“We went to South Africa to learn, share our stories, and contribute in meaningful ways to the country’s LGBTQ population. During the two years we planned this tour, we worked with community-based organizations in Johannesburg, Soweto, Cape Town, and George and formed deep partnerships with each,” said BGMC Music Director Reuben Reynolds III. “We did what they asked of us, which was—in addition to the surprising request to perform Toto’s ‘Africa’—to support their work and create musical experiences that would bring LGBTQ people together. In return, we got to sing for some of the most enthusiastic and appreciative audiences we’ve seen in our 36-year history. Music truly does unite us.”
BGMC began its tour in Johannesburg where it performed at Soweto Theatre with the Mzansi Gay Choir, an all-gay troupe that formed in 2015 that uses music to support its activism. The sold-out concert raised $3,000 to launch and fund the first year of a LGBTQ-focused project at Kliptown Youth Program to provide resources to LGBTQ members of the Kliptown community and educate residents about LGBTQ issues. The following evening, BGMC performed to a raucous crowd at Wits University. The event raised $8,000 for GALA–Memory in Action’s “YOUth” initiative, which serves LGBTQ youth.
While BGMC was in Johannesburg, the mayor of George, a bucolic town located in South Africa’s Gauteng Province along the country’s famed Garden Route and the second stop of its tour, announced on a radio station that BGMC was not welcome in his town. In response, Gauteng Province Premier David Makhura invited BGMC to participate in Soweto’s annual Youth Day march, which commemorates the 1976 Soweto uprising by students that marked the beginning of the end of apartheid.
Before the march, South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa—who told the national Afrikan newspaper Die Burger that he was “proud” to have BGMC visit—personally greeted BGMC members. “Welcome to Soweto. Welcome to South Africa. We are very delighted that we have so many of them who’ve come to join our celebrations and we welcome them with very warm arms and say today you are part of us,” Ramaphosa said in his remarks before the march. “You are part of this historic day, thank you very much!”
When BGMC arrived in George, the group was personally greeted by the town’s Deputy Mayor and its Director of Community Development, each of whom also attended BGMC’s concert as well as the town’s first-ever LGBTQ Pride march. In public remarks, both the Deputy Mayor and the City Councillor responsible for Community and Social Development spoke up on behalf of LGBTQ residents of George, including those who had helped organized the LGBTQ Pride march and BGMC’s concert. During the Pride march, members of BGMC carried the banners of Boston Pride and InterPride. The concert was free and served as the region’s first LGBTQ-focused cultural event. After BGMC’s concert, five ward councilors in George pledged to fund the formation of an LGBTQ chorus in the Western Cape region and help finance a cultural exchange in the United States.
BGMC performed two concerts in Cape Town. The first took place in Langa, an impoverished township of Cape Town. The event was free and performed before a crowd of mostly LGBTQ immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers from neighboring countries with harsh, anti-gay policies in place. BGMC and ACFEA Tour Consultants, which organized the tour, contributed $6,000 to PASSOP (People Against Suffering, Oppression and Poverty), an organization that works with LGBT refugees and asylees.
The second Cape Town concert took place at Hugo Lambrechts Music Centre and raised $12,000 for the Triangle Project, which provides serves to people living with HIV. BGMC also contributed $3,000 to the Pride Shelter, which serves LGBTQ people who are homeless.
Over the course of the tour, BGMC saved $6,000 on projected tour-related expenses. The organization contributed this money among the five beneficiaries.
“This tour showed better than anything else that music is a universal language,” said BGMC Executive Director Craig Coogan. “When we share our stories and our humanity through song, we find common ground with others.”
Touring is a critical part of BGMC’s mission to create musical experiences that inspire change, build community and celebrate difference. Early in its history, BGMC toured northern New England. In 2005, the chorus toured Germany and Poland, and in 2015 they toured the Middle East.