Breaking The Mold

I think it goes without saying that as a choir with the LGBT tag line we are indubitably proud of our lesbian, gay, bi and trans credentials. The dilemma is knowing how far our identity should be labelled as such when we are equally proud of our musical ability. When I was in college one of the freshers would introduce himself as, "My name is X and I am gay." Good on him, but at the same time the reality is that people do, inevitably, pigeonhole you which then means you are judged based on different criteria. The Pink Singers name does not lead to immediate conclusions about who we are necessarily, and I am much more an advocate of demonstrating how good you are before springing any categorization on outsiders.

So it was with our gig at the 7th Annual London Sangerstevne. I'm not sure how we were invited to the event, but it was a gathering of small, community choirs from around the U.K. and Europe. These types of festival are incredibly fun and the lack of a competitive element keeps things light and friendly. It helped that the whole event was organized in a laid back manner. "The Pink Singers" appeared in the programme without our tag-line: we opened with Gloria and Locus Iste, and I think we made a great initial impression with both. We then went on to sing April Is In My Mistress Face and our version of Sh-Boom. Part of the choreography in the latter involves Tom D and Chris Chi doing a sexy little dance duet, which is of course, a dead giveaway. Then Philip R gave a little introduction to us (and to flog our fab concert which is just a month away - get your tickets now by the way).

Interestingly, sitting in the audience there was a little tittering, partly because we were the only LGBT choir there, but this was then followed by incredible support, and by the time we came to the end of our performance of Does Your Mother Know the applause was thunderous. I still find the irony of "Does your mother know that you're out?" delicious! One guy was even waving his hoodie in the air, he was so enthusiastic. I do think it is events like this which help break down stereotypes.