One thing that helped a lot was that I didn’t have much music to memorize. We only sang four songs in the first act. The rest were our smaller ensembles, the Chamber Singers and OUTLoud, plus our collaborating partners in this concert, the Minnesota Valley Women’s Chorale and See Change Treble Choir, and interpretive dance by the James Sewell Ballet.
For the second act, we presented the Midwest premiere of EveryBODY, the work we’re taking to the GALA Choruses Festival, a quadrennial gathering of GLBTQ+ choruses from all over the world, which, conveniently, is right here in Minneapolis this time around. EveryBODY explores body image and learning to love your height, weight, shape, size, and even your eyes and nose. Everybody is beautiful, whether you’re thin or thick, tall or short, bald or hirsute, disabled, or even have pieces missing.
Sadly, the one person who really needed to see this show, who used to criticize me all the time for being so thin, couldn’t make it. (You know who you are, Chuck.)
I was a little concerned because the concert was all the way out in the northern suburbs of St. Paul, but we managed to fill the house both nights. After this, I’m looking forward to the GALA Festival… then it’s back to the medical routine for more surgery.