“It was in the sort of height of the gay and lesbian choral movement,” explained Greg McMahan, artistic director for the CTGMC. “Pretty much every city was having one, and a bunch of guys were hanging out at one of the bars downtown and said, ‘you know, we really should have a chorus here.’”
It didn’t take long before the first group held its first concert at Pride.
“Since then, we’ve gone through five different sort of generations of directors and membership, and believe it or not, we still have two original members from back then,” McMahan said, who joined the group in its second year. “When we first started, it was during the AIDS crisis, so a lot of our music was centered on loss and things like that. And also, just the fact that we could appear in public, as openly gay men was shocking at the time; it’s hard to believe that now. We take it for granted now, but it was quite a big deal.”
Over the years, the CTGMC has evolved and different artistic directors brought different things to the group. For instance, one of the directors was a big Broadway guy and had a very different sense of comedy and staging.
“It was a lot of very staged costumes, and every moment was choreographed and incredibly entertaining,” said Ken Sawicki, president of the CT Gay Men’s Chorus. “But it also meant our members were there three to four nights a week, plus all weekends. So, it was a lot of work. We love pleasing audiences, but taking care of our membership is sort of the most important thing to me, and making sure they’re fulfilled in what they do.”
The CTGMC is known for its comedy elements and crazy visuals, but naturally, it’s the singing that people love most.
Over the years the chorus has evolved dramatically, it first formed during the AIDS crisis in 1986 and performed grief-oriented songs. Since forming the chorus has performed a variety of different musical genres.
Courtesy of The Connecticut Gay Men’s Chorus
The Connecticut Gay Men’s Chorus is celebrating their 35th anniversary this year.
Courtesy of The Connecticut Gay Men’s Chorus
“We always make sure that we sing really, really beautiful music and that we sing from our hearts,” Sawicki said. “Having all those things at the same time can sometimes be a tightrope to walk. When everything comes together, it’s a pleasure to walk out on that stage and I think the audience feels the pleasure we have in doing it.”
In addition to the members who have been there since the beginning and several who came in shortly after, the CTGMC currently has a lot of newer guys who Sawicki describes as “young, enthusiastic, talented, and wonderful on stage.” Plus, there are those in between who have joined through the decades, with singers aged 25 to 75 as part of the group today.
“It’s a really interesting and great mixture of different personalities, different ages, different perspectives,” McMahan said. “All anybody wants to do is to do a good job so that they know the show flourishes—everybody has this sort of great resolve to make it work. Everybody’s really, really friendly with each other. It’s kind of rare in the gay and lesbian choral community to have as much diversity as we do. I’m very, very proud of that.”
The CTGMC is open to any male over 18 who sings and members can be gay, straight or bisexual, as long as they present as male on stage. Two auditions are held a year, one in spring and one in fall.
“We’ve had trans people who have presented as male, and then we also currently have one of our board members who is straight, married and has kids, and the whole family comes to our performances,” Sawicki said. “The auditions are fairly simple; they come in, they sing for us, we do some sight-reading things and they just need to bring a piece of music that they are comfortable with.”
When Sawicki joined, he admitted that he didn’t know how to read a note of music, but everyone was so helpful and generous with their knowledge of music.
“If I’m having trouble with notes or something isn’t right, someone is always there to help,” he said. “We have music majors, professional musicians and then some guys who just sing in the shower. So many different musical experience levels.”
When Covid forced the cancellation of rehearsals and their shows last year, the CTGMC decided to go virtual.
“We started making some videos of songs that we would put out there on our YouTube channel and social media, and they’ve gotten a good response,” Sawicki said. “We decided that instead of our usual holiday thing, which is in December, we did a Halloween extravaganza called ‘Scary Times, which I thought was pretty apropos. It got a great response.”
So much so that the group decided to switch up from its usual spring show to do a Valentine’s Day show called “Happy Endings,” a pastiche of musical numbers. “That was very fun to put together and everyone worked hard to put that together.”
It’s been a long time since the group has been able to get together live in person, but with everyone now vaccinated, they are meeting up later this month for the first time in 2021.
“We will be singing outside at the end of June at the Festival of Arts and Ideas in New Haven,” McMahan said. “The final night of that will be a big pride extravaganza night and that will be the first time we have sung together in person for more than a year and a half.”
The CTGMC will be doing some other events throughout the summer—both virtual and in-person, and in September will start rehearsals for its annual holiday show.
In a normal year, the group would hold an annual fundraiser and a monthly BingoMania event, where people dress in drag and fun costumes, but with Covid, both avenues for funding were halted. Thankfully, BingoMania returns on July 17.
“We’re looking forward to things getting back to normal,” Sawicki said. “We have a lot of exciting things planned now that things are starting to open up again and we’re all excited about being together and singing for everyone.”
For more information or to donate to the group, visit www.ctgmc.org.
Keith Loria is a freelance writer.
