A six-month nationwide search for our new music director left us with three finalists. In the end, there was no doubt that Reuben M. Reynolds, III, was the best choice to lead us into the twenty-first century. Reuben has a rich history with both choral and instrumental music. In addition to bachelor degrees in economics and music, he has a Master of Music degree from Louisiana State University, and a doctorate in conducting from the University of Missouri at Kansas City Conservatory of Music. He has conducted orchestras around the world, including the Czech Republic and Russia. He was music director and conductor of the Philharmonia of Kansas City, and also led performances by the Kansas City Civic Opera. For years he was music director of the Heartland Men’s Chorus before coming to join us in Boston.
Because of previous commitments, Reuben was not able to lead us for the holiday concert in 1997. The chorus brought in Ellen Oak to be guest conductor for that concert. Ellen was the first, and so far only, woman to lead the chorus. She is overwhelmingly remember by chorus members as a pure joy to work with.
Reuben’s first concert with the chorus was the spring 1998 performance of Naked Man. Commissioned by the San Francisco Gay Men’s chorus, Naked Man was created from interviews conducted with individual chorus members. This epic response to the AIDS epidemic premiered in July 1996, just as we were seeing the effects of antiretroviral drugs released the previous year. Over the next two years, more than thirty choruses around the globe, including the BGMC, performed Naked Man more than a hundred times. Parts of it are still performed by GALA choruses today.
In June 1998 the Pride performance of Cole Porter music, Swellegant Ellegance, saw the final appearance of John O’Neil and the Bay Statesmen. After eight years and two dozen concerts, the chorus was moving in a different artistic direction. 1998 also saw BGMC tenor Eric Helmuth become assistant accompanist for the chorus.
The following year brought another exciting opportunity for the chorus. Members of the BGMC performed the world premiere of With Voices Raised. Commissioned by the Boston Pops, the piece included orchestra, mixed chorus, and speakers. Chorus members joined the Pops, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, the Boston Pops Gospel Choir to record the CD. They then joined the same group at the annual televised Fourth of July Boston Pops concert on the Esplanade. Joining them as a speaker was Senator Edward M. Kennedy who read the part of his late brother, President John F. Kennedy. It was the first time a gay chorus anywhere in the world had recorded with a major orchestra for a major label.
As the 1990s drew to a close, the chorus was in a much different place than it was at the beginning of the decade. The chorus experienced a schism that saw it lose many members, dropping the number to under 70 members. By December 1999 there were more than 170. The chorus had published two CDs of music under Robert Barney, and a third, Oz And Beyond: The Music of Harold Arlen, under Reuben Reynolds. The music staff had turned over entirely. Robert Barney and John O’Neil were gone. Fortunately, the incredibly talented Chad Weirick and LeWana Clark remained behind to work with our new music director to help him fulfill his artistic vision for the chorus. Most importantly, after years of singing at memorial services, the number of BGMC members and friends dying of AIDS finally dropped.