Can you talk a bit about what this movement is?Ī: This is an exceptionally exciting and fertile time for queer choral singing. Q: Your website also mentions the queer choral movement.
We broke down the walls between us, created new bonds of friendship, and sang Stephen Schwartz’s “Beautiful City,” which describes how, together, we can build something more beautiful than we can divided. Another would be a two-year choral project we did in collaboration with Coro Gay Cuidad de México after Trump’s election, where two LGBTQIA+ choruses showed what could be done by singing together in international solidarity and brotherhood. One example would be a dance-music based choral show we did in New York in collaboration with an addiction nonprofit, about crystal meth addiction in the gay community. You’re not singing the past work of dead, White composers (though I love that stuff), but focusing on singing the music that will resonate with people and change their hearts and minds in some way. Q: Your bio on your website says that you have a “unique approach to activist choral singing.” What is “activist choral singing”?Ī: For me, activist choral singing is about singing with a purpose. There is no point in singing in spaces where there are no listeners. I am hoping that my pop music and musical theater experience will enable us to sing with excellence in styles that many choirs find harder, and this will broaden our audience and our appeal to all kinds of Californians. Over the next year, I want to refine and develop a distinctive queer voice for our group that can communicate a message that is truly relevant to today and that speaks impactfully to the wider Southern California community. SDGMC has come through strong, however, and there is a strong core of experienced and open singers who are ready to go in many different directions. COVID decimated the arts, and choral singing in large groups was particularly affected. What are some of your goals, or your vision, for your work here?Ī: Like all choirs, our main short-term challenge right now is to rebuild after COVID. Q: Welcome to San Diego and congratulations on your new role as director of the San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus. He took some time to talk about choral singing and the queer choral movement, what he hopes to accomplish in San Diego, and how choral directors can better support marginalized groups. Today, he serves in leadership roles with organizations in the queer choral movement to develop and share best practices, present workshops and advocate in support of their artistic work.īeale, 57, lives in San Diego’s Cortez Hill neighborhood with his husband of 30 years, Yuwrajh. He later spent 12 seasons as conductor and artistic director of the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus, expanding its membership, increasing diversity, touring internationally, performing with the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, developing programs for LGBTQ youth and elders, and performing with pop singers and Broadway vocalists.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, he was at the Royal College of Music in London, where he taught jazz piano and directed the school’s big band. After some touring and great session opportunities in jazz and pop music - including remixes of Whitney Houston and Salt-N-Pepa tracks - I ended up conducting the London Gay Men’s Chorus in 2002 and discovered that I loved working with LGBTQIA-plus choirs.” I had piano lessons at 8, got into bands and choirs, and it took off from there,” he says of his musical beginnings.Īs a practitioner and university professor, “I ended up spending most of my 20s teaching jazz at the college level, running Big Bands, gigging as a session player, and working a church job. I just liked how it sounded, for its own sake.
“One of my earliest memories is randomly pressing the piano keys at around 3 years old. The new artistic director of the San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus brings a considerable and significant level of education and experience to his new role, having worked as a choral director, jazz musician, music educator, composer and arranger, and author. To say that Charlie Beale knows what he’s doing would be a bit of an understatement.