Happy 32nd Birthday To Us!

We celebrated our 32nd birthday this year, with a fun, colour-block themed party and a cake with enough e-numbers in it to ensure we’ll still be buzzing in time for our concert on 11th July!
32nd birthday party
In fact, tickets for the concert are now ON SALE!
Can a song shape the world? Join us as we explore the link between music and history, showcasing a variety of musical styles in St John’s Smith Square – one of London’s most atmospheric and beautiful venues. With music at the heart of change, the show will highlight many significant moments in history, through the suffragette movement to the HIV/AIDS crisis; from Monteverdi’s early opera to record-breaking chart toppers.
The show will also feature the wonderful Hinsegin kórinn – Reykjavík Queer Choir – in their debut London performance.
Click here to book!

Pinkies do Mallorca!

The Pink Singers have just returned from Spain’s first gay chorus festival in Mallorca and what a time we had! Get the low-down on parties, pride, palm trees and performances from soprano Louise and newbie tenor Keith as they relive their favourite Mallorca moments… 

Louise’s Mallorca Moments: 

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Wow! Such fun! Where do I start?
There are quite simply TOO MANY stories to tell! I’m getting a little stressed just thinking about telling all you avid readers of the Pink Singers blog just how amazing it is to go on a foreign trip with the Pinkies. How can I condense the entire experience into a few short paragraphs? Waaah! What’s that I hear you say? Relax? PINK SINGERS SAY RELAX? OK. Relax. Because I can now, after a hectic, inspiring, exhausting, humbling, exciting, sun kissed weekend on the beautiful island of Mallorca.

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This was my first trip abroad with the Pink Singers and the more I get to know the members of the choir, the more I feel that I am a member of the wide and much loved Pink Family. I felt extremely privileged as a teacher to have been granted some unpaid leave by my very supportive head teacher and to be topping up my tan during term time….oops, I mean singing with three other wonderful choirs at Spain’s first gay singing festival – the Mallorca Gay Chorus Festival!

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At the first sound check I felt daunted that we would be performing three times in three days. I really wasn’t sure of the choreography and I was anxious that my claps, steps, swishes and step digs would be out of synch and I’d come at the wrong time. Aarrghhh! But when you get into the swing of it, it all falls into place, all the hard work pays off and you just want to put on a tip top show for the audience and the other choirs.

Wow! The other choirs! We loved meeting them and hearing them sing – the incredible Barcelona Rainbow Singers, the mesmeric Equivox from Paris and the inimitable Mallorca Gay Men’s Chorus.  We felt such great support, love and passion from and for the other choirs and I love knowing that I am part of a dynamic and vibrant international LBGT community. And what a treat to sing in three different venues in Mallorca – the first being a castle surrounded by mountains basking in the setting Mediterranean sun! And all of this live on Mallorcan TV!

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This was the start of a rollercoaster of performances, parties, raspy sex noises, strange fluorescent green drinks, forgotten shoes, forgotten trousers, standing ovations, sleepless nights, legendary dancing (you know who you are), Pride (In The Name of Love) on repeat,  cava on the beach, wishing we had one more day…..

Alas, we couldn’t have done it without the hard work and dedication of two much loved choir members Charly and Albert who organised, reorganised, negotiated, waited, telephoned, translated and smiled patiently to ensure that the Pink Singers had a successful and thoroughly enjoyable trip. So thank you from the bottom of our Pink hearts for making it all happen!

Keith’s Mallorca Moments:

Being picked up at the airport and driven straight to the venue to perform is probably the closest I’ll get to knowing what it’s like to be Beyonce. Having just landed for the Mallorca Gay Chorus Festival, the evening would be my initiation into life as a fully-fledged Pink Singer.

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The superstar treatment didn’t stop at the airport pick up though. The Festival’s first evening was to be an open air concert held in a castle set amongst stunning scenery.  On arrival, it was straight to a sound check in the warm breeze, between rows of palm trees, as the sun set around us.

The starry evening allowed no time for me to feel any nerves about popping my cherry as a Pinkie. The Mallorcans had rolled out a real red carpet experience and we were presented to Spain’s media before a reception with the officials of Andratx, the town where we were performing first.

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The Pink Singers had jetted out to Mallorca at the invitation of the Mallorca Gay Men’s Chorus. Taking part in three performances over three nights, we were joined by choirs from other European cities. There were the tres chic Frenchies, in the form of Paris’s Equivox, with their energetic conductress, sexy sounds and tight performance.

Then there was the Barcelona Rainbow Singers, with traditional ‘coplas’ which had me wishing I could speak more Spanish. With each flick of their fans, they sang wonderful tales of love and drama, the meanings of which I could only imagine. Of course there was the Mallorca Gay Men’s Chorus too – a gorgeous bunch of guys who know how to party as much as they know how to get the audience going. Their version of Bad Romance will always be the most memorable for me.

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The festival culminated in an evening of electrical atmosphere at the Trui Theatre in Palma. The turn-out, support and energy of the audience made it hard to believe that it’s been just two years since the Mallorca Gay Men’s Chorus formed.

The final performance hit home for me what an amazing event I was taking part in. It wasn’t only a chance for a bunch of people who love to sing to get together, it was an opportunity to raise the positive profile of the gay choir on their island. It clearly meant a lot to our hosts, and did to me too.

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Having nervously stepped up to audition for the Pinkies just ten short weeks before the Mallorca Gay Chorus Festival, it was a surreal experience to be performing with the choir. My most recent steps onto a stage were probably 23 years ago before I’d even hit my teens, so I’m sure there were bum notes, missed cues and lyrical slip-ups throughout.

Despite any performance mishaps, the Pink Singers really made me feel part of the Pinkie family in Mallorca. While the superstar experience was pure fantasy, what was very real was the chance to feel part of a group of such wonderful people and amazing performers, as well as the opportunity to celebrate with other gay choirs from around the world.

So how was that as my initiation into choir life? Pink Singers, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I’m glad you were the one to pop my cherry!

Timeline datestamp: 07 May 2015

An Affair to Remember

As part of #LGBTHistoryMonth, tenor Hsien explains why choral infidelity is ok and reflects on what he sees as the common threads running through LGBT choirs: music, community and Pride (with a capital P)…

I have a confession to make. I am having an affair. And it is okay.

In 2001 I met my first love, the Pink Singers. I was new to the London scene, the Pinkies offered me wine (lots of it), song and companionship. I will always remember our first visit to the pub, our first time on stage, our first late night house party, our first holiday together; but time ticked on and the itch for something different grew, and so I sought an experience with another choir.

The Barberfellas
The Barberfellas

My new mistress, the Barberfellas, gives me a different kind of choral satisfaction – in the form of barbershop and close harmony acapella – and now where once I prudishly thought one choir was enough for anyone, I’m surprised as anyone to say that I’m actually okay with playing away.

To me, at their heart all LGBT choirs are about three things: one, the music which brings us together in the first place; two, the community and friendships which develop around singing with each other week in and week out; and three, Pride with a capital ‘P’ and the desire to express it publicly.

Singing the Changes
Singing the Changes exhibition

The Pink Singers’ exhibition ‘Singing the Changes’ makes it quite clear that the early choir was about giving the LGBT movement a voice, and Pride was arguably its focus at its inception in 1983. 11 years later, according to the documentary ‘A Vocal Minority’ (mentioned in last week’s blog post) there were at least two additional LGBT choirs in the capital: Diversity Choir and Vocal Minority. Reading between the lines, these newer choirs aimed to differentiate themselves in terms of repertoire and musical ambition. Clearly, one choir was not enough to scratch every itch.

Fast forward to 2015 and in the UK we are almost spoiled for choice. London now has eight, and the UK and Ireland as a whole have over 40 LGBT choirs. That trinity of music, community and Pride still connects them all, but each choir is shaped by the desires of its members and the environment in which it operates, meaning that all kinds of musical tastes, performance styles and choral identities are catered to.

Sing with Pride
Sing with Pride

In Norwich, for example, the wonderful Sing With Pride choir sings music which, like the choir itself, is relaxed, accessible and focuses on LGBT issues. Their ‘Out 140’ songs, a series of tweets about LGBT life in and around East Anglia set to music, has been a success both locally and nationally. In Manchester the open-access Manchester Lesbian and Gay Chorus has an innovative programme which helps LGBT asylum seekers find a social outlet, and recently mounted a high-profile campaign against homophobia on its city’s trams. In London, the Fourth Choir aims to bring LGBT choral performance to the world of semi-professional music. This challenges people’s prejudices in a different way, and necessitates a degree of selectivity not found in other choirs.

Every LGBT choir may seem superficially very different, but they all form part of that greater story of the growing complexity in the relationship between music, community and Pride with time, geography and changing social mores. This is where I imagine the Pink Singers is a present – a choir which is proud of its contemporary LGBT identity, but which tries to perform music which is moving rather than didactic.

My first love and I will always share something special, but I think what I am truly in love with is LGBT choirs in general. I am in love with meeting other people who are like me, in love with singing and hearing voices blend in harmony, and so proud of what we can do together.
I am having an affair. And it is totally okay.

A vocal minority – London’s queer choirs

As part of LGBT history month, every Thursday this February we’ll be posting a video from the archive.

Here’s a short documentary filmed in 1994 and presented by Jonathan Reithmueller on the LGBT choir scene in London at the time. Choirs covered include Vocal Minority, Diversity and us Pink Singers. It even features an interview with one of our tenors who’s still in the choir 21 years on, Philip Rescorla.

There’s another scene in London, a scene that not too many people know about, that can be just as fun and a lot more sociable. Welcome to the wonderful world of London’s queer choirs.

(thanks to Proud Voices for posting this)

Singing the Changes

As part of our 30th anniversary in 2013 we created an exhibition telling London’s LGBT history through the choir’s voices.

The whole exhibition including lots of oral histories recorded in video, can be browsed online and, until February 25th, in person at the Barbican music library.