By Judith Nelson
January 22, 2025
Elder choruses are on the rise in the LGBTQIA+ Choral Movement. Founder of Sage Singers in Denver, CO, Judith Nelson shares her wisdom about this growing part of GALA Choruses.
If you were to ask any one of the fifty elder Denver Sage Singers about their GALA Festival 2024 experience in Minneapolis this past July, you would have incredible, over-the-moon reflections! We sang our hearts out at Orchestra Hall under the capable direction of Jana Thomas.
My wife Carol White and I have been attending GALA Festivals during our entire 40-plus-year relationship, and I began wondering through the years whether we shouldn’t include an elder chorus in all of the festivities. In September 2018, I found a young conductor and a surprising number of folks who were interested in such a chorus, and we were off and running.
It really is a sensitive issue as to how to approach recruiting for an elder chorus, given the huge, insidious ageism in our culture! One cannot simply say, “You look old, and we have a chorus for you.” (See Elderhood Rising — the dawn of a new world age by Bill Thomas on YouTube.)
For the cities who have both TTBB and SSAA choruses, the wealth of LGBTQIA+ singers in the community can make finding elders who are ready to sing a little easier. We advertised that music would not need to be memorized and there would be no choralography. Both of those items were very appealing to singers.
It also helped when friends told friends about the warm, comfortable ambience we shared in the basement of First Baptist Church on Sunday afternoons. The chorus created a beautiful, much-needed community for our beloved, senior LGBTQIA+ and Allied singers.
The music!! There is so much appropriate music for senior singers. Don’t forget that this generation of old queers is, in my opinion, a unique and special demographic. May I remind you that these are the people who had to be totally closeted on the job for fear of losing their ability to pay the rent.
Some were ejected from their families of origin. One of our singers had a step-father who drunkenly told him that he was a little “light in the loafers,” after which this 16-year-old left home, enrolled in Opportunity School, got an apartment, and became a master electrician.
Many were not able to have their actual names printed in concert programs for fear of who would find out their sexual orientation. In some cases aliases were used.
There was the AIDS pandemic. I would like to know how many memorial services each of our community members attended at that time!
We all know people who married someone of the opposite sex in order to fit in or get cured.
Sadly, some of these hardships are still be familiar to people of younger generations. But we hope that our hard work has helped to create a world that is more safe and open. It is an ongoing struggle to raise our voices until all people are free.
After all, whoever thought that in our lifetime we would be able to legally marry?
All of this adds up to unbelievably rich stories that we in Denver have sung about and shared intimately with our chorus, especially during once a month presentations by volunteer members who want to share their stories. And ALL of it is reason to celebrate and honor our LGBTQ elders.
Holly Near has been an icon of activist music making for decades. In 1978 she penned “Singing for our Lives,” which she taught to the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus and the thousands present at the Candlelight Vigil for Harvey Milk that same year. Tim Seelig, the new Artistic Director of Portland Sage Singers, took Holly’s words to the next step for all elders: “We are not just singing for our lives. We are singing for the rest of our lives.”
To illustrate, I share a scene just prior to a recent concert while waiting on stage to begin singing. Several of us were joyfully dialoging about who in the chorus, that consists of people in their 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, is in their 80s. Turned out that there were 10 of us!
And our concerts tend to sell out!
Within the LGBTQIA+ Choral Movement elder choruses are on the rise. Portland Sage Singers is now forming and will have their first concert on June 26 of 2025!
Atlanta Gay Men’s Chorus conductor Donald Milton III has also expressed an interest in starting a Sage Singers chorus this spring.
When considering forming a new Sage Singers chorus, it is most important to recruit passionate, talented, and hard-working individuals who are deeply committed for the long haul. Denver Sage Singers would not be where it is today were it not for these leaders!
And, of course, getting a board of directors and a non-profit tax status also helps! For us it happened gradually. For Portland all of that happened prior to their first meeting, at which 80 potential singers showed up!
I leave you with the lyrics to one of the songs sung by the Prime Time Festival Chorus conducted by Vancouver’s Willi Zwozdesky and Composer Ash at GALA 2024 from Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem.”
“Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in. “
Learn more about Judith and her work with Sage Singers Denver at www.sagesingers.org.