Choirs
From little things big things grow, so the saying goes – an ad in a gay newspaper, a group of friends meeting to sing together in a garage: these were the beginnings of the Canberra Gay and Lesbian Qwire, now known as Canberra Qwire, back in 1993. Since then, we’ve grown and grown to become one of Canberra’s leading non-auditioned choirs of around 100 singers. We’ve toured overseas six times, given countless concerts and hundreds of community performances, witnessed births, deaths and now marriages! Along the way, we’ve given a live performance on ABC Classic FM, sung in the streets of Auckland, and performed outside Parliament House in our city when the equal marriage legislation was passed. In 2018 we celebrated our 25th anniversary with a gala performance showcasing our journey, taking pride in our inclusivity, and continuing to promote understanding and awareness of the city’s LGBTIQ+ community through music. We’re immensely proud to have hosted the 2019 Out & Loud Festival with 300 participants from 9 choirs from across our region including Timor Leste and Fiji.
Rehearsals Thursday evenings: 7-9pm
New members should contact enquiries@canberraqwire.org.au if you would like to attend rehearsals due to COVID restrictions
Sydney Gay & Lesbian Choir is a non-auditioned choir that welcomes members regardless of their sexual identity or musical experience. With 80 active singers at most times, the choir is open to all – lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer and our straight allies. What unites us is a love of singing together and striving for performance excellence. A powerful symbol of diversity, inclusion and harmony, the choir has maintained a vital and visible presence in the history of Sydney’s LGBTQI community.
Sydney Gay & Lesbian Choir has provided the soundtrack to countless community events and celebrations over the years, and has regularly represented Sydney on the national and international stage. Our repertoire is equally diverse, ranging from classical to pop, and from music theatre to contemporary Australian compositions.
Rehearsals : We are back rehearsing on Thursday evenings at Glebe Town Hall, 160 St Johns Rd, Glebe from 7 to 9.45pm.
For full details and to join us please email membersrep@sglc.org before your first rehearsal.
General email: choir@sglc.org
Facebook and Instagram: @sglchoir
Lian Esperansa, Timor Leste
Lian Esperansa (Voices of Hope) is a newly established choral group in Timor-Leste. Choir members are composed of LGBTIQ+ advocates and allies who also find passion in singing.
Music has always been an important part of the Timorese history and culture. It was used as a tool to convey messages of hope and inspiration during the struggle for independence.
Today, an independent Timor-Leste is making significant progress in building acceptance for the LGBTIQ+ community throughout the predominantly Catholic conservative community, unlike its neighbouring countries where community members still suffer systematic discrimination.
It is the perfect moment for a choir to boost these efforts. Through this choir, advocates and allies hope to use their unifying voice to inspire changes in this small nation and in a region of surging discrimination.
Rehearsals
Please contact Lian Esperansa through their Facebook page
Marking three decades of raising our voices for equality in 2020 Melbourne Gay & Lesbian Chorus is the southern hemisphere's founding LGBTQIA+ choir.
MGLC sings united in our hopes for the future, strengthened by our common experience of struggle and using our music to celebrate diversity and promote acceptance for LGBTQIA+ people.
We work together to provide a supportive, inclusive community for all our members. From our origins as a small group of singers in 1990, we've thrived; gaining both in numbers and momentum.
Our repertoire is as adventurous as our community - we harness the boundless creative energy of our members to create musical experiences that are bold, imaginative and original.
Whether you join us for rehearsal or performance we welcome you: come share our song.
Rehearsals: Wednesday Evenings: 7:15-9:45pm Collingwood Town Hall Ballroom, 140 Hoddle Street, Abbotsford 3067.
Since it fledged from its parent choir, Melbourne Gay & Lesbian Chorus, in 2005, shOUT Youth Chorus has spread its wings and soared.
The first LGBTQIA+ youth choir in Australasia, shOUT provides a platform for young people aged 18 - 29 to make their voices heard.
Made rich by the diversity and creativity of its membership shOUT brings its own unique identity to its musical endeavours with a repertoire that’s surprising, dynamic and joyous.
As a performing choir, shOUT are increasingly in demand and have been invited to perform at many notable occasions including the Melbourne Writers' Festival and Gaytimes Festival, and most recently as part of Paul Mac's The Rise and Fall of Saint George at The Arts Centre.
shOUT’s growing reputation recognises not only the calibre of the music they create, but their importance as emerging leaders of our community.
Rehearsals: Wednesday Evenings: 6-7:00pm
51 Commercial Road, Prahran 3181.
The Glamaphones evolved out of the Homophones, a gay men's choir that began in 2007. Following Sing Out!, part of the 2011 AsiaPacific Outgames, women were invited to join the choir and the Glamaphones was born.
We are a friendly mixed community based choir welcoming anyone who wishes to sing.
Our emphasis is on participation, inclusiveness and building our LGBTQI community. The choir is in good health with nearly 60 members.
Rehearsals
Every Thursday: 6.30pm at St. Andrew’s on The Terrace. Check on the Facebook page for updated info.
GALS is Auckland's non-auditioned rainbow community choir. Going strong since 1992, it was the first-established gay and lesbian choir in New Zealand. As well as its own public concerts presented to family, friends and the wider community, GALS participates at annual rainbow community events such as Big Gay Out, the Auckland Pride Festival and Parade and World AIDS Day activities. GALS has travelled beyond New Zealand many times, members having participated in singing festivals at the Gay Games, World Outgames and Various Voices in cities as far afield as Chicago, Montreal, Amsterdam, Sydney, Cologne and most recently in Munich.
Rehearsals Tuesday evenings: 6.30-9pm
Pitt Street, Methodist Church, 78 Pitt Street, Newton, Central Auckland, Auckland 1010. Visitors and new members are welcome to contact : membership@gals.org.nz
Brisbane Pride Choir originally formed as the Brisbane Lesbian and Gay Pride Choir in 1998. What began as a group of people who came together for a series of singing workshops funded by a Brisbane City Council grant, soon bloomed into the full SATB choir that exists today.
Brisbane Pride Choir also includes the Young Pride Choir, which includes a selection of young (ish) members of the main choir.
Brisbane Pride Choir are introducing Voices of Pride in 2022, a small chamber ensemble for special events and bookings where the full choir may not be available.
Rehearsals
Tuesdays: 7 - 9pm
with Young Pride until 9.30pm
Location:
The Newmarket Hall
212 Ashgrove Ave, Ashgrove Qld 4060
Open Rehearsals coming up:
Tuesdays: 1st Feb to 15th Mar
1st, 8th, 15th Feb will be held online.
For more information, visit our Facebook page or send an email to blgpridechoir@gmail.com.
The Adelaide Gay & Lesbian Qwire is a vibrant and proud choir with a highly recognisable identity in the Adelaide LGBTQI+ community and indeed within the broader community in general. We provide a safe space for all people, regardless of their sexuality to sing, learn, perform and have fun. The choir is non-auditioned and you don't have to be able to read music to join, just have an enthusiasm for music and singing. The choir is fun, welcoming, friendly, inclusive, mutually respectful and supportive. Our collective desire is to act as a bridge between the LGBTQI+ and broader communities through the universal language of music. Through our activities we seek to entertain, inspire and enrich our communities and ourselves.
The choir offers a varied and challenging repertoire, which provides the opportunity for skill building in both music and presentation, while marketing to a broad community and remaining financially viable to ensure the continuation of the Qwire for generations to come. The Adelaide Gay and Lesbian Qwire is quickly gaining a reputation as one of Adelaide most fun and exciting Community Choirs.
Rehearsals
Tuesday evenings: 7.30 to 9.30pm.
For rehearsal location, and current schedule please contact qwire@adelaideqwire.org
Perth Pride Choir
Perth Pride Choir has been singing proudly as part of the Perth LGBTI+ community for the past 25 years. We are a non-auditioned choir and welcome members from all colours of the sexuality and gender diversity rainbow and our allies. Our motto is Harmony in Diversity.
Perth Pride Choir sings at events within our community and also in wider community events, and work towards an annual concert with a different theme each year. We are proud to say that we have attended every Out & Loud festival. There is a great deal of enthusiasm for singing and importance placed on the community spirit of the choir, which is manifested in the strong social role of the choir. We see ourselves not just as a choir but as a family.
Rehearsals Thursday evenings: 7-9.15pm
Royal Park Hall, 180 Charles Street, West Perth. www.perthpridechoir.org.au
True Colours Chorus, Darwin, was originally conceived of, in late 2017, as an inclusive choir for members of the City and Greater Region of Darwin's gender and sexually-diverse community and its allies - a creative community meeting place and an opportunity to positively increase the visibility of the LGBTIQA+ community of Darwin.
True Colours Chorus fosters a collaborative environment with members suggesting repertoire, teaching their favourite songs, sharing the role of conducting, and volunteering their time with the library and accounting.
True Colours Chorus successfully put on its first show - 'Songs of Unity, Pride and Love' - during Darwin Pride Festival last September at Brown's Mart Theatre. The show was a sell out, and was very well-received, both by the local queer community, and by the wider Darwin community.
Rehearsals : Currently Monday or Thursday night, depending on who is available to lead rehearsal. At the moment we communicate location and time via messenger chat. Our regular venue is at Charles Darwin University in the CYCM Performance Room, 6.1.12 Building Orange 6. Please send us a message on Facebook
The Rainbow Free and Equal Choir was inaugurated in 2015 at the launch of the United Nations’ Free and Equal campaign in Suva, Fiji. It is comprised mainly of members of the LGBTQI community from Suva. The Choir has provided entertainment at a number of events including the celebration of IDAHOBiT (International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia), World AIDS Day and International Human Rights Day in Suva. The choir's participation in various events is also a form of soft advocacy work of the Rainbow Pride Foundation which is the organisation that leads, coordinates and manages the choir.
Founded by Sarah & Melanie Penicka-Smith, with the help of KIconcerts, Pacific Pride Choir (PPC) is an occasional touring choir created to contribute to the visibility & acceptance of LGBTQI+ people in countries where homosexuality is legalised, but not fully recognised. PPC travels to areas without a queer choir, &/or where LGBTQI+ people are still working towards acceptance. We work in partnership with local LGBTQI+ organisations & people to create visibility, solidarity, & recognition.
In our brief history, we’ve forged new connections with choirs in Germany & Poland & were the catalyst for the foundation of a new choir in Vietnam & a Gay Singing Team in Cambodia
PPC is open to any member of the LGBTQI+ community, & to our straight friends, from anywhere in the world. Singing experience is preferable but not essential, & we love having partners, friends & family members who do not wish to sing but would still like to participate join us.
Late last year we put out a call for choirs to share a ‘Global Momentum’ video with the world, celebrating queer choirs around the globe.
"We’re delighted that a number of choirs submitted videos and in this release, Beijing Queer Chorus, Coro Gay Cuidad de Mexico and Canberra Qwire share their stories. They show us the rich diversity that there is in the queer choral movement and each is moving and powerful.
There’s also an intro from us, interspersed with photos of choirs around the globe, the 2019 Pacific Pride Choir tour, and an outtake from Charlie Beale.
We hope you enjoy and thanks for watching
Mel & Sarah"
https://www.queerchoirs.org/global-momentum
Photo credit : Lisa Chanell, Lisa Chanell Photography
Banner photo courtesy Peter Hislop, Canberra