“This is an organization that goes out and performs and [doesn’t] say, ‘Look how great we are,’” Valadez says of BGMC. “They inspire their audiences and they say, ‘Look how great you are.’ And at the end of the presentation I said, ‘Okay I have to be part of this. I have to be part of a group who goes to all corners of the earth and inspires their audiences.’”
Valadez said he is most excited about the different partnerships BGMC has forged with South African organizations—including PASSOP (People Against Suffering Oppression and Poverty), which supports LGBT refugees and asylum seekers; GALA, an LGBT cultural and education center; and Kliptown Youth Program, which helps young people escape poverty—and the opportunity to sing in concerts that will raise money to help them do their work and cultivate LGBT community in the country.
Valadez, who teaches music and chorus at John F. Kennedy Middle School in Waltham, is also excited about the chance to show the world—including his students—music’s power to effect change.
“I hope that when people see what the gay men’s chorus is doing it’s evident that…we can really change parts of the world through music,” says Valadez. “I think for my students to see how an organization from Boston, made up of people who are diverse and who bring their own traditions and understandings and backgrounds to this ensemble, really can come together and create a difference and inspire people here in Boston, and our country, and around the world.”
Valadez recently joined the chorus after an extended break from extracurricular musical pursuits. “To me, music is community,” he says, and after a year away, he craved community. Valadez saw BGMC videos online and was impressed by what he saw and heard, so he decided to audition.
He knew he made the right choice when, at his first rehearsal, BGMC Musical Director Reuben Reynolds gathered the new members in the center of the room and introduced them to BGMC’s signature song, “Everything Possible,” the Rev. Fred Small’s ode to LGBT empowerment. Veteran members of the chorus then sang the song to “the newbies.”
“I was so choked up listening to the entire chorus sing this to me on my first night as a member,” says Valadez. “And I realized in that moment—I was like, wow, this is more than just a performing group. This is a family.”