LGCSF Recording History: 25th Anniversary

Hello to all my faithful readers and all of the new singers who have joined our community. This time I will be writing about our fourth official recording. This was produced by our Artistic Director, Stephanie Lynne Smith, to celebrate our 25th Anniversary in 2005. The music on the CD was all recorded live at three different concerts, two in 2004 and the third in 2005. The chorus at the time of these concerts was at 48 strong including a straight married couple, Becky and Sean Quinlan, who from the day they joined us fit right in with the chorus as we welcomed them to come along on this journey. I remember the anticipation I felt as I went through the rehearsals as we learned this wonderful music.

The music from the first of these concerts, "Composers in the Mist", consists of three pieces composed and arranged by Jack Curtis Dubowsky. They are "Twilight in Technicolor", "Double Nut", and "Sing We and Chant It". The other piece form this concert is "Dysfunctional Relationship" by June Bonacich. This track was sponsored by Stephanie Smith. All of the music from this concert was composed and/or arranged by living gay and lesbian composers. Featuring music by gay and lesbian composers is one of the missions of our chorus.

The music from the second of these concerts, "Something's Coming", which featured the chorus performing songs as we looked forward to our 25th anniversary year. The first song from this concert was "There Comes a Time", which was given to us by Kathleen McGuire and SFGMC. The second one was "If Music Be the Food of Love". The third was "Let the River Run" by Carly Simon with CeCe Cannavo singing the solo. The fourth was "Bashana Haba'ah", a beautiful song which we sang in Hebrew.

The final four songs on the CD were from our 25th Anniversary concert which was held at the Brava Theatre. The first of these songs was "Something Inside So Strong" by The Flirtations. This track was sponsored by Mary Cantrell. The second song was "EErev Shel Shoshanim", another beautiful song sung in Hebrew. This track was sponsored by a good friend from SFGMC, Michael Levy. He wrote "Congratulations to LGCSF on the tremendous milestone of your 25th anniversary. On this 'Evening of Roses' may you continue to grow and bloom for the next 25 years." The third song we performed was "Land of the Free" by David Maddux with solos by Nick Venegoni and Lisa Rodke. The final song on the CD we performed was "Somewhere" by Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein. This song was our signature song during the early years of the chorus. It was sponsored by GALA Choruses for us. Alumni of the chorus joined us onstage as we sang and gave this song to our wonderful audience.

If anyone would like to listen to my CD just let me know.

Next week I will be back to writing about our 2016 season concert by concert. As always any feedback from you is most welcome.

Cheers in harmony, Michael Lucero, Historian