Note: event has been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

My piece Listen, commissioned by Dean Genth and Gary Swenson to address the issue of bullying, will be performed by the Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus Chamber Singers. This will be the Iowa premiere of the TTBB voicing.

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In February of 2016, the Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus (TCGMC) sang as part of a worship service at First Congregational United Church of Christ in Mason City as part of their annual retreat. Although the sign in front of the church was vandalized after the chorus visited, the Pastor and congregation of First Church chose to offer words of reconciliation and healing rather than condemnation, while at the same time throwing their full-fledged support behind the LGBTQ community.

TCGMC will return to Mason City to perform a concert with all proceeds and contributions to benefit One Iowa North’s Craig W. Hickok Memorial Scholarship which was established to acknowledge Craig’s lifelong commitment to inclusion, education, support and equality in creating appropriate educational settings that are safe and individualized to meet student needs.

“The opportunity to confront homophobia and intolerance to affect positive social change in our region is critical to the work TCGMC aspires to do” said Artistic Director Gerald Gurss. “The Chorus refuses to let the actions of a few narrow-minded individuals keep us from doing this important work.”

The concert will feature selections from TCGMC’s spring concert, “Erased,” which will be performed at the Ted Mann Auditorium on the University of Minnesota campus March 27th & 28th (tickets at tcgmg.org). The program addresses communities and environments that are in danger of being erased: from indigenous people and trans youth, to natural habitats – as well as our own lives. The Chorus will also perform the TTBB arrangement of a piece entitled “Listen” written by Mason City native, Michael Betz, a compelling work that was premiered by Mason City High School Concert Choir in 2018 to address the problem of bullying. Rounding out the program will be selections from a new and powerful song cycle called Stigmata, written by TCGMC Artistic Director, Gerald Gurss, which addresses the effects of stigma on the lives of people living with HIV every day.