Chorus of Los Angeles, Who Usually Wear Tuxedo; for Concerts
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Ilos Angeles mimes SUNDAY AUGUST2,1992 Members of Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles, who usually wear tuxedo; for concerts. don expressive costumes for "Hidden Legacies" performances.:. 11IELONG· SHADOW OF AIDS·' • This is the last of three articles following up on .. stories of people: .. facing A IDS. ' '.._ Since thefirst -i.:: member of the .. Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angelesfell ill, 76 members The Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles Gives Its have died of . AIDS. lis caniata . c mourns their Mem bers the Courage and:Lov~;:toConquer Their Fear deaths and area matter of life and celebrates life. By BOB SIPCHEN ·'.,\~:.~.'.'MAR1.SSA.RO'l'~ / ForTheTimes liMES HMF WRITEI( ,.death. o ~naplh~~ In another context, headlights . in the Willie Nelson's "You · deepening Were Always on My • dusk, how Mind" might not be so many peo- moving. But here. sung ple drlv •. by the Windy City ing home Chorus. the words on Wilshire ponder the sucker-punch Albert A Smith. lact that they're dy- ing? A baritone with the Gay Men's Chorus of We sing, to keep from MARISSA ROTH / F'orTheTiml:s Los Angeles, Smith is cnJing. in Colorado for Gala Chorus member Daniel Mortenson talks with his . IV, a six-day summer The music spills into mother Phyllis Mortenson after a performance. feslivalthat has flood- the parking lot of the . ed downtown Denver United Methodist Church, but a half-dozen Cub with more lhan 3,500 singers from 65 far-flung gay Scouts in new blue uniforms don't listen; they and lesbian groups. chase each other whooping and laughing outside. In the decade since Acquired Immune Deficien- ·Is even one wondering how many more warm cy Syndrome first infiltrated the gay community, evenings he'll be alive? 26 members 01 the Windy City Chorus have died of We sing, instead 0/ screaming ... AIDS. The Los Angeles chorus's toll stands at 76. Now follow the music. Look through the gritty For thosewho have survived, even old saws- glass where 150 voices harmonize, resonating from Little things I could have said and done, but I never the church's vaulted ceiling: took the time-assume new meaning. Spotting a tuxedo-clad.Windy City singer in the lVe sing to keep from crying. throng, Smith. claps a hand on his shoulder: Over and over. they intone the same lines, "Thank you," Smith says. The two melt into a working on pitch. projection, enunciation. teary hug. MARISSA RO'I'H / F'orTheTimcs From the intensity on their faces, you'd think Six years ago, Smith learned he is Hlv positive, this commissioned cantata, "Hidden Legacies," is carrying the virus believed to trigger AIDS. During a rehearsal, Ron Ackland hugs Tad Mont- their sacred calling. "1 figured, I'm going to die. I might as well dance gomery who missed months of chorus perform- You'd think their upcoming concerts in Denver Please see CHORUS, E6 ances because of illnesses caused by AIDS. E6 SUNDAY, AUGUST 2, 1992 As for his father's~_elief that sexual orientation is a matter of ,', .choice, a moral decision, Srnith, , "wrote: "Why would I choose, why" '''would anyone choose, to be part of ~ :,·CHORUS another hated minority?" ohn Cox, 70, is tone deaf. But he' :: Continued from El t : J listens intently while sitting in \ "un I drop," he says, So he partied, ! the empty Denver concert hall as ! 'caroused and ripped into life with the chorus does a sound check. I frantic abandon. He's been through this routine 1 Then it struck him: All anyone hundreds of times since his lover' of j "has is time, no one knows how two decades was accepted to sing": much. And he hadn't been using bass at the chorus's inaugural audi- ; his particularly well. tion in 1978. Cox signed on to help : , Smith earns his living as a gem- with the· group's boggling logistics" ..I, ologist and antique jewelry dealer. I and has become an informal coun- 'I .But that's never been his passion. selor to its members. ,"i "I started thinking," he recalls. In the early days, Cox recalls, the I "It's important to do the things I chorus was mainly a social group, " love to do, not just the things I'm just another pickup stop for some of 'j supposed to do. I need to follow my. ita newly liberated members. heart." By the early '80s, though, it had It led him to the chorus. evolved into a respected musical Many members describe the organization, with song, rather chorus as a sort of comfortable than sex, as its raison d' e'tre. transition between the encompass- Then rumors of a deadly new ,ing heterosexual world and the gay disease swept the gay community. subculture. Those openly gay find The first member got sick' solace in the focused creativity; around 1981, Cox remembers. Now others have used the group to edge some estimate that 50% to 65% of ';'out"-to themselves and others. the group harbors the HIV be- The latter doesn't always work. lieved to cause the immune system' , A few years ago, one man invited breakdown that allows opportunis- his mother, who didn't know he tic diseases to invade. was gay, to fly in from the Midwest >" In 1987, members pushed Jerry to hear him sing at the chorus's '~"Carlson, the group's second direc- annual Christmas show. tor, onto the stage of a Methodist , " ,:She did. Then she disowned him. church in his wheelchair to hear In 1988, the respected director of one last concert before he died. 'a Lutheran college choir in Orange That, Cox says, began the end of ..County appeared with the chorus the group's denial. But singing - on television. A shy man of 55, he "Hidden Legacies" for the first had joined the gay chorus as a first, ' time earlier this year marked the tentative attempt to confront his first collective reckoning. sexuality. Everyone knew that the Denver The next day, however, one of audiences, comprised almost en- his students told the school's dean tirely of gay and lesbian singers, what he'd seen on TV. ' would be warmly supportive-s-and The choir director explained that acutely. critical. ' 'he was gay in orientation, but So the 120 members of the L.A. celibate his entire life; the univer- chorus able to make the trip ar- sity fired him anyway. rived in Denver with an artistic " Albert Smith had never quite fit purpose that bordered on mission- in as a kid. He wasn't great at ary zeal. 'sports, and the other kids in his Philadelphia neighborhood-par- ntil he joined the gay chorus, ticularly, he says, the other black Utenor Rob Briner never sus- .kids=-never let him forget it. pected that homosexuals embraced When Smith passed his chorus such' a spectrum of attitudes, be- audition, he called his father, a liefs and behaviors. prominent attorney, and told him In Denver he finds himself im-; he'd finally found a place where he mersed in what seems like a whole : felt at peace, where he could do city gone gay. For six days, Den- .. what he loved without fear.:.1 ver's two large concert halls boast His father wrote back: "Your concerts from morning till night.' , participation in the chorus is a Hotels near the performing arts source of great embarrassment to center brim with men and women ': me .... " wearing name tags and T-shirts ' At 2 a.m., Smith sat in his West advertising every corner of the ' ': Hollywood apartment and com- country. , 'posed a reply.: "I'm sorry' that it California alone is .represente(t;~ ; "hurts you. But this is not for you. I by choruses from Long Beach, San'f . know you'd prefer I not be open Diego, San Francisco and Silicon if. about this. But that would be the Valley. Then there is the Atlantaj" same as if 1 were light-skinned and Feminist Women's Chorus, the De-7& tried to pass as white." " ,~~ ) ) ) ..~---"'---'--" .. , .•.. ,. troit Together Men's Chorus, the On one hotel elevator, singers before the L. A. chorus's afternoon Cathedral." Gay Men's Chorus of South Florida, pack in elbow-to-elbow, looking at performance, Bob Cross sits at the the Indianapolis Men' Chorus, the maps and making plans to head for counter in a 24-hour coffee shop, New York City Gay Men's Chorus, the Denver Rodeo or Boulder or waiting patiently as a frazzled ·he fourth movement of "Hid- the Portland Lesbian Choir .. .. the Rockies. waiter runs burgers and pancakes T. den Legacies" is a twanging The groups perform virtually. "I'm thinking of going out to the to an overflow crowd of singers. country- Western salute to people nonstop, covering everything from Air Force Academy," 'says one man Bringing "Hidden Legacies" to who have cared for AIDS patients, "The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat" sotto voce. "I hear the scenery's gay audiences is important, says and a lament by those who see and "It's Raining Men" to commis- just wonderful." Cross, whose lover of 35 years is their friends vanishing. sioned works and South African GALA stores sell tapes and CDs also in the chorus. As the song progresses at the freedom medleys. When they by the many critically acclaimed "But I'd also like to do it in a first Deriver concert, a dozen cho- aren't singing or listening, chorus choruses, as well as the inevitable more hostile environment," he rus members pair off and dance a members jam public spaces around pins and buttons.