Denver Gay Men’s Chorus honors lives changed by Club Q gun violence
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kate perdoni
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A musical catalyst for change for over 40 years, the socially-charged performances of the Denver Gay Men’s Chorus will honor the lives of those affected by the tragedy at Club Q during their annual holiday show.
DENVER — Intentionally at the intersection of art, healing, and activism, the holistic approach at the core of the Denver Gay Men’s Chorus was evident as the 140-member group gathered last Sunday to mourn lives lost and affected by gun violence at Colorado Springs’ Club Q.
On Saturday, November 19, five individuals were killed and at least two dozen injured at Club Q just minutes before Transgender Day of Remembrance.
“Never underestimate the power of music to heal,” said chorus director James Knapp, whose singers rallied the next morning in support of each other and the greater gay and gender spectrum community. “It's the time to stand up and sing and step out for each other, for our community, for our city, and for our country.”
A musical catalyst for change for over 40 years, the socially-charged performances of the Denver Gay Men’s Chorus will honor the lives of those affected by the tragedy at Colorado Springs’ inclusive Club Q during their annual holiday show run beginning December 1.
The chorus held its regular Sunday morning rehearsal the morning after the news, transforming the space into a haven to grieve and process, Knapp said. Two therapists who are members of the chorus facilitated a “beautiful discussion,” he said.
“People were scared, people were angry, people were raging,” Knapp reflected. “People were sad, incredibly sad. The event hit close to home for all of us.”
Moving quickly, the group filmed a special contemporary arrangement of the spiritual traditional “Like a River in My Soul” in honor of the victims, their loved ones, and the community.
"Like a River in My Soul"
Filmed by William Weeks, produced by Andrew Lawrence, accompanied by pianist Ricki Moyer, and featuring reflections from singers Darin Stewart and Herb Toplan, a special arrangement of the traditional spiritual Like a River in My Soul was performed by the Denver Gay Men’s Chorus in tribute to the lives lost and affected at Colorado Springs’ Club Q.
"This song is on our holiday program, and it was intended to find peace, joy and love in this season,” Knapp said. “But now, it’s about, let's make a difference. Let's step up and step out, and not only talk about peace and joy and love, but actually do something about it.”
Knapp said it is the responsibility of those in the arts to purposefully lead the healing path, and to envision a new way of being. “We have a special calling as artists, as musicians, as dancers, as writers, as slam poets,” he said. “It is living activism through art. And we have an obligation to that.”
Arms extended, holding white candles, the video shows the chorus moving their flames in tandem to create a visual wave of rolling intent. Their motions parallel the lyrics of the song: “I’ve got peace like a river in my soul… I’ve got love an ocean in my soul.”
The choir’s expression of this message “came out of a place of grief and loss, but it was also a way of sending musical healing to Colorado Springs and to all of our cause,” Knapp said.
“It's gotten very powerful response,” Knapp said. “I just hope that it's helping people — because there are no words. At this time, there’s only love.”
Violence against the LGBTQ+ community is “an epidemic,” Knapp said, “on every possible level.” In 2008, he said, 41 pieces of anti-equity legislation and governance were initiated around the country, from municipalities, cities and counties. By comparison, “in 2022, there were over 340 points of legislation,” he said. “Most people don’t realize that.”
Waking up to the news of the violence at Club Q was “very personal for me,” Knapp acknowledged. Previously, he directed theOut Loud Colorado Springs Men’s Chorusfor three years, traveling back and forth from Denver each Monday. “That was a great privilege,” he said. “It's a wonderful community, and they're just devastated.”
After performing this year’s holiday show, Knapp and dozens of members of the Denver Gay Men’s chorus plan to drive south to join the audience at the Out Loud Colorado Springs Men’s Chorus during theirA Holiday Homecomingperformance at the First Congressional Church.
Haul Out the Jolly,the Denver Gay Men’s Chorus concert series, is programmed throughout Denver and the Front Range December 1 through 11. Knapp said the Denver Police Department has offered protection services for the events free of charge, in an act of kindness and solidarity.
This holiday show holds another significance; it’s Knapp’s tenth and final season directing, concluding a 41-year conducting career.
“Our mission has always been building community through music at the highest level,” Knapp said. “But it's also our responsibility in the queer community to show up and be heard. It’s our mission to raise our voices.”
An Act of Bravery
In 1982, amid the emergence of the AIDS crisis, the Denver Gay Men’s chorus formed as an act of bravery, Knapp said.
Through countless funerals and public acts of oppression, including the passage of state constitutional Amendment 2 — which earned Colorado the nickname, “the hate state,” — the Denver Gay Men’s Chorus has been “part of the fabric of the social movement of this country,” Knapp said.
“The unfortunate truth is that the gay community has always endured. We’ve had great pain through our journey, and great joy,” he said. “There is such power in the gay community to come together and to learn how to grieve in a really powerful way, because we've had to — time and time and time again.”
The chorus "doesn’t just sing pretty music,” Knapp said. “We sing boldly, and we sing with bravery. We sing out to a world desperately in need of grace, joy, understanding and compassion. It's an act of bravery every time we sing.”
A rainbow sanctuary
As a patron of Club Q, a queer performer, and a former resident of Colorado Springs, the news of the November 20 violence resonated through the life of Gay Men’s Chorus singer Adison Q. Petti of Denver.
“I was raised and came out in Colorado Springs 18 years ago,” said Petti. “[Club Q] was a place for queer people to seek sanctuary in a city often ruled by intolerance.”
Adison Petti of Denver performs “Like a River in My Soul” with the Denver Gay Men’s Chorus.
Club Q opened in 2002, a decade after Coloradans voted to approve constitutional Amendment 2 eliminating discrimination protections for government employees based on sexual orientation. The amendment was underwritten by an evangelical church construct that had been courted by local government to plant its headquarters in Colorado Springs in the 1990s and was banned by the Supreme Court four years later.
“Q is significant because it's a place for people of all ages,” Petti noted. “It's not 21 plus. And that opens a lot of important doors of validation for younger people in the community — especially growing up in this era.”
And it's “not just a place to go and dance,” Petti noted. Club Q is a site for charitable work, raises money for local nonprofits, hosts holiday gatherings, and “was one of the only places that queer folks felt that they could really be out loud and proud in Colorado Springs for a long time. It’s a home base for organizing Pride. When the Orlando Pulse night club shooting happened, people gathered at Club Q.”
The morning after the violence, “I woke up to a bunch of Facebook messages,” Petti recalled. “They said things like, ‘Are you okay? Are you safe? Do you need anything?’ There was so many in my inbox, I actually thought that I had gotten a blitz of spam, because it was even people that I haven't heard from in a long time.”
Click by click, Petti realized it was friends confirming that Petti was safe.
“As I started opening the messages, I started to catch on that something had actually happened. And then I read the news,” Petti said.
“I've been served drinks by the bartenders that were killed. All my friends, because so many are performers, know someone that was there. And that's a hard thing to hold. It really has this ripple effect in terms of grief and sadness and feeling fired up,” Petti said. “One of the things that I think is challenging for everyone after something like this is sort of an uncertainty about how you're supposed to feel, depending on the degrees of separation.”
“I actually don't understand yet,” Petti said in reflection. "I don't know how to describe what I'm feeling. How do we change this to really be about love and connection? So that nobody feels this desperate?” Petti asked. “I don't know that answer.”
Petti arrived at the Sunday morning Denver Gay Men’s Chorus rehearsal to find an atmosphere of respite and relief. Normally, the weekly gathering is “a really nice reset because I always leave filled with so much joy,” said Petti, who joined the chorus this year and has also sung with the Out Loud Colorado Springs Men’s Chorus.
“Being in a chorus or any type of group activity really pushes you to be your best, because when you're preparing for a performance, you want to give the best concert, the best show that you can,” Petti said. “And just to have a weekly reminder that you're working toward something collectively, is really beautiful.”
“[Knapp] has a saying, that we are individually responsible for the collective sound,” Petti said, reflecting the chorus’ role within a larger community effort to support healing and wellbeing. “It's really important, and needed, to come in together right now and to show support across the state.”
The upcoming winter program includes “a repertoire both moving and fun,” Petti said. “It’s a mix of spiritual connection to the music and then, you know, the camp that I think everyone loves about Christmas and expects of the gay community.”
Haul Out the Jolly features classics from Bach and Handel, popular holiday selections, gospel, and Broadway. Costumes and choreography sprinkled throughout “make the show really cute and special,” Petti said. “We sing to lift our spirits collectively.”
“Music has a way,” Knapp said. “In this program, we celebrate our uniqueness and who we are, and who we were created to be. We are hoping and looking to the future with an intention of change. We sing, we tell our stories. We share our hearts. We make people laugh and cry, and we inspire people to hope.”
In-person tickets for the Out Loud Colorado Springs Men’s Chorus performance of A Holiday Homecoming are available here.
General admission ticket prices are $20.
In-person and virtual livestream tickets for the Denver Gay Men’s Chorus performance of Haul Out the Jolly are available here. General admission ticket prices start at $30.
Friday, December 9 at 8 p.m.
First United Methodist Church, Boulder
December 11 at 3 p.m.
St. Andrew United Methodist Church, Highlands Ranch
Kate Perdoni is a Senior Regional Producer with Rocky Mountain PBS and can be reached at kateperdoni@rmpbs.org.
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