inside Tennis, anyone? Rose City Quell Sunt, 2 4 VOLUME 1 7 N um kek 2 0 A ikjusi P o rtla n d , O re g o n 1 X, 2 0 0 0 FRKE mmrn gM mu P r I mj%r bar district vanish Will Portland’s c or will it succumb to Pearl envy? Preaching to the choirs E ' by Jonathan Kipp The Portland Gay Men’s Chorus sings home the message of tolerance by P aul F indlay very four years, the Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses gathers all of its members for a week of singing, sharing and House parties celebrating. raise money, The G A LA Festival 2000 began July 22 in San Jose, Calif., with 5,500 singers and 140 choruses from around the world. awareness We Portland Gay M en’s Chorus members were especially excited Page 8 to be there, because we brought our specially commissioned song- Learn how cycle about queer youth, “Millennium Mosaic.” A t our first rehearsal in the 2,700-seat concert hall where we would be performing, our usually composed artistic director, Rob Mensel, seemed a bit frazzled. Even he was affected by the magni tude of the event. We only had enough time to sing one song and get a sense of the acoustics— awful! It was like singing in a vacuum. We couldn’t hear ourselves sing. Instead of calming our nerves, we were now even more worried about our performance. At our dress rehearsal, we ran through all of the songs, fixing the little problems. We sang every song better than the last. Worry gave way to excitement. There was nothing we couldn’t do! At the end, Mensel looked at the chorus, a huge grin across his face. Continued on P age 3 6 to get involved Page 8 A history of hate Page 9 T h e Portland Gay Men’s Chorus sings a colorful “Mosaic.’