5 Produced by ST Content Studio | “Reflection” SMC member Mitchell Hunter grew up as a tomboy – “a rough and tumble girl, in the South – the captain of the ‘All Boys Club’ fort in my backyard – balancing bare-chested on my banana seat. By the late ‘70s, in college, I’d come out as butch lesbian. When I joined Seattle Lesbian and Gay Chorus in 1995, I met my first transgender man, a former classically trained soprano singing in the tenor section. Then it started to dawn on me …” Hunter asked the universe for a sign. “It was then that I heard ‘Reflection’ from Disney’s ‘Mulan,’” he says. “Who is that girl I see, staring straight back at me? When will my reflection show who I (really) am inside?” “That was 21 years ago. Now, I’ve come full circle. Many have gone before me, paving the way to my becoming all of who I am. So many in my chorus family have given me the gift I’ve longed for my entire life – ‘Yes, you really are just one of the guys — the leader of the AllBoys Club.’” “Someday My Prince Will Come” Luke and Mickey Preston-Toogood met in the Seattle Men’s Chorus. Luke Preston-Toogood says, “The man I’d been waiting for just appeared one day at the door to rehearsal. In minutes, we found all these things in common.” Both had returned to music after a decade away. Both have twin brothers. Both went to Catholic school in the 1990s. “I’d found someone who made me happier than I’ve ever been,” Mickey Preston-Toogood said. “Someday My Prince Will Come,” from his favorite Disney movie, “Snow White,” strikes a chord, he says: “I had to wait almost 40 years to find my prince.” “Go the Distance” “Go the Distance” from Disney’s “Hercules” is SMC member Brandon Ray’s favorite song from the concert. It “speaks to the universal theme about finding where you belong in the world,” he says. “It can be felt very acutely in the queer community when you recognize … that you are not like most of the people around you.” Brandon and his husband Brick Ray (also a member of the chorus) are going the distance. They got married last year at Disneyland, a destination wedding that got the thumbs up from their two kids. “There wasn’t a cloud in the sky,” Brandon Ray says. For ticket information visit SeattleMensChorus.org. “Be Our Guest” Interim Executive Director of Seattle Men’s Chorus Craig Coogan notes, “This is the 100th year of the Walt Disney Company. To take these iconic songs and tell them through the prism of the LGBTQ experience is what the world needs. This is how we address the culture wars in our world and neighborhoods – with the power of music.” Artistic Director and Conductor Paul Caldwell adds, “For those of us who grew up not sure that we fit in, Disney songs and movies were safe places for us – I mean, how many little gay boys danced around singing ‘Let It Go’ from ‘Frozen’ pretending they were Elsa?” “It’s powerful to sing the songs as adults and remember how important they were to us then and know that they are equally important to children and our whole community now.” “God Help the Outcasts” A favorite song of Caldwell’s is “God Help the Outcasts” from “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” “It’s so poignant because so many of us in the gay community grew up hiding and feeling like we couldn’t be who or what we were meant to be. Revisiting that song with a gay chorus for a pride show in the most sumptuous arrangement – with the orchestra soaring, the chorus roaring – it’s one of the most thrilling things I’ve ever conducted.” “Anytime 200+ LGBTQ people stand on a stage together and join our hearts and hands and voices, that is activism and a powerful statement about who and what we are.” Coogan concurs: “We don’t say gay, we sing gay. People come to a concert, and two hours later, they leave di!erent – entertained and happy, but their hearts and minds have been changed.” “A Whole New World” SMC member Brian Potter was in his twenties when he discovered the word bisexual. “I came out to my parents and said, ‘You raised me to love people for who they are inside.’ So for me, it’s not a question of whether they’re a man or a woman, it’s simply about loving a person.” Through his ex-wife and an ex-boyfriend, Potter says he “found a faith community that welcomed me as a bi man, and within that community, I found a woman who not only accepts my bisexuality, she embraces it. And she asked me to marry her. After more than 20 years of coming out, at nearly 60 years of age, to be honest with myself, and to show other bisexual men that they are not alone.” Paul Caldwell Craig Coogan Mitchell Hunter Luke and Mickey Preston-Toogood Brian Potter Brick and Brandon Ray and their daughter Allison
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