For the first time ever, Fargo-Moorhead’s Pride Rally will kick off with it’s very own local Gay Men’s Chorus singing the National Anthem.
Angel Lira, the chorus’ co-director, said he’s in awe of how far this local choir has come in less than a year since its inception last September.
“The sounds that have been coming out of the choir in the past two to three months have been so pure and so beautiful,” he said. “And the difficulty level of the music is not attempted by just regular choirs, so I am very blown away by that.”
In fact, it was last year’s FM Pride that helped the FM Gay Men’s Chorus get its start. After founding member Bob Stone initiated the idea with the support of the FM Pride Collective, he used FM Pride as a way to spread the word.
“(Stone) talked to Mara Morken over at the Pride Collective and discussed it with her and between the two of them, they started to work on it,” said chorus member and steering committee vice-chair Tony Christensen. “And he went around at Pride last year and took down names from people.”
The choir now has about 16 to 20 active members that gather once a week for at least an hour at a local church.
Co-director Brandon Jones, who studied music at Concordia, said although our community is small, it’s arts and LGBT community is very strong.
“We had a lot of guys that were just really interested and committed to the goal of having a gay men’s chorus in Fargo and so we’ve had guys that didn’t know how to sing; and now they are just so confident and singing out and growing in their musicianship,” Jones said. “That’s just been a really powerful experience.”
While some members like Jones, Lira and Christensen have been singing since childhood, welcoming members who have very little singing experience is one way The FM Gay Men’s Chorus is inclusive.
“It’s very fulfilling to actually see someone use their singing voice for the first time and they never knew that they could sing,” Lira said.
Being gay is also not a requirement of chorus members.
“Any guys are welcome, even transgender as long as they’re presenting as a man,” Christensen said.
The FM Gay Men’s Chorus’ major debut concert was held last April at the Fargo Theatre with the Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus. The concert was a huge such. More than 600 people attended and, by the end of the night, the Twin Cities chorus presented our Fargo-Moorhead chorus with $5,600 check raised from TCGMC concert a few weeks prior.
“It blew us always,” Lira said. “It definitely helped us secure our start so that we can actually move forward and put some more organization and theme into our next production … I can’t tell you how grateful we are.”
The FM Gay Men’s Chorus already has a holiday concert planned for December. Men who are interested are welcome to come to one of its rehearsals, which again occur every Sunday from 5 to 7 p.m. at First Congressional UCC.
For now these men are happy to present America’s staple melody at this year’s FM Pride Rally.“We just had our rehearsal on Sunday and we totally rocked it,” Jones said.
“The National Anthem will speak out to everybody,” Lira said. “And it does a lot for the LGBT community in Fargo because it shows the patriotic side the LGBT community.”
IF YOU GO:
FM Gay Men’s Chorus at FM Pride Rally
Sun, August 17, around 2 p.m. following paradeFargo Civic Center Lawn
pridecollective.com/fmpride
