving artistic identity while the singers continue navigating the personal and collective losses of the AIDS crisis.
A French television crew follows members living with AIDS for the documentary “Singing Positive.” Their stories bring the humanity behind the music to new audiences. At the GALA festival in Denver, the chorus integrates ballet into its performance, continuing to explore what an LGBTQ+ chorus can express onstage.
A photograph makes the chorus’s losses visible: 115 singers turn away to represent members who have died, while seven founding members face the camera. The image becomes an enduring act of remembrance. The fifteenth season also showcases classical repertoire in “Brahms, Bernstein, & the Boys!” and takes singers to Washington, D.C., for performances at Lisner Auditorium and Washington National Cathedral.
A trip to Boston brings SFGMC together with Boston Gay Men’s Chorus at Symphony Hall. Outreach performances in Moraga and Fresno extend its presence closer to home. “Back to Our Roots,” with Cecil Williams, and a Cole Porter tribute featuring Harvey Fierstein show an organization able to hold reflection, musical ambition and theatrical joy in the same season.
At the War Memorial Opera House, the chorus joins San Francisco Ballet in a Classical Action benefit, singing “When We No Longer Touch” in remembrance of people lost to AIDS. Florence Henderson brings a different energy to “KGAY FM: Sounds of the Sixties.” The holiday recording “Our Gay Apparel” adds another lasting expression of the chorus’s musical life.
Robert Seeley and Philip Littell’s “NakedMan” places gay lives and experiences at the center of a major song cycle. SFGMC brings the work to the GALA festival in Tampa, where its recording finds an eager audience. A holiday collaboration with the San Francisco Boys Chorus connects generations through “Stars: Songs From the Galaxy.”
Following the success of “NakedMan,” the chorus embraces the exuberance of ABBA in “extrABBAganza.” Choreography and familiar songs turn the concert into a celebration, with sold-out performances. As the twentieth anniversary approaches, theatrical playfulness becomes another way to bring people together.
The chorus’s first international journey takes it to Sydney for Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. “NakedMan” and ABBA repertoire meet new audiences at Sydney Town Hall, extending a musical movement across the Pacific. Back home, the twentieth anniversary brings a new commission, “Q,” and a celebration of two decades of voices, friendships and public visibility.
“NakedMan” in Australia, 1998. SFGMC Archives.
Nell Carter joins the chorus for “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” bringing her stage presence and a personal connection to the impact of AIDS. The collaboration offers entertainment with emotional depth. A recording carries the concert beyond the hall as Stan Hill’s tenure approaches its final year.
Artistic exploration connects concert halls with community life.
Stan Hill takes his final bow after eleven years of artistic leadership through extraordinary loss and growth. Kathleen McGuire becomes SFGMC’s first woman artistic director, beginning a decade at the podium. Megan Mullally joins “Broadway Blockbuster,” and the GALA festival in San Jose keeps the chorus connected to the movement it helped inspire.
Read more: A woman takes the baton
Twenty years after the national tour, the chorus returns to the road for performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and Carnegie Hall in New York. Collaborations with fellow gay men’s choruses connect those major stages to a shared history. Regional outreach, including a Modesto holiday benefit, carries that same spirit closer to home.
“SFGMC Does Queen” brings rock repertoire into the chorus’s concert and recording life. School outreach includes a performance at Park Day School in Oakland. Members also participate in the Sydney Gay Games, while regional holiday performances continue extending the chorus’s reach beyond San Francisco.
The twenty-fifth anniversary reunites former conductors at Davies Symphony Hall for “Closer Than Ever.” The celebration connects generations of artistic leadership with the singers who have sustained the organization. “Oliver Button Is a Sissy,” featuring B.D. Wong, welcomes students, while performances in Palm Springs bring the anniversary year to another community.
As same-sex couples arrive at San Francisco City Hall to marry, the chorus sings for people waiting in line. Music becomes part of a moment of hope and public change. The season also includes Transcendence Gospel Choir and Alan Cumming, and a trip to GALA in Montreal connects local advocacy with the international choral community.
“Divas’ Revenge” brings opera and Broadway together with an all-women orchestra. The anniversary recording “Closer Than Ever” receives an OUTmusic award, preserving the work of an earlier season. Concerts including “Sing for the Cure,” with Cris Williamson, continue connecting performance with community care.
Joan Rivers joins SFGMC at the Herbst Theatre, with Jan Wahl as emcee. A collaboration with Stockholms Gaykör adds an international friendship to the season. The chorus travels to Chicago for the Gay Games, carrying its combination of musical ambition, humor and openly LGBTQ+ community to new audiences.
The release of “Why We Sing” gives audiences another way to explore the purpose of the LGBTQ+ choral movement, preserving the chorus’s music and the stories behind it.
On February 22, SFGMC performs “U.S.S. Metaphor (or, The Lad That Loved a Sailor)” at Brava Theater Center with the Community Women’s Orchestra. The adaptation of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “HMS Pinafore” uses comedy and music to question the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.
The thirtieth anniversary includes the full premiere of Steve Schalchlin’s “New World Waking.” A double recording preserves the new work and concert highlights. At GALA in Miami, the chorus reprises “USS Metaphor.” Members also renew AIDS Quilt panels, ensuring that artistic growth continues alongside remembrance.
The Christmas Eve concerts at the Castro Theatre reach their twentieth year, continuing to offer music and belonging during the holidays. New recordings and a guest appearance by Tim Seelig add fresh voices to the season. The enduring tradition shows how an annual concert can become part of a neighborhood’s shared life. On World AIDS Day, SFGMC joins Voices at the National AIDS Memorial Grove, continuing its commitment to remembrance through music.
Commissions and journeys turn stories into connection and change.
The California Freedom Tour brings music and support to communities including Redding, Chico, Bakersfield, Fresno and Vallejo. In the aftermath of Proposition 8, the journey connects singers with local LGBTQ+ communities and allies. Kathleen McGuire closes her decade of artistic leadership with the Christmas Eve concerts, preparing the way for a new chapter.
Read more: The California Freedom Tour
Tim Seelig starts as artistic director in January, bringing a new perspective to the chorus’s music and advocacy. The California Freedom Tour continues, keeping regional relationships at the heart of its work. The release of “Words” captures the beginning of this artistic era.
Stephen Schwartz’s “Testimony,” drawn from the It Gets Better project, brings stories of survival and hope into song. After performing at GALA in Denver, the chorus travels to Laramie, Wyoming, for a benefit connected with the Matthew Shepard Foundation. “Love Can Build a Bridge” becomes both a musical message and an expression of the journey’s purpose.
Andrew Lippa’s “I Am Harvey Milk” premieres on June 26, the day of landmark Supreme Court decisions on marriage equality. Lippa sings the title role in a work that reconnects the chorus with a figure central to its founding story. An original cast recording carries the commission forward, while an exhibition at the GLBT Historical Society marks thirty-five years of SFGMC.
Andrew Lippa, Laura Benanti and SFGMC perform I Am Harvey Milk, 2013. Photograph © Glenn Steiner.
“Tyler’s Suite” adds a major new work to the chorus’s repertoire, addressing the consequences of bullying and the need for compassion. “I Am Harvey Milk” receives an Independent Music Award. A collaboration with Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles at Walt Disney Concert Hall strengthens artistic connections across California.
“Passion” includes Jake Heggie’s “For a Look or a Touch,” bringing queer lives and remembrance into the concert hall. A composer-in-residence relationship with James Eakin supports new music. Holiday audiences also help raise more than $30,000 for Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, connecting a beloved concert tradition with support for students.
“Passion” at Davies Symphony Hall, April 1, 2015. SFGMC Archives.
Performances in Park City, Utah, and at GALA in Denver carry the chorus’s music to new audiences. Back home, Chris Verdugo joins as executive director. The chorus sings at the naming ceremony for the USNS Harvey Milk, bringing its connection to Milk’s legacy to a national stage. Following the Pulse nightclub tragedy in Orlando, its musical dedication offers solidarity and remembrance.
With Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, SFGMC travels through Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina and North Carolina. The Lavender Pen Tour pairs performances with gatherings that build relationships and support local LGBTQ+ organizations. A film crew follows the journey, preserving the encounters that will become “Gay Chorus Deep South.”
Read more: The Lavender Pen Tour
Andrew Lippa’s “Unbreakable” tells stories of LGBTQ+ resilience during the fortieth-anniversary year. St. Ignatius welcomes the chorus back decades after a canceled engagement. The Artists Portal at the National AIDS Memorial Grove honors lives lost, while the new RHYTHM school program carries music and personal stories to students. Remembrance and a commitment to the next generation move forward together.
Read more: Forty years, Unbreakable
SFGMC performs Unbreakable, 2018. SFGMC Archives.
After decades of moving between rehearsal spaces, SFGMC purchases 170 Valencia Street as a permanent home. Mayor London Breed’s State of the City address introduces the building to a wider public. “Gay Chorus Deep South” premieres at Tribeca and wins its documentary audience award, extending the Lavender Pen Tour’s story to film audiences.
Read more: A home on Valencia Street
New leadership, a queer arts center and new audiences extend the story.
The pandemic closes rehearsal rooms and concert halls, but the chorus finds new ways to gather. SFGMC TV and virtual performances connect singers with audiences at home. “At Home for the Holidays” reimagines a cherished tradition online, keeping music and community present through a year of isolation.
Read more: Keeping connection alive
Singers reunite outdoors for Harvey Milk Day before returning to live rehearsals and holiday performances. The gradual return makes the experience of sharing a room—and a song—feel newly precious. Updated membership language welcomes people who sing in the tenor or bass range across gender identities, broadening the community’s future.
“Songs of the Phoenix” marks a return to ambitious live work. Tim Seelig’s July farewell brings SFGMC together with the San Francisco Symphony and Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir. Announced in April, Jacob Stensberg begins as artistic director in August and leads his first holiday season, carrying the chorus into its next artistic chapter.
The Chan National Queer Arts Center opens at 170 Valencia Street in October, transforming a permanent home into a gathering place for queer artists and audiences. Its programs create room for performances, conversations and cultural celebrations. The chorus’s mainstage season includes “Disney PRIDE in Concert” and “Hello Yellow Brick Road” with the San Francisco Symphony.
Read more: The Chan opens its doors
Under Jacob Stensberg, the Love Tour visits Iowa City, Omaha and Des Moines, partnering with local choruses and LGBTQ+ organizations. Performances become opportunities for connection across communities. At home, RHYTHM continues reaching students, and “Memory Keepers” brings longtime members together to share the stories that give the music its meaning.
Read more: The Love Tour builds connections
SFGMC and fellow singers fill the stage during the Love Tour, July 2024. Photo: Jonathan Dwight.
“Broadway, Our Way” and a Pride collaboration with Justin Tranter and Big Freedia bring different creative voices into the chorus’s season. Crescendo supports its artistic and community work. The holiday concerts continue a long tradition while introducing new music, linking familiar celebrations with an evolving repertoire.
SFGMC takes the Lands End stage at Outside Lands on August 9, bringing its voices to Golden Gate Park’s festival audience. Lane Sugata begins as CEO, opening a new organizational chapter. Mainstage programs and Stephen Schwartz’s appearance at The Chan show the breadth of a community that now makes music across concert halls, intimate stages and major festivals.
SFGMC performs on the Lands End main stage at Outside Lands, August 9, 2026. Photograph: Jeff Littman / @itslittphotography.
Discover more in the SFGMC news archive and Tom Burtch’s history of the first 44 years. Additional early photographs: GLBT Historical Society collection on Calisphere. Collection finding aid. Archival photographs and credits accompany the years they document.
JOIN THE CONDUCTOR’S SOCIETY
Your gift brings music to the stage, schools and community. Choose a one-time or monthly gift below—every amount makes a difference.
Join the Conductor’s Society with an annual gift of $180+ or a recurring gift of $15+/month. Members receive early access to tickets and events.
