The Straight Story from the Gay Men's Chorus

by Rachel Hutton, Minnesota Monthly, Published March 2004

Stan Hill still remembers a San Francisco Chronicle headline from a 1970s review of the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus: "They Can Sing, Too." These days, queer choirs are no longer a novelty act, says Hill, who now leads the 140-member Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus after spending 11 years as the artistic director of the San Francisco chorus. But as gay men's choirs have grown more accepted and successful, he says, they've encountered another problem-they've started to run out of music.

Ninety-five percent of sheet music is written for SATB (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) ensembles, so music often must be arranged or commissioned for groups that sing only from the lower registers. This void spurred what may be the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus's most important work yet. Metamorphosis, to be performed at the group's "Our Legacy in Song" concert March 19 through 21 at Ted Mann Concert Hall with the James Sewell Ballet and a 16-piece orchestra, is an intense, 12-song choral work inspired by chorus members' personal experiences.

Hill called on composer Robert Seeley and his partner, lyricist Robert Espindola (known affectionately as "the Roberts"), two former San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus members, to take on the project. Espindola began by interviewing 83 chorus members about their lives. They talked about things like family, relationships, religion, and how these issues are shaped by gay identity.

Through the interviews, Espindola found that although specific circumstances may have been different, many chorus members have gone through similar emotional experiences. With this in mind, Espindola and Seeley were able to expand individual feelings to general themes of love, loss, struggle, and redemption-topics relevant to audience members of any sexual orientation. From there, the Roberts focused Metamorphosis on the challenges and revelations that contributed to chorus members' growth and personal development and structured the pieces around the natural cycle of life. "I like to take the audience on a journey; entertain them, not just perform for them," Hill says.

For gay couples, whose journey through life includes the obvious obstacles to passing their heritage along to the next generation, leaving a legacy can be difficult. This makes Metamorphosis much more than just a performance; it is also an opportunity to acknowledge the lives and experiences of members of the Twin Cities gay community. As Hill told his singers when they first began the project, "If we don't tell our story, who will?"

Concert Tickets are now available for purchase online!