The Pink Singers proudly present The Big Pink Chill.
Tickets are now on sale at our discounted earlybird price. Click here to go to our ticket ordering page.
Doors open at 7.00p.m. and the concert starts at 7.30p.m. The nearest tube stations to the Royal College of Music are Gloucester Road and South Kensington.
Category: Blog Page
Management committee – winter 2009
The Pink Singers executive consists of the eight honorary officers – chair, musical director, secretary, treasurer and the four section leaders – who, together with an additional four exec members, form the voting 12-member management committee.
Management committee
Malta
The collaboration between a British gay and lesbian choir and a Maltese Christian choir was always going to raise eyebrows, especially if they met in Malta, where Catholicism holds sway and the Gay Rights Movement is almost non-existent. In July 2009, however, the Pink Singers managed just that, taking their show to Malta to promote social equality through their music.
There were two immediate dilemmas; how would the fervently religious Maltese community react to a gay choir, and would it be possible to pair the Pinkies with another choir given these circumstances. “The gay scene in Malta is still quite backwards and limited”, Andrew says, “there are no gay choirs in Malta and they have no idea what a gay choir is…people were thinking it was going to be all feather boas and being camp”.
Under the leadership of Andrew Francalanza, a Maltese national, the Pinkies took the first small step towards a brighter future for Malta’s gay community, achieving the seemingly impossible for a minority without a voice. Andrew Francalanza became a Pinkie in 2007, and quickly learnt “how much fun it is to go abroad and sing with another choir”. In his capacity as International Concerts Co-ordinator, Andrew broached the idea of taking the choir to his native Malta.
At the Malta Gay Rights Movement’s suggestion, Andrew approached Symphonik, the choral branch of a Christian organisation that seeks to promote social equality through music and mirrors the Pinkies in intention and method. “It ended up growing from just a basic concert to being something really huge” Andrew recalls; “a gay and lesbian choir singing with a Christian choir underneath the Gay Rights Movement’s umbrella to promote equality”.
Eight months of frantic organisation later, the Pinkies headed to Valetta for a large scale concert in the City Theatre, with fifty choir members travelling to Malta’s capital for the event. Due to Andrew’s prior communication with the Maltese media and his own network of friends and contacts, the island was awaiting their arrival with a mixture of curiosity and wariness. As predicted, some called for the Church to take a stand against the choir’s promotion of homosexuality, but the majority of the community gave the Pinkies a warm welcome. “95% of feedback was really good” and the concert audience was very positive; “we blew them away!” Andrew says.
The joint concert was scheduled as the grand finale of Malta’s Pride week, which the majority of the Pinkies attended, having also sung at London’s Pride march two weeks previously. “London Pride and Malta Pride are two different concepts” Andrew explains. “London is in a place where it can celebrate being gay” with “a whole day and a big party in the streets where you can just have fun and be silly”. Malta Pride is “an hour…half an hour of marching, half an hour of speeches, and it was…quiet.” There was a feeling of silent anger amongst the marchers, whose banners displayed rage rather than celebration. “Even though it wasn’t said, [the silence] was a way of saying ‘we don’t have a voice’” Andrew says.
The Pride march had a great emotional impact on the Pinkies, with their Chair, Mark Winter, describing the scene as “London twenty years ago”. Their presence changed the atmosphere completely, bringing joy and fun to the event and doubling the number of marchers to almost a hundred. The Pinkies showed the Maltese gay community the way Pride should be; full of fun and, most importantly, pride in who you are. Their positive attitude, alongside their banners and rainbow flags, had an instant impact. The Maltese EU parliamentary representative stood up and professed his ignorance regarding the gay rights movement and his desire to work with the community towards a greater acceptance and social freedom.
Amazingly, the Maltese Prime Minister followed his lead and has now established a lobby group to promote gay rights on the island. Further to this, the Malta Gay Rights Movement has set the wheels in motion for the formation of a gay choir, an amazing development considering the current social ramifications of being openly homosexual in Malta.
The concert and Pride march were both an astounding success and provided the Pink Singers with a moving experience as well as new friends from Symphonik, who joined them at Malta’s only gay bar for the concert after party. The trip’s success demonstrates the impact small actions and a positive attitude can have. “For the choir the [trip] was a really powerful experience…it wasn’t just us singing and having fun, it was such a big political message” Andrew says, “they keep asking me when we’re going back.”
Alex Field, guest writer
Timeline datestamp: 13 July 2009
Now is the month of maying
May has its moments. In May 1983 when the Pink Singers formed I was ten years old and starting to work out that the crushes I had were on girls. How gorgeous it is to think that while I was growing up and discovering myself there was a choir, already formed, waiting for me to join it twenty five years later.
In May 1988, I was fifteen, and section 28 came into effect. Partly due to the climate of fear created around that particular piece of legislation, no one ever told me it was ok to be who I am when I was a kid. So of course I knew nothing about it when year later in May 1989 14 choirs gathered in Hackney for the fifth European Festival of Song. Zoom forward, twenty years this time, to the Southbank May 2009 and Various Voices. Now I’m grown up. I’m living the future of the kid who didn’t know who she was. But I feel like a kid again.
Ever since Various Voices finished I’ve wished I were back there so take my hand and I’ll attempt to transport you: I don’t know which way you want to come, but I reckon we should get off at Embankment and walk over the bridge. From the bridge you can see the Southbank, and the Thames, and St Paul’s in the distance. It’s sunny. Got your Pink Singers T-shirt on? No? Don’t worry you’ll get one later.
You’re a bit nervous. Will you remember the words to Dies Irae or the tune to Teardrop? You’re kind of a newbie and there are some people in the choir who have been singing for years and years. You start to see other gay people milling around. Cool. In fact, not just cool: oh my god, the Southbank is full of queers. Yes, that’s right the Southbank. As in the centre of London. As in one of the best music venues in the whole world. And guess what? You’re one of them. Take a deep breath. Put your delegate’s pass round your neck. Go in through the doors to the Royal Festival Hall. OK: on your left there’s a café. A few people aren’t here for the festival. They look at you curiously. Smile and blow them kisses. Continue reading “Now is the month of maying”
Various Voices 2009 – London sings out!
London’s South Bank Centre goes gay for the Various Voices festival (formerly known as the European Lesbian and Gay Festival of Song); the Pink Singers are one of the festival’s three stakeholder choirs.
It is so hard to describe what Various Voices is to someone who has never been to one. Once every four years, the LGBT choirs of Europe gather to sing to and show each other how far they have come. On the face of it, this is like any other choral festival, but the gays really do have all the fun, and VV is like a massive family reunion with two thousand relatives you actually like.
The journey to VVL has been a long one, and we knew we had a lot to live up to. VV 2005, my first, was expertly put together in Paris by our friends the zany Equivox and the slick Melo’men. At the end of it London and Geneva put bids in to Legato to host the next one, but the award only came a year later. It was then that Team London, the group comprising members from the Pink Singers, Diversity and the London Gay Men’s Chorus, started the wheels in motion. We’ve been meeting pretty much every first Tuesday of the month since, but much more frequently in the last year, and it was wonderful to see members of all the London choirs putting their time and effort in under the guidance of the Festival Director Martin Brophy.
The biggest coup was securing the world-famous Southbank Centre for the four days of the festival. We needed a venue where people could sing and socialize in one space, and there is nowhere so perfect. But that was just half the battle, there was a programme to plan, a registration process to set up and a million other logistical nightmares to sort out. But before I could even blink the information desk in the Clore ballroom went up and the delegates started arriving! It was time to just cross our fingers and pray that all the preparation would see us through.
Of course preparation for the Pinkies’ choral performance was also on my mind. The Pink Singers sent a large cohort of delegates and we were in the opening concert Voices Of Our City on the Friday night. It is always more nerve-wracking singing to other choristers, but we have been tweaking our repertoire since the start of the year and were ready. Besides, you could not have had a more positive audience. In particular Somewhere and Teardrop were spine-tinglingly lush, and our set was greeted with thunderous applause and a standing ovation. In fact, the standing ovation was a regular feature of all the choir performances. VV is not about acknowledging the musical prowess of the established choirs, it is about supporting the smaller, fledgling choirs. We all understand the power of song to move, celebrate and overcome prejudice, and it is choirs like Sing Out Bristol, making their debut at a VV, but especially the women of Le Zbor from Croatia, who put up the most inspiring of shows.
Knowing that the three choirs of London have such differing musical styles, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised by the variety of performances on display. From Der Homophone’s theatrical tale of Cleopatra, to the Vancouver Men’s Chorus’ tightly harmonized Celine Dion, to Rainbow Chorus’ narrative of protest songs, to Canta:re’s exploration of Robert Schumann’s music, there literally was something for everyone. And the music didn’t just stay in the theatres either, it was on the cabaret stages, it was at the bar, it was in the fountain, it was on the riverside. We sang about stopping homophobia, we sang to Remember Justin, but we sang mainly because we love to.
Like Lou T, I aimed to install myself in the Clore Ballroom for the morning vocal warm-ups, followed by the free performances. I caught the musical director of Rozenkoor taking off his shirt as a part of Steam Heat, I saw the girls of Die Rheintoechter doing their sexy, sinuous choreography. I watched our own Tanya and Cilla do their beautiful rendition of Indigo Girls. It was just so much fun!
Two events really stood out to me over the weekend. The first was the Big Gay Sing: imagine 900 gay men and women who can all hold a note, totally up for performing gay anthems, led by a choir made up of members from all the different choirs. I was sitting next to Oliver from Die Mainsirenen and he couldn’t stop singing, even in the parts where we were supposed to listen to the soloists. Our own Thomas performed a jaw-droppingly inspiring rendition of Over the Rainbow with a friend from Diversity, to a truly deserved standing ovation from the audience.
The second event was With One Voice, the performance of the from-scratch festival choir. I sat between Nicholas from the LGMC and Franck from Podium Paris, or “Tatjana” and “Susan” if you went by the names printed on our seat backs! I doubt anyone could have told me just how awe-inspiring it was to be part of a 400 voice chorus performing Carmina Burana in a huge auditorium like the Royal Festival Hall. And we did it all with just 48 hours of rehearsal.
At the end of the day everyone had their own experience of Various Voices. The one moment which encapsulated it for me was when some of the Pinkies, together with Henning from Vox Homana, were in Pizza Express after the closing ceremony, having dinner, feeling a little tired and a little sad that things had come to an end. The women of Gemengd Dameskoor were at an adjacent table. Seeing us they started singing their songs to us in the middle of the restaurant, and we sang our songs back to them, to applause from diners and staff. It is memories like this which make my world a little brighter.
Various Voices is a very special treasure; it has been an honour to be a part of Various Voices London 2009. Roll on VV2013!
Timeline datestamp: 01 May 2009