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Right before their national tour in 1981, the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus was invited to perform at St. Joining the "thousands of candle-carrying San Franciscans," on the steps of City Hall that night, the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus performed publicly for the first time. The evening of the assassination, the members of the chorus showed up at their fourth rehearsal "grief-stricken and in shock." With the sheet music to Mendelssohn's "Thou, Lord our Refuge," the group went to the candlelight vigil that was being held at City Hall. One year earlier, Milk had become the first openly gay elected official in California, and according to NPR, his advocacy for gay rights "angered many." The Guardian also notes that Moscone ran on a platform "to curtail police brutality and to support civil rights for gay San Franciscans and San Franciscans of color." Originally, Sims was the conductor and the group planned on calling themselves "Men About Town." Homosexual Choir and Foggy City Chorus were also up for consideration, but including the word "gay" was contentious since it was still considered "denigrating." But after Dick Kramer came on as conductor, the group finally settled on the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus.Īnne Kronenberg, Co-Founder of the Harvey Milk Foundation, said, "Harvey was very excited when Jon Sims founded the chorus in 1978, but he did not live long enough to hear the group perform." Less than one month after the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus' first rehearsal, San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were assassinated by Daniel White on November 27th, 1978. At least 100 men came to the first rehearsal and "the atmosphere of excitement was described as palpable."
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Their first rehearsal was set for October 30th at Everett Middle School. According to SFGMC, Sims put out flyers in and around the Castro inviting men to join him in creating a chorus.
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And the SF Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band didn't disappoint when they marched along with Harvey Milk in the 1978 summertime parade. Sim's motivation was initially just to include more music in the local Gay Freedom Day parade. But according to FoundSF, after briefly teaching high school band, he soon "devoted himself full-time to developing gay and lesbian musical groups throughout the Bay Area." The same year he started the SFGMC, he also founded the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band, originally known as the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Marching Band and Twirling Corps, the first openly gay and lesbian marching band. After studying music composition, Sims moved to San Francisco intending to become a music teacher. In the fall of 1978, Jon Reed Sims founded the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus.
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In addition to releasing a number of recordings, the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus has been featured in several documentaries, including Singing Positive, which received an award from GLAAD in 1996, and Gay Chorus Deep South, which chronicled their "life-changing Lavender Pen Tour through five southern states in the fall of 2017."Īfter over 40 years of performances and still going stronger than ever, the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus is itself a testament to the notion that "it gets better." This is the untold story of the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus. Jon Reed Sims, who founded the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, went on and founded a number of gay and lesbian choral and instrumental ensembles before his tragic untimely death from AIDS. Since the first 115 members sang on the steps of City Hall in 1978, over 2,000 different men, cis and trans, and non-binary people have sung with the chorus. Fighting against discrimination and bigotry while losing countless loved ones to the AIDS epidemic, the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus not only persevered themselves, but they inspired an LGBTQ+ choral movement worldwide. The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus was one of the first of its kind, and was the first to include "gay" unapologetically in their name.