New mexico gay mens chorus

The New Mexico Lgbtq+ Men’s Chorus began in 1981 with the name The Brash Ensemble. It started as a sixteen-member group and has varied in size from eight to sixty. As one of the country’s first gay men’s choruses the modern ensemble functioned as a performing team within its parent organization, Common Bond.  As surprising as it may look today, early members worried about creature openly gay and often found it hard to detect a director willing to conduct an openly gay community. The brave conductors during its first decade were Bill Boyer, Alan Stringer, Bob Morris, John Roberts, David Arellanes, Sean Dougherty and Stephen Montoya. For more than half its history, the chorus rehearsed in both Santa Fe and Albuquerque, with members driving between the two cities and from as far away as Los Alamos and the East Mountains. No other same-sex attracted chorus in the country ranged over such a expansive geographic area.

In addition to concerts, the chorus has sung for numerous AIDS events, church services, holiday parties, senior centers, the annual Presbyterian hospital trunk lighting, with the Santa Fe Symphony, the Zia queer rodeo, Isotope baseball games, New Mexico United matches, the Albuquerque Gay Identity festival festival,