December 17 & 18, 1992
Welcome
Dear Friends & Family of Windy City & Unison,
Please pardon the “me” & “I” focus of this note to you, but this night is a total thrill for me. Pardon my gushing about my “children.” You see, this is an historic occasion. It is a “first.” It is the first time UNISON: WINDY CITY LESBIAN & GAY SINGERS appears to an audience. It is the first time WCGC & UNISON sing together. It is the first time WCGC gets to support its sibling. It is a great night for WCPA because they have helped me & supported my musical efforts to conduct these two groups. It is a night to celebrate for me/us that men & women are appearing together & making music in more ways than one. I get to be on stage with two musical ensembles that are like flesh & blood to me; imagine, not only one but two groups of people who I believe are the crown jewels of & for the Gay/Lesbian community.
Windy City Gay Chorus & UNISON not only sing, but they got you here
tonight, too! They are eager to share their talents with you. Tonight, after a lot of hard work, they will present to you a program of which I hope you can be proud. I know I am very proud to be on the stage tonight. And I thank them, for their hard work, along with all the support staff, partners, & significant others, as well as volunteers & musical employees give to make this magical night happen. From ushers, to video recording people to stage decorators to program coordinators & all the rest in between-and to you who appreciate our work through your applause: Thank you.
Celebrate with me this very joyous night from & for our community, for our
families, our straight friends & work cohorts, & our loved ones that exist in
spirit in our hearts because they have gone on to better places. Let’s unite many times with them as you, the audience, & we, the performers, meet in a place we cannot explain, but know is very real. Happy Holidays.
Richard Garrin
Music Director
Windy City Gay Chorus
&
UNISON: Windy City Lesbian & Gay Singers
History
Windy City Gay Chorus, founded in 1979, is recognized as one of the finest volunteer fine arts ensembles in the nation. WCGC is one of the first gay male choruses-only the San Francisco & the New York City Chorus are older. Known for the highest standards of choral artistry, WCGC fosters gay & lesbian pride through musical excellence. The Chorus appears around the country at workshops, joint concerts, & competitions. To date WCGC has performed by invitation at six American Choral Directors Association conventions. Under founding director Richard Gartin, WCGC’s precision, flexibility of style, warmth of color, well-balanced tone, firm diction, & meticulous attention to detail add up to what several composers & conductors term the finest male chorus in the country.
Windy City proudly represents Chicago to the rest of the country. Reviewers nationwide rave about WCGC’s performances.
Los Angeles Frontiers: “this group is in a class by itself… It seems a miracle that an amateur group could sound like this!”
New York City Daily (WCGC’s Lincoln Center debut): ”A thorough pleasure in tone and balance … the results were positively heroic!”
San Francisco Bay Area Reporter: “There was magic in the air … the audience was put into a trance by their lyrical spell.”
Chicago Windy City Times: “a jewel in Chicago’s cultural crown” and “superlatives are superfluous!”
The late Mayor Harold Washington summed it up best when he 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.”
The professional musical world also recognizes WCGC’s outstanding ability. The Chorus receives merit grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council, the Chicago Office of Fine Arts, CityArts program, & Chorus America. WCGC won first place in the highly-regarded Johnny Mann Great American Choral Festival, (the first & only openly-gay group to do so) after a two-phase competition with hundreds of choruses from across the U.S. & Canada.
Windy City Gay Chorus is one of the driving forces behind the thriving Gay & Lesbian Choral movement. In 1982 WCGC hosted the first meeting of gay chorus directors & managers, which led to the formation of GALA Choruses (Gay & Lesbian Association of Choruses), now an organization of over 100 men’s, women’s, & mixed choruses on four continents. Since then, WCGC has maintained a strong leadership role in GALA, providing members to its board of directors, & working vigorously to foster the gay choral movement.
WCGC is very active in supporting other community organizations. The Chorus has performed at mayoral inaugurations, many civic events, the National PFLAG convention, & at AIDS benefits such as Heart Strings, AIDS Walk Chicago, & Not Just Song & Dance. Windy City Gay Chorus normally gives three major concerts each year: a festive “Don We Now” holiday concert in December, a (usually) lighter ‘pops’ concert in March, & a Lesbian & Gay Pride concert in June (this season with the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus at Medinah Temple).
In 1991 WCGC released its first commercial recording, “Don We Now…” Holiday Favorites, to critical praise. This recording, & WCGC’s newest release “Mostly Love”, are a continuation of the Chorus’s mission of promoting gay & lesbian pride through musical excellence.
Windy City Performing Arts, Inc., Windy City Gay Chorus, & UNISON: Windy City Lesbian & Gay Singers, are equal-opportunity organizations. WCPA welcomes members & supporters of all races, ages, national origins, religions, & affectional preferences.
UNISON: Windy City Lesbian & Gay Singers
On October 9, 1979, a group of 25 Lesbians & 40 Gay men gathered in the basement of Wellington Avenue Church, where a new mixed chorus was formed. It had no name at first. It only had its organizer Jerry Carlson, its director Richard Garrin, & its accompanist, Phil Stewart. They started to sing. Windy City Gay Chorus was born – a great day in the history of Chicago’s gay & lesbian community.
However, as the weeks went by, personnel declined, & the Chorus ended up with 38 men & only four women. A decision had to be made quickly. So, in a few short weeks, the Chorus changed to male choral music, & four women & four men created a small madrigal group to sing a few carols in the concert. The history of what has happened since then can be read on the pages of the Windy City Gay Chorus biography. However, the dream of women & men singing together continued in the mind of Richard Garrin & a few others. This past summer, the 41 singers you now see on stage successfully auditioned into WCPA’s new chorus: UNISON: WINDY CITY LESBIAN & GAY SINGERS.
And so, tonight, 13 years later, we see a dream fulfilled (hence the name of our subscription year). It will be very interesting to see what this biography will say in future years. Right now we can say that UNISON is a group of women & men who sing together, whose musical purpose is one that will eventually challenge the traditional expectations that people have of choral music. The intention is to eventually sing music that has no cultural boundaries, no set religious sentiments, & that mixes the spirit & body into harmonics of higher self, healing, & nurturing. The expectations for UNISON are high. Help us to achieve them as UNISON grows & matures in the coming years.
UNISON: WINDY CITY LESBIAN & GAY SINGERS, is an equal-opportunity organization. UNISON welcomes members & supporters of all races, ages, national origins, religions, & affectional preferences.
Windy City Performing Arts 