Before Friday’s concert at McCaw Hall, Dennis Coleman, retiring director of both Seattle Men’s and Seattle Women’s Choruses, came out to put his music on the podium. Seeing him, the large audience broke out into applause, then stood to give him an ovation of several minutes.
It was a fitting and spontaneous tribute to a man who has been instrumental over his 35-year tenure in not just raising the Men’s Chorus to its position as one of the country’s finest large choruses, gay or otherwise, but as a pillar of support through the AIDS crisis, a beacon for which gay men can be proud, an ambassador to the straight community, and a support to gay youth. While the Women’s Chorus was only formed in 2002, it has rapidly come to be an equally strong supportive organization and another very fine large choir.
Coleman, 67, retires after this pair of concerts in Seattle (the second is tonight), but next week both choruses head to Denver for the GALA Festival of gay choruses, where he will receive a special tribute.
Friday’s concert was filled with nostalgia, with every song having meaning in the group’s history and gay struggle in the country. One of the most moving was a 1999 commission by SMC from David Maddux and Armistead Maupin: “Michael’s Letter to Mama,” sung and spoken by Adam Parnell backed by the whole SMC.
But there was also SMC’s hallmark comedy with Hank Cochran’s “She’s Got You” featuring drag chanteuse Arnaldo!. Wearing a full skirted, low-cut extravaganza in blue and purple spangled tulle and looking very delectable, he/she pulled out of her bosom an impossible array of objects from CDs, panties, souvenir items and more, even a couple of large knives, a golf club and finally a full-sized crutch, casting them aside while complaining “She’s got you!” and finally a photo of Coleman. The select SMC group of Captain Smartypants gave a hilarious ’60s Girl Group medley.
On the more serious side, ”Dance on Your Grave” was dedicated to the 150 members of SMC who have died, mostly from AIDS, a huge attrition, while the AIDS quilt was projected behind the chorus.
Older members of SMC came out between items and reminisced about the early days, and president of the board Bob Davidson and executive director Steven F. Smith added comments about Coleman’s achievements, mentioning that both SMC and SWC had sung for Obama earlier in the day. Alaska Airlines, which has often sponsored the choruses, brought eleven members of the organization out on stage to present Coleman with a pair of first class tickets to anywhere Alaska Airlines flies.
Seattle Women’s Chorus (Photo: SWC)
Seattle Women’s Chorus had its chance to shine also, and it did, with a notably lovely tone quality as well as absolute pitch precision, in songs lauding women’s work in WWII, ”Mama’s Building Bombers,” to today’s stressed lifestyles in “Caffeine Overload Polka,” which was performed by Sensible Shoes, SWC’s select group. Both songs were composed and lyrics written by Eric Lane Barnes, assistant to Coleman.
SMC came back after intermission and mingling fun with more serious intent, sang two songs in remembrance of those who died in Orlando, “This Nearly Was Mine” and “Bring Him Home,” followed by “Carmina Ricotta,” extolling cheese, with impersonators of Brie, “C’est la Brie!”, Mozzarella and finally a Kraft slice, wrapped in plastic, of course.
Following “We Shall Overcome,” in an arrangement by David Maddux, there was a video of Coleman reminiscing about the choruses and what they had always worked to achieve while being high level musical entities, pointing out that the incoming artistic director Paul Caldwell had many great ideas and lots of experience, and the evening ended with both choruses together singing Morten Lauridsen’s “Sure on this Shining Night,” and “I Love You/ What a Wonderful World.”
For those who want to support the choruses, there was a chance to text $25 there and then and many did. All that was needed was input the number 20222 and Dennis. Try it!