Men's choir marks 25 years of making a difference

The 1980s were a freaky time to come of age””and not just because of acid-wash denim, feathered hair, and stirrup pants. On a far more serious note, gay men suddenly began dying from a mysterious illness. By the time HIV had been identified, the dark spectre of AIDS hovered over every flirtation, claiming lives in the heterosexual community as well, and sex ed in schools became a matter of life and death. Anti-retroviral medication was more than a decade away. It was in this environment of fear, alienation, and death that the Vancouver Men's Chorus was formed, at a time when homosexuality was still listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

“It was pretty difficult, if you were a closeted gay person, to do something public like this,”  recalls Willi Zwozdesky, over a cup of coffee downtown. Zwozdesky, a music arranger, has been conductor of the gay-men's choir virtually since its inception in 1981. “When the group started 25 years ago, there weren't the same sort of social and sports and creative outlets in the gay community as there are today. It was just the very, very tip of the AIDS epidemic. It didn't have a name yet. They called it 'gay cancer' or something.” 

That the choir began with 100 members (it now has about 75) indicates just how much a safe, supportive, and creatively uplifting institution was needed by the community.

But as the chorus gets ready for its silver anniversary, Zwozdesky can't help but think back to all those members who didn't survive in the pre-drug-cocktail days. “We've had about 550 guys in the choir in total over 25 years and we've probably lost about 50 people, which is quite a lot,”  he says. “They'd come to rehearsals visibly ill. They would come, not able to sing, but just to be there and benefit from the camaraderie and just to be in a place where you could get your mind off yourself for a few hours at the very least. I think we added time to many people's lives. I really do believe that.” 

Zwozdesky insists, however, that the choir's 25th-anniversary concert No Small Feet, at the Commodore Ballroom on Saturday (June 17), will be an evening of joy, rather than one tinged with sadness or even bittersweet memories. “It's a celebration,”  he states unequivocally. And judging from the program lineup, it's going to be a party. Each number will feature a dance, with such performers as gay-and-lesbian square-dance club Squares Across the Border, drag queen Bill Monroe, and Vancouver's only same-sex ballroom-dance group cutting a rug to everything from Stephen Sondheim and Oscar Hammerstein to ABBA and Madonna. And when the cabaret is over, the event will morph into a dance party.

That we have, in fact, entered a new period in gay rights will be undeniable on Saturday, when the choir croons Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers's “Isn't It Romantic?” ””a song that appears on the group's new anniversary CD, Encore, alongside an eclectic mix of songs by the likes of Paul Simon, Loreena McKennitt, and Jacques Brel. As the song unfolds, two newly married same-sex couples from within the choir will take the floor. The 1980s are, finally, a long, long way behind us.

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