I have covered LGBT community events for the last 20 years and Monday nights World Aids Day Concert, We all live together was up there with the very best of them.
ST MARY’S CHURCH on the corner of St James Street and Rock Gardens was full to the rafters for one of the few days of the year when all sections of the LGBT community in Brighton and Hove come together on neutral ground and remember those friends and lovers lost to HIV/Aids over the years and celebrate their memory.
This years concert included contributions from The Brighton Belles Women’s Chorus, Resound Males Voices, The Rainbow Chorus, Qukulele, The Brighton Gay Men’s Chorus and was co-hosted by Kathy Caton presenter of Out in Brighton on Reverb Radio and Rory Smith the chair of the Trans Alliance and the LGBT Liaison/Hate Crime co-ordinator for Sussex Police.
St Marys Church was full to the rafters with faces old and new. It was an uplifting evening for everyone present.
The Brighton Belles smiled and swayed their way through Mad World under the direction of their new musical director Erika Schilsky. Resound Male Voices delivered a beautiful hauting rendition of the Canadian Folk Song Frobishers Bay in close harmony. It was ravishing and their ensemble singing in Lets face the music and dance showed them at their very best.
The Rainbow Chorus, the souths only LGBT choir were in fine voice especially in Shenandoah, producing a much bigger sound than I remember from other concerts and they have a very good balance of voices at the moment.
No World Aids Day event would be the same without a contribution from Qukulele, the all women group of ukulele players whose version of Dream a Little Dream of Me always brings a smile to my face. It did to everyone in the church also.
Despite having sung at their own Christmas Show at the Theatre Royal the night before, the Brighton Gay Men’s Chorus performed two of the highlights from that show, On My Own and The Impossible Dream showing the chorus off at its choral best.
All the performers came together for the finale to sing a rousing rendition of One Voice.
There was a great deal of love in the room and the audience loved it all. I really do like these events and it would be nice next year if ALL our musical groups were once again in the same church, on the same date, singing from the same hymn sheet with One Voice.
The proceeds from this years concert will go to Lunch Positive the HIV lunch club who provide a weekly meal and support for people with HIV. Lunch Positive also provided the mince pies on the evening which had been organised for everyone by the Brighton Gay Men’s Chorus.
For more information about Lunch Positive, click here:
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