By GALA Expert
May 27, 2023
Wake up and smell the coffee! Festival 2024 hosts seven morning Coffee Concerts representing GALA choruses across the spectrum. These concerts feature multi-disciplinary performances, new commissions and some very unique programming.
Wake up and smell the coffee! Festival 2024 hosts seven morning Coffee Concerts representing GALA choruses across the spectrum. These concerts feature multi-disciplinary performances, new commissions and some very unique programming.
Twin Cities’ Gay Men’s Chorus
Every Body
Thursday, July 11th | 9:00am-9:55am
Orchestra Hall Stage
Every Body is an anthological choral cycle amplifying body positivity. Acceptance of our bodies is a daily struggle regardless of our age, race, gender, and ability. We display so much of our shell, our visible identity to the world on a daily basis, and much of that genetic display is outside our own choosing. Yet, society frames our worth, our beauty, and our acceptance based on our bodies. Every Body is a collaborative performance with See Change Treble Choir and the James Sewell Ballet.
www.tcgmc.org
Coro Gay Ciudad de México and the San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus
Stronger Together
Thursday, July 11th | 10:30am-11:25am
MCC Auditorium Stage
Join us for this unique and surprising show, where two very different queer choruses from the United States and Mexico tell the moving story of how, through singing together across borders over two years, they learned to tear down walls, make new friends, and affirm their common humanity.
www.cgcdmx.org
www.sdgmc.org
ANNA Crusis Feminist Choir
Tattoo Monologues
Friday, July 12th | 9:00am-9:55am
Orchestra Hall Stage
Tattoos are highly individualized body art that is first-person storytelling, and this concert honors the role that tattoos play in telling the stories of their owners. They can represent a journey of strength, overcoming trauma, self-expression, prayers, or claiming one’s own very personal narrative. Using songs, stories, and images, ANNA will create a space for those journeys that are too often unseen and unheard.
www.annacrusis.org
Coro Allegro
Letters to Our Children
Friday, July 12th | 10:30am-11:25am
MCC Auditorium Stage
With LGBTQ+ rights and expression under attack, voices reach out across generations in HERE I AM: I AM HERE, a newly commissioned cantata by composer Andrea Clearfield, based on open letters to transgender youth and survivors of conversion therapy. Paired with Ronald Perera’s When Music Sounds and Ola Gjeilo Luminous Night of the Soul.
www.coroallegro.org
Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC
Portraits
Saturday, July 13th | 9:00am-9:55am
Orchestra Hall Stage
Through visual art, music, and dance, PORTRAITS represents the vibrant spectrum of sexual, gender, racial, ethnic, and cultural identities in a nine-movement commission combining the work of nine visual artists, nine composers, and nine choreographers, featuring 17th Street Dance.
www.gmcw.org
Denver Women’s Chorus
My Body My Voice
Saturday, July 13th | 10:30am-11:25am
Central Lutheran Stage
The overturning of Roe v. Wade calls for a collective response. As legislation that denies the basic human right of bodily autonomy continues to sweep through the United States, we sing the stories of those impacted by injustice and unite in song. Together we declare, “You don’t own me!”
www.denverchoruses.org/dwc
Atlanta Women’s Chorus
Phoenix Rising!
Sunday, July 14th | 10:00am-10:55am
MCC Auditorium Stage
The true history of America is unfortunately fraught with stories of injustice. In the story of America, the voices of too many communities have been disenfranchised, including Native Americans, people of color, women, and those who are LGBTQ+. Phoenix Rising! navigates the stories of these communities through music and chronologically reflects the unnecessary hurt bringing us to the present and a hope for uniting for change!
www.voicesofnote.org