Tina C in the Udderbelly
17/05/08 21:00 Filed in: Brighton
Festival | Guests
Did we have a great time? Hell
Yea!
In a new collaboration
for the Rainbow Chorus we joined country pop icon
Tina C.
on her campaign trail
to the White House on the 15th, 16th and 17th of May! The images
below are from the final Saturday night.
The picture below was actually taken before the Friday night performance when one of our newest members (the bearded Steve, background left) conducted the choir because Matt, our MD was away conducting his Hangleton Band! Well done Steve for stepping up to the podium ...
We opened the show with a cracking new version of the little known Stephen Sondheim song "Someone's Coming" - and yep, Tina was that someone and she arrived to tumultuous applause and the unveiling of huge banners of her wrapped in the stars and stripes on either side of the stage.
It would be impossible to recount all the nuggets of political insight shared with us by Tina, but be assured, they were many.
She next invited us to join her with a rousing rendition of her campaign song, the title track from her new album "Tick My Box" and as you can see below, we certainly did ...
Our next musical collaboration was "I Am America" on which Tina took the lead and we backed her whilst everyone admired "her perfect formation and her damn fine Grand Canyon". After that we gave a rendition of a 'Patriotic American Song' namely the Shaker song, Simple Gifts giving Tina the opportunity to make an emotional speech to her supporters. Next we we enacted a scene between Tina and her campaign advisers as "America" but with a new set of lyrics followed by a gentle exit from the stage to let Tina spread the love on her own.
From the 180News Fringe Review: "ABLY SUPPORTED by the Rainbow Chorus, Tina C ran for president in a spectacular show at The Udderbelly. Looking fabulous in sequinned hotpants, Tina involved the audience at every turn, from inviting them to check out her legs to demanding they storm the stage."
We came back at the end to help out with the final song "Ain't nobody do me like Tina" which involved audience participation on stage, a lot of balloons, clapping, swaying and general exuberance - it was a great one with with to finish the evening and you can get a feel from the picture below.
Angela Goodall, one of our Tenors, said: “I guess all I could say is that I wasn't intending to do any of these nights, and ended up doing all three - I laughed so much, I just had to keep going back! Definitely ticked my box - as in funny bone!”
Secretary of the choir Stephen Watson, also a Tenor, said: “I really enjoyed the opportunity for us to let our hair down and have some good fun, combined with a quality performance - yes, we can do both! I really appreciated Tina's warmth and kindness to the choir both on and off stage - she made us really feel at ease"
It's safe to say that Tina, the audience and the choir enjoyed the 'campaign roadshow'. Let's hope we don't have to wait until the next US Presidential election to work together again. Hell Yeah!
You can see more and larger images in the photo gallery.
The picture below was actually taken before the Friday night performance when one of our newest members (the bearded Steve, background left) conducted the choir because Matt, our MD was away conducting his Hangleton Band! Well done Steve for stepping up to the podium ...
We opened the show with a cracking new version of the little known Stephen Sondheim song "Someone's Coming" - and yep, Tina was that someone and she arrived to tumultuous applause and the unveiling of huge banners of her wrapped in the stars and stripes on either side of the stage.
It would be impossible to recount all the nuggets of political insight shared with us by Tina, but be assured, they were many.
She next invited us to join her with a rousing rendition of her campaign song, the title track from her new album "Tick My Box" and as you can see below, we certainly did ...
Our next musical collaboration was "I Am America" on which Tina took the lead and we backed her whilst everyone admired "her perfect formation and her damn fine Grand Canyon". After that we gave a rendition of a 'Patriotic American Song' namely the Shaker song, Simple Gifts giving Tina the opportunity to make an emotional speech to her supporters. Next we we enacted a scene between Tina and her campaign advisers as "America" but with a new set of lyrics followed by a gentle exit from the stage to let Tina spread the love on her own.
From the 180News Fringe Review: "ABLY SUPPORTED by the Rainbow Chorus, Tina C ran for president in a spectacular show at The Udderbelly. Looking fabulous in sequinned hotpants, Tina involved the audience at every turn, from inviting them to check out her legs to demanding they storm the stage."
We came back at the end to help out with the final song "Ain't nobody do me like Tina" which involved audience participation on stage, a lot of balloons, clapping, swaying and general exuberance - it was a great one with with to finish the evening and you can get a feel from the picture below.
Angela Goodall, one of our Tenors, said: “I guess all I could say is that I wasn't intending to do any of these nights, and ended up doing all three - I laughed so much, I just had to keep going back! Definitely ticked my box - as in funny bone!”
Secretary of the choir Stephen Watson, also a Tenor, said: “I really enjoyed the opportunity for us to let our hair down and have some good fun, combined with a quality performance - yes, we can do both! I really appreciated Tina's warmth and kindness to the choir both on and off stage - she made us really feel at ease"
It's safe to say that Tina, the audience and the choir enjoyed the 'campaign roadshow'. Let's hope we don't have to wait until the next US Presidential election to work together again. Hell Yeah!
You can see more and larger images in the photo gallery.
IDAHOBIT in Brighton
17/05/08 19:10 Filed in: IDAHOBIT
Rainbow Chorus was honoured to be
invited to perform again at this year's commemoration of the
International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia and
Transphobia event in Brighton, after appearing at the inaugural
Brighton day back in 2006.
The event, intended to celebrate human rights and to draw attention to those countries still persecuting gay people with punishment or execution took place near the Volks Electric Railway Station as it did last year. Here we are just before the start on a rainy May evening ...
Michelle Bridgeman introduced the event after which we performed Chumbawumba's "Homophobia" - a song we've performed several times but it could not be more appropriate than at this event!
Caroline Lucas, Green MEP for SE England gave a passionate and loud (the loudspeaker was just behind us in a waterproof bin liner!) speech against all kinds of sexual discrimination. Ms Bridgeman then spoke again on 'Trans Inclusion' (help available from the Gender Trust) and then we were on again for "Simple Gifts" followed by "Go down, Moses". It was quite hard to perform well in the drizzle and cold but we did our best.
Next was a speech by Derek Lennard the IDAHO National Coordinator who gave an introduction to a minute's noise as a protest to those unable to speak our against their discrimination.
Then we were joined by the City of Brighton Gay Men's Chorus (not forgetting the dog!) in a joint version of "Somewhere" during which the sky lanterns were set off.
We were able to stay long enough to listen to Melvin Hartley, Chief Executive of Broken Rainbow talk about the problems of same-sex domestic violence where he gave us some though provoking statistics.
However, as we had to get to the Udderbelly for the sound checks, warm-ups and such like with Tina C. we unfortunately had to make an exit when we would have liked to have remained to sing "You'll Never Walk Alone" with the CBGMC and everyone else. Apologies to all ...
An important event and well attended considering the weather and we'd like to thank the organisers for inviting us again to this special event in Brighton's calendar.
The event, intended to celebrate human rights and to draw attention to those countries still persecuting gay people with punishment or execution took place near the Volks Electric Railway Station as it did last year. Here we are just before the start on a rainy May evening ...
Michelle Bridgeman introduced the event after which we performed Chumbawumba's "Homophobia" - a song we've performed several times but it could not be more appropriate than at this event!
Caroline Lucas, Green MEP for SE England gave a passionate and loud (the loudspeaker was just behind us in a waterproof bin liner!) speech against all kinds of sexual discrimination. Ms Bridgeman then spoke again on 'Trans Inclusion' (help available from the Gender Trust) and then we were on again for "Simple Gifts" followed by "Go down, Moses". It was quite hard to perform well in the drizzle and cold but we did our best.
Next was a speech by Derek Lennard the IDAHO National Coordinator who gave an introduction to a minute's noise as a protest to those unable to speak our against their discrimination.
Then we were joined by the City of Brighton Gay Men's Chorus (not forgetting the dog!) in a joint version of "Somewhere" during which the sky lanterns were set off.
We were able to stay long enough to listen to Melvin Hartley, Chief Executive of Broken Rainbow talk about the problems of same-sex domestic violence where he gave us some though provoking statistics.
However, as we had to get to the Udderbelly for the sound checks, warm-ups and such like with Tina C. we unfortunately had to make an exit when we would have liked to have remained to sing "You'll Never Walk Alone" with the CBGMC and everyone else. Apologies to all ...
An important event and well attended considering the weather and we'd like to thank the organisers for inviting us again to this special event in Brighton's calendar.
Our Brighton Festival Fringe concert
03/05/08 19:30 Filed in: Brighton
Festival
Over the past ten years, we have
performed music encompassing many genres and eras, from popular to
classical and from the 17th century to the present day. Our
identity as a gay and lesbian community choir informs much of our
programming, and in this concert we explored music from a specific
period – the mid-20th century – written by composers who were
gay.
There are interesting parallels to be drawn between the six composers (from three countries) who were represented. Not only were they all gay, they all reacted against the prevailing modernism of the avant-garde that was the dominant musical ideology of the time, and sought to preserve an emotional expressivity in their music. Direct and profound communication of ideas and emotions is found in the socially and politically-aware music of Britten and Tippett, the nostalgic sound world of Barber and Copland, the jazz and Latin influenced works of Bernstein, and the populist approach to religious ritual so brilliantly displayed by Poulenc in his Gloria.
This concert provided us with the opportunity to explore our own gay cultural heritage through the performance of some of the most moving and powerful choral music ever written. To allow the exploration of this theme, all ticket holders were invited to attend a pre-performance discussion with Matthew Pollard, our Musical Director. It was very interesting and although we don't have a transcript of the Q&A session which followed it, we hope soon to post the text of Matthew's talk here.
You can download a PDF of the programme here.
Just before the performance there are those few moments to either squeeze in a little extra rehearsing or just relax. Here's a few of us doing just that.
Here's Liam, Anthony, Darren and Vijay ...
and Caroline, Sharon and Jen ...
... and finally, Anna and Tanya.
Here we were waiting to come on stage
After a beautiful first half and some lovely wine in the interval the highlight of the evening was Poulenc's Gloria which was accompanied by both a guest orchestra and solo soprano Elisabeth Wingfield.
Performing in St George's Church in Kemptown was quite a change from our usual Festival venue of St. Michael's - this building is much smaller and has a wooden roof. The acoustic was warmer and more intimate and people we spoke to afterwards found that the sound very enjoyable. It was a lovely warm evening too so our audience (and a few of the choir too) had time to enjoy some delicious organic wine outside under the trees.
It was also lovely to have Marco Nardi, who provided sign language interpretation for our World AIDS Day concert last year, with us again.
There are interesting parallels to be drawn between the six composers (from three countries) who were represented. Not only were they all gay, they all reacted against the prevailing modernism of the avant-garde that was the dominant musical ideology of the time, and sought to preserve an emotional expressivity in their music. Direct and profound communication of ideas and emotions is found in the socially and politically-aware music of Britten and Tippett, the nostalgic sound world of Barber and Copland, the jazz and Latin influenced works of Bernstein, and the populist approach to religious ritual so brilliantly displayed by Poulenc in his Gloria.
This concert provided us with the opportunity to explore our own gay cultural heritage through the performance of some of the most moving and powerful choral music ever written. To allow the exploration of this theme, all ticket holders were invited to attend a pre-performance discussion with Matthew Pollard, our Musical Director. It was very interesting and although we don't have a transcript of the Q&A session which followed it, we hope soon to post the text of Matthew's talk here.
You can download a PDF of the programme here.
Just before the performance there are those few moments to either squeeze in a little extra rehearsing or just relax. Here's a few of us doing just that.
Here's Liam, Anthony, Darren and Vijay ...
and Caroline, Sharon and Jen ...
... and finally, Anna and Tanya.
Here we were waiting to come on stage
After a beautiful first half and some lovely wine in the interval the highlight of the evening was Poulenc's Gloria which was accompanied by both a guest orchestra and solo soprano Elisabeth Wingfield.
Performing in St George's Church in Kemptown was quite a change from our usual Festival venue of St. Michael's - this building is much smaller and has a wooden roof. The acoustic was warmer and more intimate and people we spoke to afterwards found that the sound very enjoyable. It was a lovely warm evening too so our audience (and a few of the choir too) had time to enjoy some delicious organic wine outside under the trees.
It was also lovely to have Marco Nardi, who provided sign language interpretation for our World AIDS Day concert last year, with us again.
A big thanks to Tony
29/04/08 10:30 Filed in: Other
The photographs you can see in the
item about our Sunday Jubilee Library performance were taken by
Tony Bowall ARPS of Hove - Photography. He very generously gave up
his Sunday morning lay-in to take photographs of our performance
and we're very pleased with them and I'm sure you can see why. He
will no doubt be exhibiting at The Happy
House (with
Helene and not forgetting Sam the dog!) each weekend of next year’s
Fringe.
Sunday at the Brighton Jubilee Library
27/04/08 10:00 Filed in: Other
At an early hour, for a Sunday, we
made our way to Brighton Jubilee Library to sing at the launch of its new
Sunday opening.
We performed whilst the invited guests were having their breakfast
- mostly out of our line of sight as we were on the mezzanine and they were below us tucking into croissants and coffee.
We packed in quite a few songs, fairly gentle so as not to disturb the digestion, whilst 'up in the air' which was quite novel having a space only a few feet wide to fit the choir and Matt our musical director who luckily did not disappear backward over the railings!
We performed whilst the invited guests were having their breakfast
- mostly out of our line of sight as we were on the mezzanine and they were below us tucking into croissants and coffee.
We packed in quite a few songs, fairly gentle so as not to disturb the digestion, whilst 'up in the air' which was quite novel having a space only a few feet wide to fit the choir and Matt our musical director who luckily did not disappear backward over the railings!
After that we went outside where
the early bird readers were queuing to be first in under the new
Sunday opening hours. There was a lovely moment when two small
girls came up to Glen, our accompanist, after the second song they
each gave him 50p for the performance. Bless them! Glen said that
he should have brought his hat ...
We sang some more up-tempo numbers
outside until Councillor David Smith, Chairman of the Culture,
Recreation and Tourism committee came to cut the blue ribbon to
officially mark the beginning of Sunday opening at 11am. People
then walked in between the blue balloons, some remaining outside to
hear a few more songs from us (the sensible ones of course as they
could then still go in and get their books afterwards!).
We then got to have a refreshment break ourselves with croissants,
coffee and juice and a little bit of chat. Then it was back out the
the mezzanine for our final selection for the general enjoyment of
the people in the library. We all enjoyed it and it seemed that
those in the library did too. So, another few firsts for the choir:
first that early in the day, first in Brighton library and first
performing 20 feet off the ground!
Cheque handover to local charities
03/03/08 21:00 Filed in: Other
We interrupted our regular Monday
night rehearsal to hand over cheques from the proceeds of recent
concerts to representatives of local charities , contributing a
total of £1,300 to ‘The International HIV/AIDS Alliance’, ‘Open
Door’ & ‘Terrence Higgins Trust’.
This special event took place after the choir’s rehearsals and turned into a lovely social evening which was attended by special guests Rachel Berry (Open Door), Simon Moore (International HIV/AIDS Alliance) and Sue Peters (Terrence Higgins Trust).
Chair Simon Hicks was pleased to hand over cheques for £650 to International HIV/AIDS Alliance, £325 to Open Door and £325 to Terrence Higgins Trust. We're now looking forward to raise more money at our next concert on 3 May in St Georges Church, Kemptown (See elsewhere on this page for details)
This special event took place after the choir’s rehearsals and turned into a lovely social evening which was attended by special guests Rachel Berry (Open Door), Simon Moore (International HIV/AIDS Alliance) and Sue Peters (Terrence Higgins Trust).
Chair Simon Hicks was pleased to hand over cheques for £650 to International HIV/AIDS Alliance, £325 to Open Door and £325 to Terrence Higgins Trust. We're now looking forward to raise more money at our next concert on 3 May in St Georges Church, Kemptown (See elsewhere on this page for details)
A letter from The Mayor
24/02/08 21:34 Filed in: World AIDS
Day
After our very successful World
AIDS Day concert, we received this letter from the Mayor who
attended.
Mayor Letter
Mayor Letter
BLAGSS Winter Pride Bowling
05/02/08 19:00 Filed in: Pride Events
| Socials
Yet again, the keen Rainbow Chorus
team braved the wind and almost rain to reach the Brighton Marina
Bowlplex to 'go for gold'. Ahem. This year our largest choir posse
yet was represented by Adam, Michael, Ewan, Gill, Liam and
Stephen.
Although we didn't have such a cracking run of strikes as last year, and we're sure lane 23 was rigged so that we ended up with one 'pin' (to use the jargon) standing far too often, the team average was up considerably on 2007 and as you can see at one point here we were doing very well, though admittedly before all the scores were in ...
It was all great fun with all 26 lanes taken up with all sorts of local LGBT groups and even the four members of the Stonewall team who had come down from London just for this event. Stephen amazed himself (and everyone else I think) by actually scoring a strike for the first time in his many, many years! Remarkably, the BLAGSS Bowling Team did not get the title, which this year was awarded to the BLAGSS Tennis Team - a little hard for Liam to swallow as his partner was in their team. However, there was much noshing of sandwiches, wraps and dips and not forgetting some little pancakes as it was actually Shrove Tuesday to help forget that we didn't waltz home with the title.
Finally, where were we placed? Well in a beautiful piece of unplanned inter-choir harmony, we finished joint 8th with the City of Brighton Gay Men's Chorus. Ahhhhh.
We'll be back next year and maybe we'll see you there.
Although we didn't have such a cracking run of strikes as last year, and we're sure lane 23 was rigged so that we ended up with one 'pin' (to use the jargon) standing far too often, the team average was up considerably on 2007 and as you can see at one point here we were doing very well, though admittedly before all the scores were in ...
It was all great fun with all 26 lanes taken up with all sorts of local LGBT groups and even the four members of the Stonewall team who had come down from London just for this event. Stephen amazed himself (and everyone else I think) by actually scoring a strike for the first time in his many, many years! Remarkably, the BLAGSS Bowling Team did not get the title, which this year was awarded to the BLAGSS Tennis Team - a little hard for Liam to swallow as his partner was in their team. However, there was much noshing of sandwiches, wraps and dips and not forgetting some little pancakes as it was actually Shrove Tuesday to help forget that we didn't waltz home with the title.
Finally, where were we placed? Well in a beautiful piece of unplanned inter-choir harmony, we finished joint 8th with the City of Brighton Gay Men's Chorus. Ahhhhh.
We'll be back next year and maybe we'll see you there.