The Connecticut Gay Men's Chorus (CGMC) is Connecticut's first and, until 2012, its only performing arts organization composed of openly gay men. It was begun in 1986 by a small group of gay men under the directorship of Robert Read and led by him until 1992. Since 1986 the Chorus has rehearsed in the gymnasium of St. Thomas's Episcopal Church in New Haven.
From 1993 to 2007 the CGMC also performed in September in Provincetown, Massachusetts, a town with a large gay population. The shows, sponsored by the Provincetown Business Guild, have been sold out every year since the first year. The CGMC is a member of GALA, the Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses, and the Arts Council of Greater New Haven.
Famous quotes containing the words gay, men and/or chorus:
“Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers, because they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all of the utilities of the world. These gay natures contrast with the somewhat stern countenance of ordinary nature: they are like music heard out of a work-house.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The welfare, the happiness, the energy and spirit of the men and women who do the daily work ... is the underlying necessity of all prosperity.... There can be nothing wholesome unless their life is wholesome; there can be no contentment unless they are contented.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“The rich earth, of its own self made rich,
Fertile of its own leaves and days and wars,
Of its brown wheat rapturous in the wind,
The nature of its women in the air,
The stern voices of its necessitous men,
This chorus as of those that wanted to live.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)