- Tonight, we're checking out an incredibly special world premiere.

The Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus proudly presents "Stigmata," a song cycle that addresses the stigma of living with HIV.

Let's go check it out.

(bell tolls) (chorus singing in Latin) (bright music) Welcome to the beautiful sanctuary at Westwood Lutheran Church.

You know, this sanctuary was actually the place where I had my first rehearsal with a choir after like a year and a half long hiatus through COVID, and it's a beautiful space together.

I'm a choir singer by trade, and I think when people think about choral music, the magic of it is this large group of people singing together and harmonies and all sorts of things, but I think, for me, the magic of singing with a choir is that moment right before the conductor starts and they raise their hands and everyone in the room just, they breathe at the same time in the same way, and that is magic.

Tonight, we get to be in community with the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus as they present a brand new work called "Stigmata," a song cycle that addresses the experiences of people who live with HIV and talk about their life, the stigma, and how to break that stigma.

Please welcome to the stage the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus and the world premiere of "Stigmata."

(gentle piano music) ♪ A million angels have gone before ♪ ♪ But I believe in the fight ♪ ♪ And that darkness loses to light ♪ ♪ And I believe that love ♪ ♪ Will win the fight ♪ (solemn piano music) ♪ What is HIV ♪ ♪ HIV is a virus that weakens your body's ability ♪ ♪ To fight off disease ♪ ♪ Frequent testing and early treatment ♪ ♪ Can help those infected ♪ ♪ Live long ♪ ♪ Healthy lives ♪ (gentle piano music) ♪ What is stigmatizing HIV ♪ ♪ It's when you make assumptions ♪ ♪ To make me feel worthless ♪ ♪ Instead of making me feel loved ♪ ♪ And what is it to love ♪ ♪ To love is not defined ♪ ♪ It is lived ♪ ♪ It is lived ♪ ♪ It is lived ♪ ♪ It is lived ♪ ♪ Lived ♪ (audience applauding) - Hey, Kevin.

- Hi there.

- Thank you so much for taking time to chat with me today.

- Thank you for having me.

I'm thrilled.

- Tell me, for someone who maybe has never heard of the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus, tell me about the organization.

- The Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus is one of the older choruses that belong to the GALA community.

So, the GALA community is the Gay And Lesbian Association of choruses, and most of the choruses came out of the AIDS crisis.

So, when folks in large cities were dying of AIDS, one of the responses was to sing about it, and that was, I think, a very powerful way to feel like you were doing something that was positive, to build a sense of wellbeing, is to come together and to sing, and so Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus, like many others around the country were born of at that time, and so that was kind of the birthplace of this movement, I would say, and then, of course, throughout the 41 years, issues have come up that have been important for us to sing about, everything from marriage equality.

So we've really had the opportunity to sing about the issues of our moment and the issues of our time that affect our community.

So, we've tackled topics like mental health.

We've tackled topics like substance abuse, and we think it's really important to be able to create and sing about things that are important and impactful for our community.

- I'm hearing that there's a lot of advocacy in the music you do.

I think sometimes, when you think about choir, you're like, ah, you get together and you sing, but I think mission-driven work is kind of what I'm hearing, that there's something in the community, so let's explore it.

Let's talk about it.

Let's sing about it.

Tell me about the chorus as a whole.

How many members are in the chorus?

Is it one chorus?

Do you have smaller groups?

- Yeah, we have about 170 singers on our roster.

- Holy cow.

- And, yeah, so tonight, there'll be about a hundred on stage.

- [Natalia] Wow.

- And then we've got two small ensembles.

We've got a Chamber ensemble that does work outside of the chorus, and then OutLoud!

is another small ensemble that does more pop stuff.

So you'll see performances from OutLoud!

and Chamber this evening.

- Wow, and a hundred singers all on stage.

- [Kevin] Yeah.

- I mean, as a choir singer, it just feels like, really?

A hundred people all at the same time singing in person and not on Zoom?

- It's powerful.

- And the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus is inter-generational, right?

Right.

So I know that we're gonna have members on stage who have been legacy members since the choir started.

What's that community like?

You know, especially for people that maybe, you know, lived through and experienced this, and for people now singing about this and learning about this and experiencing it.

- That's one of the things I think is most amazing about an organization like ours is the younger singers, you know, they didn't live through, and what's critical, their reality is very different from the reality of our legacy members.

Right now, younger singers, you know, they grew up in an age where, you know, they could get PrEP, pre-exposure prophylaxis, and, you know, not necessarily have the same concerns that folks that grew up and, you know, were adults in the '80s and '90s experienced, and what it also does inter-generationally is connects those two groups.

So you could be singing next to someone that has an extremely different lived experience, and so I think that that enriches, you know, both singers, those that, you know, lived through the AIDS epidemic, and those who, you know, didn't ever have that as something that was as similarly concerned.

So, that nature of the mix of generations is a really powerful part of this organization.

- What sorts of conversations, or I guess dialogue, has there been about bringing this piece to life?

I mean, especially considering we're kind of working our way through a pandemic right now.

- Yeah, in a lot of ways, this community is better situated than any other to kind of address and survive what we're going through right now.

Community and being there for each other, I think, has been a big part of that, is just the supporting our members and doing what we can to be a community and support our community.

I think that's a big part of it.

We did a few things kind of in the pandemic, as far as we brought in some mental health professionals to talk with our larger group.

I think that was something that was really valuable to some singers, kind of be able to be vulnerable and to share and to hear and to listen, and I think that has been very meaningful.

- Well, thank you for chatting with me and sharing more about this.

I'm really excited for tonight's performance.

- Thank you.

I appreciate it.

(somber music) ♪ When I was a kid ♪ ♪ I thought there were monsters under my bed ♪ ♪ But now that I'm grown, I know there are monsters ♪ ♪ Far more dangerous ♪ ♪ In my head ♪ ♪ What if, what if ♪ ♪ What if in time, the meds just stop working ♪ ♪ What if there's always a shamefulness lurking ♪ ♪ What if, what if ♪ ♪ What if my healthcare blocks my condition ♪ ♪ What if my soul is lost to perdition ♪ ♪ What if there's wasting in my face ♪ ♪ What if my family shuns me in disgrace ♪ ♪ What if I die, what if I die, what if I die,♪ ♪ what if I die♪ ♪ What if I die ♪ (solemn piano music) ♪ What if there's never a cure or vaccine ♪ ♪ What if I never find love ♪ ♪ Because I'm unclean ♪ (somber music) ♪ When I was a kid ♪ ♪ I thought there were monsters under my bed ♪ ♪ But what if these monsters ♪ ♪ Killed me instead ♪ (bell tolling) (ominous piano music) ♪ Crucifixus, crucifixus ♪ ♪ You will not kill me ♪ ♪ Crucifixus, crucifixus ♪ ♪ You will not kill me ♪ ♪ Crucifixus, crucifixus, crucifixus, crucifixus ♪ ♪ Crucifixus, crucifixus ♪ ♪ Crucifixus ♪ ♪ They say that undetectable ♪ ♪ Equals untransmissable ♪ ♪ But I don't trust you ♪ ♪ To stay that way ♪ ♪ Get the hell away from me ♪ ♪ And get the hell out, get the hell out ♪ ♪ Crucifixus, crucifixus ♪ ♪ You will not kill me ♪ ♪ Crucifixus, crucifixus ♪ ♪ You will not kill me ♪ ♪ Crucifixus, crucifixus, crucifixus, crucifixus ♪ (audience applauding) - Hey, y'all, thank you so much for taking time to chat with me before the concert.

So could we go around and could you tell me your name and how long you've been in the choir?

- My name's Matt.

I've been in the chorus since 2006.

- [Natalia] Okay.

- David, and this is the end of my 34th year.

- Glenn.

I've been in the chorus 40 years.

- And I'm Justin.

This is my fifth season.

- So what drew you to start singing with the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus?

What is this community like?

- Well, for me, it was that my best friend and roommate had joined a year before and I saw how much fun he was having, and I thought I had to be a part of it, so I tried out and got in.

- I had just come out and came out fairly late and heard the chorus sing at Orchestra Hall in a joint concert with the chorus from Denver, and it was like I want music in my life and this is amazing.

- Yeah, and I had heard the chorus once before I auditioned.

I had come out of a straight marriage, had two kids, so it was like a total immersion into a gay world that I never knew existed before, so it was wonderful.

- I joined for the community.

I remember I moved here in 2016, right after grad school, and took kind of a year just to figure out, get settled in my job, and I realized it was really difficult to make friends and meet people as an adult, especially one outside of school, and so a friend of mine, who's a music professor, was like, if you're up in the cities, you should check out the Gay Men's Chorus, and so I went to an open audition that August, and I was just hooked right from the minute.

- That's the beauty of choir too, right?

Is you see your friends every week, right?

Or you see people next to you and then, since they're next to you, you start talking, and all of a sudden, they're your friends, you know, and years later, you're still singing with- - They're your family.

- They're your family, yeah.

So, I'm curious, Glenn and David, just from your perspective, you've been in this group for a long time.

What's it been like to see the group kind of change, or, you know, what's your perspective been?

- Well, you know, I was listening earlier.

They were talking about the inter-generational aspect, And I had a young man who was 27, introduced me to his partner, and he said, "Glenn is a friend that I would never have met if it weren't for this chorus.

And that's so true.

I mean, I know people of all ages that I never would've met, 'cause I don't go to the bars and that kind of thing, so.

- And we don't get the attitude from the younger members who, you know, think we're dinosaurs.

No one has ever called me boomer.

(group chuckles) - So, as audiences not only get to hear the first half of the concert, but the second half, and just see you, what do you want them to walk away with from this concert?

- Well, it's always an amazing thing to me when somebody hears us for the first time.

Like, we do outreach to church groups or whatever, and I remember this one 80-year-old woman standing there singing with me, "Walk Hand In Hand," which is our signature song at the end, just bawling her eyes out, 'cause she'd never heard us before.

She didn't know, you know?

And that's the power of the music, and it's also the power of our message.

That is kind of an example of why we're so important to keep going, is to educate people and move them, like you said.

(bell tolling) (chorus singing in Latin) (gentle piano music) ♪ Well, you know ♪ ♪ Some folks are just plain stupid ♪ ♪ From the questions that they ask ♪ ♪ To the dumb things that they do ♪ ♪ I've heard it all before ♪ ♪ From the people that I meet ♪ ♪ And I bet you've heard it too ♪ ♪ Guys on Grindr ask me ♪ ♪ Brother, are you clean ♪ ♪ Why, yes, I showered yesterday ♪ ♪ But that ain't what they mean ♪ ♪ That dirty little question asks ♪ ♪ If I've got "the HIV," ♪ ♪ But I ain't got no time for that ♪ ♪ So here's the line I give ♪ ♪ I'm clean, I'm clean, I'm clean ♪ ♪ Oh, yes, I'm clean, I'm clean, I'm clean ♪ ♪ And in case you didn't know ♪ ♪ You can ask my granny ♪ ♪ I've scrubbed all the crannies ♪ ♪ From my head down to my toes ♪ ♪ Oh, yes, I'm clean, I'm clean, I'm clean ♪ ♪ Oh, yes, I'm clean, I'm clean, I'm clean ♪ ♪ And I'm cleaned ♪ ♪ By the power of this body wash in my shower ♪ ♪ I'm not sure the dirty things you've seen ♪ ♪ But, damn it ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, I'm clean ♪ (lively music) ♪ Turtles often do it ♪ ♪ Possums do it too ♪ ♪ Because they curl up in a ball, ♪ ♪ they wind up in your stew ♪ ♪ But as a poz man, I take a stand ♪ ♪ When I should just forgive ♪ ♪ I just hold up a fist ♪ ♪ And they get the gist of the flips I have to give ♪ ♪ I'm clean, I'm clean, I'm clean ♪ ♪ Oh, yes, I'm clean, I'm clean, I'm clean ♪ ♪ And in case you didn't know ♪ ♪ You can ask my granny ♪ ♪ I've scrubbed all the crannies ♪ ♪ From my head down to my toes ♪ ♪ Oh, yes, I'm clean, I'm clean, I'm clean ♪ ♪ Oh, yes, I'm clean, I'm clean, I'm clean ♪ ♪ And I'm cleaned ♪ ♪ By the power of this body wash in my shower ♪ ♪ I'm not sure the dirty things you've seen ♪ ♪ But, damn it ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, I'm clean ♪ ♪ I'm clean, I'm clean, I'm clean ♪ ♪ Oh, yes, I'm clean, I'm clean, I'm clean ♪ ♪ And in case you didn't know ♪ ♪ You can ask my granny ♪ ♪ I've scrubbed all the crannies ♪ ♪ From my head down to my toes ♪ ♪ Oh, yes, I'm clean, I'm clean, I'm clean ♪ ♪ Oh, yes, I'm clean, I'm clean I'm clean ♪ ♪ And I'm cleaned ♪ ♪ By the power of this body wash in my shower ♪ ♪ I'm not sure the dirty things you've seen ♪ ♪ But, damn it ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, I'm clean, I'm clean ♪ ♪ I'm clean ♪ (chorus claps) ♪ I'm clean ♪ ♪ I'm clean, I'm clean, I'm clean, I'm clean ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ I'm clean ♪ (audience applauding) - Hi, Gerald.

Thank you so much for taking time to chat with me today.

So, tell me about your role in the choir.

- I've been the artistic director for Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus since 2018.

Our mission is gay men building community through song, even though Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus is not just comprised of gay men.

We have members who identify as trans.

We have members who identify as female.

We have members who identify as non-binary.

We have some members who identify as straight men, so it's kind of an anomaly that, even though we're the Gay Men's Chorus, we try to create a very inclusive space for everybody to feel comfortable being who they are while supporting the mission of Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus.

- Tell me about this work that we're hearing today.

- I'm so excited.

This work is called "Stigmata" and it kind of had its roots in London in 2017, and we were in the tube, as they call it, and there were these advertisements, almost all over the city for this big campaign, "U Equals U", and I had no clue what "U Equals U" meant at the time, and I was like, what is this?

But it was clearly something HIV, AIDS-related, 'cause it said something National HIV at the bottom, so I quickly grabbed my phone and Googled.

Thank you, Google.

I was like, oh, untransmittable equals undetectable, and I was like, that's so cool.

Like, here was this large campaign to try to erase HIV stigma, and I thought about one of the most powerful choral moments of my life.

I was at Turtle Creek Chorale as a singer in Heartland Men's Chorus.

We were doing a joint thing, and we drove down there to sing "When We No Longer Touch," which is sort of an AIDS requiem, and it was so powerful to me to be holding hands and singing next to people in the chorus whom I knew were HIV positive, and thinking about people that I knew who died from AIDS.

So, I thought, wow, isn't this something that's quite amazing, that, here we are, in the 2020s, and we're fortunate enough to have medical advances in the United States where we're not singing about AIDS anymore as a gay community, but we're still struggling with the stigma around HIV.

- Yeah.

- Right?

Like, our community still loves to make other people who are HIV positive, who didn't choose to become HIV positive, feel less than or othered or unclean, and it made me angry, and it made me start thinking of the crucifixion imagery.

You know, of, like, we're just crucifying our own people, and so then I started thinking about stigma and crucifixion, and then it literally popped in my head, stigmata, feeling the pains of Christ's crucifixion, and I was like, well, you're crucifying your own community, and our own community is feeling the pains of its own hate, and so I thought this is stigmata.

So that's the title, and I started beginning to write the work.

- I was very curious about the name.

I was curious if it had that religious connotation, or if it was like cantata and stigma, cantata, stigma-ta.

- That's genius.

No, but it didn't come from there.

I wish it had.

That's great.

- There's so much conversation you've shared with me about what the choir is sharing, and I think it's so obvious on stage when you sing from the heart.

What do you want the audience to walk away with from this piece?

- Like I said, our audience is part of our extended community.

For some people, last night, after the premiere, you could tell that, not to create an ageist bubble, but there was a certain age range of audience members who were gay men who came up to me in tears and they lived through the AIDS crisis, and, for them, it was healing, and it was cathartic to have a space where they could remember those people and see the joy and the victory that is through modern medicine today and to kind of be able to celebrate and remember at the same time, and then there was kind of another category of people, and I will say maybe the age range of you and me, who are not in that range, and those people were more, thank you, I didn't know, fill in the blank.

One of the things I hope this work does is it talks about the stigma of HIV, that if you do become positive, you're going to live a healthy life if you take the right course, you know, and you're not going to die of AIDS in 2022 in the United States, if you do the things that, you know, are responsible.

I hope that this concert, again, is healing.

I hope that this concert is cathartic, I hope it's informative, and I hope that it changes people, but especially for those who have lived through the AIDS crisis and for those who are HIV positive now, and for those who may, for whatever reason, become HIV positive, that it gives them an emotional outlet to be able to process that in a way that could keep them from other mental health dangers.

- Thank you for talking with me.

It's so clear that you have such, your passion for this project and for this topic and for your community and for your singers is just crystal clear.

Thank you for this.

- Oh, thank you so much.

- I'm really excited for this project.

(chorus vocalizing) - Have you ever known a woman so brave, she wasn't afraid to touch those who needed love?

(chorus vocalizing) Have you ever known a woman so loved, all she could see in other people was more love?

(chorus vocalizing) Then you knew my mama.

(chorus vocalizing) ♪ She could see you, feel you ♪ ♪ Ask to know your name ♪ (chorus vocalizing) ♪ She could see you, feel you ♪ ♪ Ask to know your name ♪ ♪ That priceless princess ♪ ♪ Simply held their hands ♪ (chorus vocalizing) ♪ Your soul will find ♪ ♪ No escape to heaven ♪ ♪ Your soul will find ♪ ♪ No escape to heaven ♪ ♪ Unless it is through ♪ ♪ Earth's loveliness ♪ (chorus vocalizing) ♪ Loveliness ♪ ♪ Loveliness ♪ ♪ Loveliness ♪ (chorus vocalizing) (audience applauding) - With this piece that you're bringing to life here, what's that process been like?

Especially considering that some of you maybe were alive and, like, singing during the AIDS crisis, and you're, you know, working with people who maybe weren't or maybe didn't know what that time was like.

- When I joined, it was pretty much the peak of the AIDS crisis.

I joined and quickly understood that the chorus sang frequently at funerals.

That first concert, we had a piece that apparently they had sung almost every time the chorus got together in memory of members who had passed away, and so that was so much a part of the culture of the organization at that point, but it wasn't the total story, and we still sang beautiful music and had a variety of musical opportunities, but that shaped so much of my first understanding of how the chorus functioned in the larger community as part of the grieving process and keeping people's memories alive.

- And so many partners that were left behind would commission new works, so we called them dead boyfriend songs, because we sang a lot of 'em, and I think it was that kind of humor that kind of got us through it, but we don't sing those anymore, and it's wonderful, and that's where this piece "Stigmata" is bringing up a lot of those kind of memories of the old days, and I'm glad they're the old days, because I don't want to ever go through that again.

You know, I mean, I've been HIV positive for 35 years and undetectable the whole time, so I haven't had to deal with all that, because, you know, they invented the triple cocktail exactly when I needed it, so I've been able to survive and thrive as a gay man living with HIV.

So, I don't miss the old days at all.

- Gerald invited members of the chorus to submit pieces or reflections about their experience with HIV, and I put off responding, and finally sent him an email, and about a month and a half later, got back from him a text, and he had taken what I had written.

and it became one of the movements for this piece, which was incredibly powerful to see basically my story of learning that I was positive and what that meant to me at that point.

The thrill and humility of having then a hundred guys sing that story has become a very powerful piece of this concert for me, very personal.

- For all of us.

- Yeah.

♪ Did you know, ooh ♪ ♪ Did you know, did you know ♪ ♪ Ooh ♪ ♪ Did you know ♪ ♪ Did you know that HIV is not ♪ ♪ For the dying ♪ ♪ Did you know, ooh ♪ ♪ Did you know, did you know ♪ ♪ Ooh ♪ ♪ Did you know ♪ ♪ Did you know that in 15 minutes ♪ ♪ You can know your status ♪ ♪ Did you know that ♪ ♪ Three small letters cannot kill you ♪ ♪ But they can if you ignore them ♪ (gentle piano music) ♪ What if I test positive for HIV ♪ ♪ First, you cry ♪ ♪ Then you try ♪ ♪ And try, and try ♪ ♪ And try, and try, and try ♪ ♪ I will not be defined by this damned disease ♪ ♪ Did you know that ♪ ♪ Three small letters cannot kill you ♪ ♪ But they can if you ignore them ♪ (gentle piano music) ♪ What if I test positive for HIV ♪ ♪ First, you cry ♪ ♪ Then you try ♪ ♪ And try, and try ♪ ♪ And try, and try, and try ♪ ♪ I will not be a victim because of love ♪ ♪ I want to see my son graduate ♪ ♪ I want to walk my daughter down the aisle ♪ (tender piano music) ♪ First, you cry ♪ ♪ And then you try ♪ ♪ And then you try ♪ ♪ And then you try ♪ ♪ First, you cry ♪ ♪ And then you try ♪ ♪ And then you try ♪ ♪ And then you try ♪ ♪ And then you cry and cry and cry ♪ ♪ Then you try ♪ (audience applauding) - I think as singers too, you know, like when we grieve, you feel it, right?

It's in the solar plexus.

It's in your larynx.

If your larynx is high, you can't sing.

I think that's the challenge of when your body is your instrument.

If your instrument is in pain, it's hard to sing, so I can't even imagine how powerful and moving it has to be to sing your text and to see your friends, your family singing it with you.

- And you say, later, we'll deal with the emotions later.

(group chuckles) We gotta sing this now.

- It's gotta be in tune on this measure.

You don't wanna get the look, yeah.

Justin, what about from your perspective of somebody who's new to the group?

What's it been like to work on this piece?

- It's been a lot, and a lot of it has been really good, but I also think what made this particular season so challenging for me and maybe for other folks is a lot of the emotional processing that's involved in singing about these types of things.

- Yeah.

- I was very fortunate, when I came out in 2009, the worst of the AIDS crisis was over.

So it was one thing to know that I wasn't at the same kind of risk for the disease as a lot of folks who came before me, but one of the things that I kind of felt was this, one of the things I inherited when I came out was that kind of collective cultural fear that never really seemed to go away.

So you could know you were fine, but feel like you were still at risk, and this set of music has been a really great opportunity to try to speak some truth and some hope against those things personally, and to get to share that with this group of folks has just been amazing, to get to kind of experience and process those things together.

- And to do that against the backdrop of a new pandemic.

- [Justin] A new pandemic, yeah.

- You know, has been incredibly powerful, and the overlays are just all over the place.

- As you sing this work, I don't know, I feel like when you get to that part of the song, you're like, this is the moment, and you sit a little straighter, and you sing a little louder, or that's the part that really, even if you're not singing, that you're really listening to.

What part of "Stigmata" just is that light for you?

- I enjoy the last movement, because I find that this guy's story is actually quite hopeful, even though, as he says at the end, you know, most of these guys have passed away.

He's the only one left, but there's something about taking control and guys saying, okay, if the institutions aren't gonna respond, we will make some cures available.

We will make some treatments available, and so there's a determination that I find in the midst of all of that to be very hopeful and powerful for me.

- That last movement is the same for me, but for very different reasons.

When it ends and the soloist narrates, "They were wonderful guys," just about breaks my heart, because there's a sadness to that, but at the same time, it's kind of just beautiful to know that we're up on stage with each other, you know, and, like, we've got those wonderful guys standing next to us as we're singing these things.

It's a beautiful moment of community for me.

- What do you love about singing with this group?

- I don't think you make music together and sing the kinds of songs that we have sung over the many years without creating an incredible bond with people, and it's not just blending voices.

It's blending lives, and they have become, you know, some of my best friends.

- I remember, years ago, I sang with Minnesota Opera Chorus, and it was on the same night, so I couldn't do it very long, but, to me, that was kind of a job, but when I come to this rehearsal, it's much more.

It's not just the camaraderie, but it's the political, and it's the friendships, and all of that come together for me, and that's what keeps me coming back, so.

- Yeah, I feel like, I mean, the group, just since I've been involved, we've been through so much in five really short years, and I can't imagine anymore going through life, good or bad, without the relationships that I made in the group.

- Y'all are getting me kind of choked up here.

- Well, me too.

(group chuckles) - That's the beauty.

We stopped singing for two years, and, I mean, Zoom was, how lucky, I mean, to have ways to connect online virtually.

- I never wanna ever do that again.

- But if I never have to see any of my choir mates on Zoom again, it will be too soon.

- [Matt] It just wasn't the same.

- One of the things you're raising is, and for me, it's the power of the chorus, and Glenn touches on it.

It's not just music.

It's a political statement.

It's a social statement.

We talk about gay men building community through music, and that's not just the guys on stage.

That extends into the audience, and as we go around the state and sing for folks, you know, we know that we're touching people in a different way than just making beautiful music.

We have to make the beautiful music, and thank God we do, but there's a connection for people that I think does, in fact, change lives.

- Well, thank you all for chatting with me and for sharing this.

Your love for this choir and for each other and for your community is so apparent.

What a gift to have.

- Thank you!

- Thank you.

- This has been fun.

- Thank you.

♪ A million angels have gone before ♪ ♪ But I believe in the fight ♪ ♪ And that darkness loses to light ♪ ♪ And I believe that love ♪ ♪ Will win the fight ♪ (gentle piano music) - I loved my wife as much as a gay man can love a woman.

We were married for 14 years and had one child, and then I was at a bar one night and I met this guy.

♪ And he was so handsome ♪ ♪ And nice ♪ ♪ It was the first time I had ♪ ♪ Fallen in love ♪ ♪ And we were together until the day that he died ♪ ♪ A million angels have gone before ♪ ♪ And I believe that love will win ♪ ♪ The fight ♪ (gentle piano music) - We had not been together for very long, and I was feeling ill. About that time, the doctor asked me if I was at high risk for this new disease that was going about.

I said yes.

When I went back for my next appointment, the young resident told me.

♪ You have AIDS ♪ - And I never shall forget, he was about to cry.

♪ But I had a child to raise ♪ ♪ And I wasn't going to die right then ♪ And then he said.

♪ You've got 12 to 14 months ♪ ♪ Are you willing to fight ♪ ♪ Are you willing to believe ♪ ♪ Are you ready to believe in angels ♪ ♪ Are you ready to endure the fight ♪ ♪ Are you ready to face the light ♪ ♪ Can you believe the hope of love ♪ (gentle piano music) ♪ Then I was called in one day ♪ ♪ To find my T cells had dropped too ♪ ♪ Far below safe ♪ ♪ But there were new drugs out there ♪ ♪ That could keep me alive ♪ - But they weren't available, and I said.

♪ But what can I do ♪ ♪ And where can I get them ♪ He said.

♪ I can't tell you ♪ - And then he said, "You dropped a piece of paper on the floor."

I said, "No, I didn't."

He said, "Yeah, you did."

And I looked down and there was this piece of paper he had thrown across the desk.

I picked it up and it was a phone number.

So I called the number, and there were these guys who had just begun to distribute these medications that they were getting on the black market.

I told them what I needed.

They said, "Bring $50 in cash."

So I went.

I said, "Guys!"

♪ Thank you so much ♪ ♪ This means so much ♪ "I wish I could help you."

They said, "Do you really mean that?"

I said, "Yeah."

They said... ♪ Well, then be here Friday night ♪ - And I started working with them at the buyer's club.

♪ Are you ready to believe in angels ♪ ♪ I believe ♪ ♪ Are you ready to endure the fight ♪ ♪ I believe ♪ ♪ Are you ready to face the light ♪ ♪ Facing the light ♪ ♪ I believe the hope ♪ ♪ Of love ♪ ♪ Believe in love ♪ (gentle piano music) - And we were tough.

We were just tough.

But I think I'm the only one left.

And they were wonderful guys.

(audience applauding) (lively orchestral music) - [Announcer] Funding for this program is supported in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, Jennine and John Speier, and these stage supporters.

(bright jingle)