December 20, 1989
History
Windy City Gay Chorus begins its eleventh season with tonight’s performance. The Chorus traditionally gives three major concerts each year: a festive “Don We Now” holiday performance, a spring concert (this season on March 24, 1990) featuring lighter repertoire, and a formal production during Gay Pride Week at Chicago’s Orchestra Hall. WCGC will host MUSE, Cincinnati’s outstanding women’s chorus, at the Pride Concert on June 16, 1990.
Since its founding in 1979, the Chorus has achieved national recognition and gained critical and audience acclaim for its continued pursuit of musical excellence. Under founding director Richard Garrin, WCGC has performed for the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), won first place in the Johnny Mann Great American Choral Festival, and toured to New York City for an appearance at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall. While in New York City, the ensemble was hailed by the New York Daily News for creating a “thorough pleasure in tone, balance, and precision,” with the results described as “positively heroic.”
The Chorus has also toured Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Columbus, Peoria, Minneapolis, Champaign-Urbana, Denver, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Seattle. After the Chorus’ July 1989 San Francisco performance, the San Francisco Sentinel said the Chorus was “terrific…impressive and delightful,” while the Los Angeles Frontiers said of WCGC’s Seattle performance later that week: “this group is in a class by itself….It seems a miracle that an amateur group could sound like this.”
WCGC receives substantial recognition from the choral industry and government sources, including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council, and the City of Chicago Office of Fine Arts. The Chorus has been lauded in proclamations by the Illinois House of Representatives and the mayors of Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Denver, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., as well as by Chicago’s late Mayor Harold Washington. In his proclamation, Mayor Washington hailed the group as “a unique asset to the cultural life of the city and a source of pride to its citizens, who are devoted to excellence in the performing arts.”
For further information about Windy City Gay Chorus, its performances, or Chorus auditions, contact Windy City Performing Arts, Inc., 606 W. Barry, #216, Chicago, Illinois 60657, or call (312) 404-WCGC.
Windy City Performing Arts 