We strive to be an empowering voice for the GLBT community and to enrich our greater New Mexican community through our choral excellence. We believe that our strength grows as we add voice to voice, and that understanding between people of diverse cultures and orientations blossoms each time we present our musical offerings.
Our mission is
to reduce homophobia and intolerance and create a positive image of the GLBT
community through high-quality, public musical performances.
Our motto is Changing the World Through Music, and through our works of silliness, passion, faith, beauty, and emotion, we try to demonstrate that we are all on the same journey. This year we ask you to join us in walking in one another's musical moccasins. |
The New Mexico Gay Men’s Chorus began in 1981 with the name The Brash Ensemble. It started
as a sixteen-member group and has varied in size from eight to forty. As one of the country’s
first gay men’s choruses the new ensemble functioned as a performing group within its parent
organization, Common Bond.
As surprising as it may seem today, early members worried about being openly gay and often
found it hard to find a director willing to conduct an openly gay group. The brave conductors
during its first decade were Bill Boyer, Alan Stringer, Bob Morris, John Roberts, David Arellanes
and Sean Dougherty. For more than half its history, the chorus rehearsed in both Santa Fe and
Albuquerque, with members driving between the two cities and from as far away as Los Alamos
and the East Mountains. No other gay chorus in the country ranged over such a wide geographic
area.
In addition to concerts, the chorus has sung for numerous AIDS events, church services, holiday
parties, senior centers, the annual Presbyterian hospital tree lighting, with the Santa Fe
Symphony, the Zia gay rodeo, Isotope baseball games, the Albuquerque Gay Pride festival, and
GALA (Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses) festivals in 4 other states and Canada. The
chorus has also presented in El Paso, Phoenix, Tucson, Taos, Las Cruces, Grants, Socorro,
Farmington and Los Alamos, clearly claiming our namesake and making us The New Mexico Gay
Men’s Chorus. |
The Fifth section is a vital part of our Chorus. Those who do not perform onstage perform a variety of tasks offstage including, but not limited to, ticket sales and collection, advertising, set-up, tear-down, ushering, intermission activities, etc. Please encourage your significant other and friends to get involved! |
