Photo Courtesy of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus
The first performance by the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus was on the steps of City Hall on November 27, 1978 at the candlelight vigil in honor of Harvey Milk and George Moscone. As their website states, “Little did the men who gathered more than 40 years ago know they were actually giving birth to a world-wide LGBT choral phenomenon that now boasts hundreds of choruses around the globe.”
The SFGMC now adds another great achievement to their story. On May 7, it was announced that they had won the Audience Award at the prestigious Tribeca Film Festival in New York City for the documentary, Gay Chorus Deep South. The film documents the momentous Lavender Pen Tour undertaken by the chorus in response to the recent wave of anti-LGBTQ laws across the southern US. The film “offers a glimpse of a less divided America, where the things that divide us — faith, politics, sexual identity — are set aside by the soaring power of music, humanity, and a little drag.”
Hailed as “a powerful study in doing the unexpected” (Vice) and “one of the most moving documentaries to premiere this year” (The Daily Beast), the documentary will make its San Francisco premiere at the Frameline Film Festival on Sunday, June 30.
