For the first time ever all of Brighton’s LGBT Choirs came together yesterday, Sunday, December 1 at St Mary’s Church, Kemptown to perform a concert of the very highest quality on World Aids Day.
It has taken many years to have a single event to celebrate World Aids Day, but the wait was well worth it. The concert was sold out, the performances were excellent and queues stretched outside St Mary’ Church as people waited patiently to get in.
It is almost inappropriate to deliver a critique of the individual choirs who all contributed to a magnificent event whose theme We all live together, said everything that needs saying and helped Brighton and Hove’s diverse LGBT communities and their friends come together in one building and celebrate the 25th anniversary of World Aids Day. However, for the record I think it is fair to say the Actually Gay Women’s Chorus almost stole the show with their beautiful rendition of Secret Love from Calamity Jane. It was a perfect choice for the event, the acoustics of St Mary’s Church and the diverse audience. Doris Day would have been very proud.
LGBT Choirs performing included: The Rainbow Chorus, the souths only LGBT choir, Brighton Belles, a new women’s choral group, Resound a male voice ensemble specialising in close harmonies, the Actually Gay Men’s Chorus, Brighton Gay Men’s Chorus and Qukulele, the queer ukulele band.
Special guests were the Theatre Workshop Chorus made up of young people from theatre schools all over Sussex who were given a thunderous reception by an appreciative audience.
The choirs returned to the stage at the end of the evening to sing Howard Alexander’s anthem You make me proud which had won an international competition run by the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Choir to find an anthem to create the world’s largest virtual choir, called the OutPostChoir project.
The evening was a fundraiser for Lunch Positive the HIV charity who provide a healthy meal once a week for people who are HIV positive.