June 21, 1986
History
In the summer of 1979 posters in the Chicago community of New Town invited “Gay sopranos, altos, tenors and basses (and anyone in between)” to come and sing with their gay brothers and sisters. About 25 sopranos and altos, and 35 tenors and basses, attended the first meeting. Most of the women drifted away within a few weeks and in December the remaining 45 male singers made their debut as the Windy City Gay Chorus in its first Christmas concert. Today, the Chorus, in its seventh season, has 80 members and three yearly concerts, including a performance at Chicago’s Orchestra Hall each summer during Gay Pride Week.
In 1984 the Chorus won first place in the national Great American Choral Festival, sponsored by Johnny Mann. Later that year the Chorus was one of only seven groups invited to sing at the Illinois state convention of the American Choral Directors Association. The Chorus then appeared at a second ACDA function in Chicago, and last April at an ACDA regional convention in Indianapolis, where it received an enthusiastic reception by the audience.
The Windy City Gay Chorus has performed in Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Columbus, Peoria, Minneapolis and in New York at a joint concert at Avery Fisher Hall with the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus. 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.” In 1984 the Chorus’ musicianship and contributions to the community were lauded in proclamations by the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul, the Illinois House of Representatives and the mayor of Chicago. During the upcoming Fourth of July weekend, the Chorus will travel to Minneapolis to perform at the second Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses Festival, with choruses from the United States and Canada.
The Chorus is funded by dues, donations and in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Federal agency, the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and the Chicago Council on Fine Arts, a city agency. If you wish to know more about our organization and receive notices of upcoming events, please write to Windy City Performing Arts, Inc., 606 West Barry, #216, Chicago, Illinois 60657, or call us at (312) 227-3853.
Windy City Performing Arts 