Boston, MA, JUNE 3, 2022—Today, the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus (BGMC) issued an NBA Finals challenge to the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. If the Celtics defeat the Warriors in the NBA Playoffs, the San Francisco Chorus will perform “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” by the Dropkick Murphys. If the Warriors are victorious, BGMC will perform “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” Whoever wins will make the recording available online. The winner will also make a donation to GALA Choruses, the North American association serving the LGBTQ choral movement, for its work supporting emerging LGBTQ choruses.
“This is a friendly wager, but we take the Boston-San Francisco rivalry seriously,” said BGMC Executive Director Craig Coogan. “We’re confident that the Celtics are going to show the Warriors who’s really golden.”
“We were delighted to accept this challenge from the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus,” said Christopher Verdugo, executive director of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. “This will be a great series between two amazing teams, but we’re shipping the musical arrangement for “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” to Boston today because the Warriors are going to win!”
As professional sports go, the NBA is seen as relatively LGBTQ-friendly, and both the Celtics and Golden State Warriors have played pivotal roles in that reputation. In 2020, when he was still president of the Golden State Warriors, Rick Welts and his husband were married by San Francisco Mayor London Breed in a small ceremony at San Francisco City Hall. The first professional athlete to come out while still an active player was NBA center Jason Collins. Although he was a free agent at the time, the team he had most recently played for was the Celtics, which became associated with his move. The Celtics keeps a list of LGBTQ resources on its website, and earlier this year, Celtics forward Grant Williams showed off the team’s new “Pride towel” during the Celtics’s fourth annual Pride night. The Boston Gay Men’s Chorus performed the National Anthem for the team’s third annual Pride Night in 2021, and when the Celtics announced their first Pride night in 2019, none other than tennis legend and LGBTQ sports advocate Billie Jean King tweeted out her approval. In 2018, the Celtics joined all of the other professional sports franchises in Massachusetts by publicly backing the state’s new transgender rights law.
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About the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus
The Boston Gay Men’s Chorus is one of New England’s largest and most successful community-based choruses. Founded in 1982, the 200+-voice ensemble is celebrated for its outstanding musicianship, creative programming, groundbreaking community outreach and an innovative educational program. Under the dynamic leadership of Music Director Reuben M. Reynolds III, the BGMC sings a wide spectrum of classical and popular music and creates social change by providing a positive, affirming image of the LGBTQ+ community. The Chorus is heard live by thousands of people each season and millions more through recording, television and internet broadcasts. CBS-WBZ named the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus one of the “top 5” choruses in the city of Boston. The Boston Business Journal has named BGMC one of the top 10 performing arts organizations in the city each year since 2018. BGMC is a Cultural Ambassador — being the first LGBTQ+ chorus to perform in Poland in 2005, the Middle East in 2015 and in South Africa in June 2018.
About the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus
The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus was one of the first of its kind, and was the first to include “gay” unapologetically in their name. Fighting against discrimination and bigotry while losing countless loved ones to the AIDS epidemic, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus not only persevered themselves, but they inspired an LGBTQ+ choral movement worldwide.
Since the first 115 members sang on the steps of City Hall in 1978, over 2,000 different men, cis and trans, and non-binary people have sung with the chorus. Jon Reed Sims, who founded the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, went on and founded a number of gay and lesbian choral and instrumental ensembles before his tragic untimely death from AIDS. In addition to releasing a number of recordings, the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus has been featured in several documentaries, including Singing Positive, which received an award from GLAAD in 1996, and Gay Chorus Deep South, which chronicled their “life-changing Lavender Pen Tour through five southern states in the fall of 2017.”