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Reuben Overcomes Health Challenge
Reuben and the Chorus have overcome an unexpected challenge this winter. In February, Reuben was diagnosed with hairy cell leukemia, requiring him to step back from Chorus duties for a month to undergo chemotherapy and then recover his strength from the treatment. We are pleased to report that he’s doing great and his prognosis is excellent. Last night was Reuben’s first night back on the podium since February and he was met by waves of love and support from the members of the BGMC.
"There is no way for me to tell you how hard it has been to be away from the chorus this past month. It nearly drove me crazy when they took off to sing a concert in Hartford and I had to sit home but what I found I really missed were the rehearsals - that's where all the fun happens! I was determined to get back in time to conduct this magnificent new piece we have commissioned at Symphony Hall and all the love and support I got from so many people helped me do it! I am feeling great and my doctors have given me the green light to resume my normal activities. Boy did last night’s rehearsal feel great!"
During Reuben’s absence, the Chorus administration sprang into action and engaged Ellen Oak as guest conductor. Long time BGMC patrons will recall that Ellen conducted the BGMC in December 1997 prior to Reuben moving to Boston in winter 1998. “We needed someone with the artistic skill and self-assurance to step into the breach and to keep us moving forward while Reuben recovered,” said executive director Steve Smith. “Ellen was our first choice and she has done a magnificent job with the music and with instilling confidence during an uncertain time. We’re grateful to have her as part of our family.”
This concert is the 10th anniversary of Reuben’s debut with the chorus. “This was always going to be a special concert with the Liebermann commission,” said Reuben. “But after what we’ve been through this winter it really means the world to me and the guys of the Chorus to sing it for you. There are so many great concerts ahead of us and I’m just glad to get back to work.”
Notes on the April concert from Reuben
Words & Music. Can there be anything better? Imagine what that combination can do. Our concert will bring you powerful words and gorgeous music, words that I hope will awaken in every one in the room the desire to stand up and fight for things that we should never have to fight for and music that will inspire your soul to dream of a land where “civil liberty” is not just a catch phrase but a reality. In the Bush-Cheney era, it feels like speaking out has become a dangerous thing to do and that personal liberty is under attack. This concert is a chance for us to use our voices quite literally to sing about the American traditions of civil liberties and freedom of expression.
I spent my childhood listening to my mother tell me that I had to study history because “it is only in our past that we find our future.” Then something strange happened – I started to understand what she meant. And so to Lowell Liebermann’s magnificent setting of the words of Walt Whitman. Although written over a century ago these words resonate as if written yesterday. Whitman sings of Pride, Love, Faith and Protest – values that could not be more important today. I celebrate myself and sing myself is Whitman’s version of I am what I am! The second movement is a meditation on mankind’s need to form connections to other people, the need to be part of the web that connects all humanity, while the third movement asks us to look around and find our faith in our own lives—in our own world.
The final two movements, For Matthew Shepard and Protest, take us out of our comfort zones. After an opening section in which Whitman’s text seems to depict the atrocities that took place in Laramie, For Mathew Shepard is a hymn to mankind’s ability to transcend evil and to find the inherent goodness in all of us. And in the stirring final movement Whitman seems to mount a speakers box in Boston Common, thunderously exhorting us to stand up for our own rights, to speak out passionately when our leaders seem misguided, and ultimately to believe in a future in which the inherent dignity of all human beings is celebrated by “the love of comrades, the life-long love of comrades.”
If history teaches us anything it teaches us how easy it is to become complacent, to let someone else speak for us. I hope that our music inspires you to sing and to dance, to laugh and to cry, but most of all, to go out and make your voice heard!
BGMC Honored by Outmusic Award Nomination
The Boston Gay Men’s Chorus was honored to be a nominee for a national 2006 Outmusic Award in the “OutMusician of the Year” category. OutMusic is a national network of GLBT musicians and supporters working in all genres (www.outmusic.com). The nomination in this prestigious category was selected by an open vote of all OutMusic members and is in response to the BGMC’s historic tour of Europe in June 2005, particularly its news-making performance in Poland as the first openly gay group to ever perform in that country. BGMC was the only non-solo performer nominated in this category.