I’m playing tomorrow evening (December 1st @ 7pm) at the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus’ 30th Anniversary Concert with the Community Women’s Orchestra! It’s at Davies Symphony Hall where we played in May (and I wrote about here).

Picture from our May Concert (see me over on the left side?!?!?) featured in the San Francisco Chronicle article about tomorrow’s concert.

This concert features Jennifer Holiday as well as the world premerie of an original piece, New World Waking: Songs of the Road to Peace, inspired by John Lennon’s piano. Here’s what the composer, Steve Schalchlin, has to say about it:

NEW WORLD WAKING came together in my mind on the day I was selected by pop star George Michael (and his partner, art gallery owner Kenny Goss) to play John Lennon’s IMAGINE Piano in the front yard of a house in Olympia, Washington as part of a photographic project. The piano was being taken to places where acts of violence occurred, such as Ford’s Theatre, Dallas, Memphis, Oklahoma City and the kitchen of Alec and Gabi Clayton, where their son, Bill, had taken his life after a gay bashing.

I knew this family, the Claytons, and I had written a song about Bill and the aftermath of his suicide in a song called, “Will It Always Be Like This?” (Now the opening number of “New World Waking!”).

The work is a series of songs, each with a powerful message. Here’s a song-by-song description. 

Here’s Steve Schalchlin performing one of the songs, Holy Dirt:

Sampling of the many songs from chorus rehearsal (no orchestra yet):

We’ll wrap up New World Waking with “My Rising Up,” a piece the chorus performed in May but now there’s an orchestra part so we get join in the fun. Here’s the chorus performing My Rising Up in May during dress rehearsal. In some of the clips the orchestra is on stage waiting and you can see me sitting with my legs crossed behind the soloists (my 15 minutes of YouTube fame!).

After intermission there are several holiday themed songs, including “We Need A Little Fabulous Sing-Along” (LOL) and Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus. I’ve played Hallelujah many times before, so many that I could probably do it from memory pretty accurately, but never with vocals. Playing Hallelujah Chorus with 200+ singers is pretty darn fun, they put up some impressive sound.

Oh, and since it’s the chorus’ 30th anniversary and the 30th anniversary gift is pearls they’ve given everyone strands of fake pearls to wear for the concert!

Plus, based on what I heard ticket sales were like on Monday, Davies should be pretty full (2,741 seat capacity) making this the largest audience I’ve ever played for. Eeek!