LGCSF Recording History: Together in Harmony

Hello to all my faithful readers. I am back from our break and I want to welcome all of the new members of the chorus who have joined us and been through our first rehearsal of "Street Requiem". I thought I would do something a little different for these next few weeks and write about some of the various recordings we have produced.

Our first recording was titled after our motto "Together in Harmony". Pat Parr was our Artistic Director and the music was recorded in November 1993 at First Unitarian Church in San Francisco and live at three different concerts from 1992 and 1993 and we released it in 1994 on CD and cassettes (you do remember cassettes). During the time when this was recorded the chorus was at 108 strong.

Here is what Pat wrote, in part, in the liner notes: "'Together in Harmony'" is the first recording released by the Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco. It is also among the first recordings released by a mixed group of Lesbians and Gay Men in the United States - perhaps the world! The music we sang ranged from Brahms to Jule Styne, from ballads to joyously rhythmic exclamations. We are especially proud that five of the pieces were written specifically for LGCSF. It is one of our goals to encourage and perform new music written by and for members of our community."

The five pieces that were written for us are: "Love Song" with music by Marty Stoddard who was the Assistant Conductor and lyrics by Leslie Steere, one of our lovely altos; "Passengers of Infinity" by Kirsten Nordeval; "I Am Here" written by Marty Cormier; "Reason to Sing" written by Rick Weaver, one of our lovely basses; and "Three Songs on Texts by Marguerite Radclyffe-Hall", written by our glorious accompanist Dwight Okamura. The three songs were: "At the Shrine of Aphrodite", "Hands and Lips", and "Take Me With You When You Fly".

One of things that I have always loved and been amazed by is the enormous amount of talented musicians that I have had the privilege and honor to have sung with and been friends with and shared time with and this is something I will always treasure and hold in my heart. So how about we do another recording for our 40th anniversary!

Next week I will write about our recording with Michael Carlson "Wish You Were Here".

Much love to you all, Michael Lucero, your lovely chorus historian.