The 2024 Holiday Spectacular played the Sydney Goldstein Theater on December 6 and 7 under the theme “Together”: a community meeting hate with compassion and courage. Christmas Eve’s Home for the Holidays moved to Davies Symphony Hall while the Castro Theatre was being restored, as the San Francisco Bay Times reported.
A song from Cleve Jones’s words
In an October 2024 Bay Times column, SFGMC Conductor Laureate Dr. Tim Seelig told the story behind “Don’t Take It For Granted.” Speaking at an SFGMC holiday concert in Sonoma in December 2023, activist Cleve Jones warned the audience not to take their rights for granted. Chorus member Joseph Shapiro and his daughter Amy Shapiro turned his words into lyrics, Holly Near wrote the music, and J. David Moore arranged it. Chorus members first sang it at Jones’s 70th birthday celebration in October 2024.
What the critic said
BroadwayWorld’s Steve Murray praised fresh arrangements of “Silver Bells,” “Let It Snow” and “Winter Wonderland,” called Nicholas Ryan Kelly’s “Cold Moon” a goosebump moment, and enjoyed the comedy of a scrambled “12 Days of Christmas,” The Lollipop Guild’s “Wrap Me Up” and a Celine Dion-themed finale, “Celine Navidad.”
“joy, soaring harmonies, and plenty of humor”
— Steve Murray, BroadwayWorld
Photos: Kristen Loken
Sources
This post summarizes reporting by BroadwayWorld, the San Francisco Bay Times and CBS News Bay Area (KPIX). Details attributed to those outlets are their reporting; see the sources below.
- BroadwayWorld, “Review: SAN FRANCISCO GAY MEN’S CHORUS HOLIDAY SPECTACULAR 2024 at Sydney Goldstein Theater” by Steve Murray, December 7, 2024. Read the original story
- San Francisco Bay Times, “San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus Holiday Spectacular 2024 at the Sydney Goldstein Theater”, December 19, 2024. Read the original story
- San Francisco Bay Times, “San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus to Present World Premiere of Song Based on the Words of Cleve Jones” by Dr. Tim Seelig, October 2024. Read the original story
- CBS News Bay Area (KPIX), “San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus hosts annual holiday spectacular” by Kelsi Thorud, December 25, 2024. Read the original story
