Malta Pride

So you should know by now that we are closely associated with Pride London, having been created for Pride and actually performing at every Pride for the last 26 years. Well, this year we are taking our message farther afield. Indeed, we're off to Malta as the guests of the Malta Gay Rights Movement. it is the week after our summer concert (you've bought your ticket haven't you?) and although most of us will be taking a much needed break, we'll be keeping it gay anyway. Check out the Sounds of Diversity website for more details, but the gig will be in Valletta on the 18th of July 2009 and we are allegedly the highlight of the gay pride week in Malta. Hope to see you there!

P.S. All this talk of Pride makes me feel the need to remind people that it is the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising; the event which kicked off the gay rights movement. 40 years on, like any civil rights movement, we've come a long way, but there is still a long way to go.

Pride London 2009 Dance Party!

Things are really heating up in Pinkie land. On Sunday we ran through nearly the entire repertoire for our summer concert. Things are still a little rough, but through the rough you can see glimmers of diamond. We are on full on polish mode until the concert on the 11th of July.

The week before that happens though is Pride London, and if you don't know by now, the Pink Singers have been associated with pride London for the last 26 years. It is an important factoid that we were created in 1983 for Pride London, and some of us (i.e. Philip R) have been at every Pride since. We're here, we're queer, get used to it!

We're on stage again in Trafalgar Square, but this year will be slightly different in that Paleday, Anthony's band, will be backing us. At the rehearsal on Sunday we had a chance to play with a recorded version, and it is sounding rather exciting. Until last week we had only heard the music to 70s Dance Party, which totally transformed it from something rather lifeless to a medley I know people are going to love. On Sunday, however, we got to hear the backing tracks for California Dreamin' and America. The former works especially well, and a recording of our rehearsal is now on loop at home because it sounds fantastic! These are sure to be crowd pleasers.

The only downer in all of this preparation is that the Pride stage is now too small of cope with our expanded numbers. This means that only 11 per section will be allowed up there. This Pink Insider will, sadly, not be one of those, so there is no inside scoop from me this year about the shenanigans that go on in the artistes' tent, but rest assured one of the other Pink Insiders will! No, I'll be out front for once taking photos, blogging and tweeting like crazy. If you see a mad overexcited Pink Singer, that is likely to be me. So stop me and pick up a flyer!

Small Step, Giant Leap

Last Sunday was a fairly significant day for the Pinkies because we had our Annual General Meeting. We're not so large a group, and we all know each other fairly well, so the atmosphere was informal and the discussion, as always, lively.

Mark gave the chair's report which was a quick retrospective of the Pinkie year Winter 2008/ Summer 2009. It is actually quite amazing to see how time has flown. Hard to imagine that we have sung and played so hard this season, although in hindsight I am actually feeling rather tired. Still, just three more events to go till the end of the season! Simon, after crunching figures into the wee hours the night before, gave the treasurer's report, and we appear to be fiscally comfortable, although ever more vigilance is called for. Our new performance venue is significantly more expensive, and hopefully will demonstrate to us that it is worth it!

Then of course, there were the elections. For the first time ever, all positions were filled. This has partly to do with the recent revision of the job descriptions, and partly to do with the fact that we now have many enthusiastic members who really want to contribute. For the first time ever too, both the role of the multimedia co-ordinator and the tenor section leader were contested. Good on Michael Da, Kelly, Thomas and James M for standing. Regardless of the outcome, we are all behind you!

To me the most significant item on the agenda was the issue of photography and videos. As you may imagine, for a long time we had no policy so there were loads of photos taken. At the same time, the Pink Singers at our inception was made up of members who were not only out, but extremely proud as well, so there was no issue of conflict of interests. This is all the more impressive given that the Pinkies were formed at the time of Section 28 when the overall mood in society was far less accepting than it is now.

All of this predates the widespread use of the internet and the advent of YouTube and Facebook, and a couple of years ago, the uploading of a rather harmless video of us having fun onto a popular video sharing site provoked quite the furore. It seems there were two issues at stake: the first was that our public image needs to be better maintained, with high quality versions of our performances so that people get an accurate impression of who we are. The second was that it appeared that there were members of the choir, who despite our "London's lesbian and gay community choir" tag-line did not want to be outed by their faces being present in images produced by the choir.

The former is quite easily addressed by acknowledging that media produced by the choir is going to find its way onto the net, officially or unofficially, and that the only way we can adequately counter it is by producing high quality versions of our own so that the official versions appear above all others when we are googled. Our new resolution enables this, and has been a long time coming. The second is a thornier issue. Not everyone is out to the same degree. While it may be argued that by joining a choir which overtly declares itself to be gay and lesbian, which was created for and has sung at every Pride march since 1983, and performs in public nearly a dozen times a year, a member is signing up to this ethos, it has never been explicitly stated. Indeed, there may even have been the expectation of anonymity.

People join the Pink Singers for many reasons, but one of the most important ones is for the social element, an area in which I think we excel. Our mission is about providing a "friendly, enjoyable and inclusive" environment and I really think we do. This is reflected in the growing size of the choir, our ever higher retention rate and the increasing numbers of people who want to join us. Significantly, the first part of our mission, however, is that we are a "London-based lesbian and gay choir whose mission is to produce exciting and diverse performances for the general public and in support of community organizations". This does mean that we are identified with the lesbian and gay community (duh!). We do loads of charity performances, and are very proud of the funds we raise for good causes. Unfortunately, these two halves can be in conflict for some people, particularly those who wish to be involved in the social side of the choir, but not be too heavily involved in, or identified with, the LGBT side.

Our new resolution is aimed to try to negotiate this line. The Pink Singers is in an LGBT group performing in the public space, and images and video taken in public performance are ceded to the public realm. To me this has always seemed self evident, but it enables the Pink Singers as an organization to use images in our promotional material and alleviates some of the current beaurocracy. It also recognizes that the use of images in private channels is not the responsibility of the choir to monitor. In The Pink(ies) is one such channel, and here I use a voluntary code where any photographs used are with the consent of all of the people in the photos. I can tell you that this has caused a huge headache in the past, especially at large public events when photos can be taken of dozens of Pink Singers. This makes the situation simpler as photos taken in public at public performances can now be used, and basically brings such images in line with U.K. regulations.

On a more general note, though, I do hope this leads to more photographs being taken and more photographs being shared. Photos and videos are not just there as advertising, they capture both significant and insignificant moments and are essential as a historical record. After all, if we do not write things down and if we do not have images, then we are, sadly, going to forget them. As individuals perhaps this does not matter so much, but for organizations such as the Pinkies, and especially because we are an LGBT group, this historical record is vital as our voice, for now and for the future.

Pride London 2009 - What Are We Singing?

As regulars know the Pink Singers will be celebrating our 26th London Pride march this year. We started back in 1983 when the march was markedly less festive.This year we will be on the stage as usual, and praying for great weather and suitable amplification.

The question remains which songs in our repertoire we will be performing. The Pink Insider doesn't know for sure but has heard on the grapevine that we will be doing three numbers (still very subject to confirmation):

California Dreamin'
The Mamas and Pappas classic - the version we're singing is actually very similar to the original arrangement, apart from the end.

Seventies Dance Party
No gig would be complete without a medley, and what better than a montage of seventies classics? We have rehearsed this piece since the start of the season, but the Pink Insider hears that we'll be joined on stage by Paleday to glam it up!

And what is the mystery third song? Stay tuned...

Fair Phyllis

Here is one of the madrigals the Pinkies will be performing for the summer concert. Quite a difficult piece, but expertly sung here by the King's Singers.

Loud & Proud Summer Concert 2009 - The Photos

Photos of the Pinkies and Loud & Proud can be found on their photo album.

Fair Thee Weel!

"Sit on the east side." I was told, "You can see much more of the British coastline". It was 7 a.m. and far too early to give much consideration to the geography of seating. Still, nearly half the Pink Singers had shown up at King's Cross and were waiting to get onto our London to Edinburgh train. Ben P, with his clip board, was in his natural school marm element, and the rest of us were much like school children, with our packed lunches and Kelly's ukelele.

The ride up to Edinburgh, apart from being very hot, was very enjoyable, and in true Pinkie fashion, there was considerably singing in the carriage. Kate N started off with songs from Oliver then Sally-Ann took over with her rendition of Fiddler On The Roof. None of this was from our repertoire, but at least it got some of the non-Pinkies in the carriage singing along. The other half just wondered (loudly) whether we were all drunk.

Our arrival in the Scottish capital meant that we had enough time to deposit our bags and take a quite rest before showing up at the concert venue for our rehearsal. This was a delightful Methodist church called the Central Hall in West Tollcross. It was there that we got to properly meet Loud & Proud, our Scottish equivalents and our hosts for the weekend. We'd already met some of them at Various Voices (I have the St. Andrew's tie pin to prove it!) so it was more of a gathering of friends than of strangers.

Although Loud & Proud were of a similar size to our delegation, and they were also a mixed choir, there were enough differences for us to be quite complementary. Led by their phenomenally talented MD Karen Dietz, Loud & Proud are principally an a capella choir, and a very accomplished one at that. Furthermore, their repertoire tends more towards folk songs, which they sang with the spirit, conviction and honesty which is so necessary, yet so hard to achieve. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to them perform, and we were fortunately given the opportunity to sit in the balcony to watch their second half. I especially loved the urgent emotionality of their rendition of I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free.

The Pinkies performed in the first half, and our set was essentially the songs that we did at Various Voices. Since, on the Friday of the festival, Loud & Proud were rehearsing while our concert(s) were going on, most of them never saw us, so I guess it must have been a bit of a surprise for them. I think we did well, and I felt much more relaxed this time round which helped. The acoustics of the hall were great and helped mold and amplify the voices, so it sounded very good from where we were on stage at least!

After the concert it was time to party! Loud & Proud had laid on a spread at a pub called the Counting House, and because of the Scottish summer, it was still bright when we made our way there. There was a slight glitch with the beer taps at the upstairs bar, and it delayed our drunken revelry by about 15 minutes as everyone then rushed to the downstairs bar. Once the much needed beer started flowing though, it was time for chatting and mingling. Made some new friends such as Jonathan and David, the latter of whom had just come from the Highland Festival, and in the bright sunshine had acquired a farmer's tan.

As you might imagine, there was a considerable amount of singing as well, we kicked off with a number, followed by Loud & Proud, and there was then a succession of songs, performed in groups and solo. Kelly's ukelele made an appearance, as did a guitar, and loads of Scottish songs. Right into the wee hours.

Sadly, it all had to come to an end though, and we made the trip back down to London with heavy, but contented hearts. I can honestly say that Loud & proud were one of the friendliest choirs we have ever performed with, and we are really looking forward to hearing them sing with us in the future.