'We Thrive' concert to celebrate milestones in Springfield, national LGBT history

Beneath a backdrop formed by a 25-foot rainbow flag on the stage of Springfield Art Museum's auditorium, Men's Chorus of the Ozarks is set to sing out a celebratory vision of the LGBT rights movement in the 20th and 21st centuries this weekend.

Galen Elliott, board president of the 7-year-old men's choir, said that the "We Thrive" concert scheduled for Saturday and Sunday will blend classic and contemporary songs such as "We Shall Overcome" and "You Raise Me Up" with commemorations of turning points in LGBT history, both local and national.

"Part of our mission is that we empower people through enlightenment, education and entertainment," Elliott said. "A lot of young gay and gay-friendly people don't really know what gay pride is, when it really started."

Thus the concert will cover the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York City that gave rise to the "gay liberation" movement of the 1970s and the 1973 Upstairs Lounge arson attack in New Orleans that was the worst massacre of gay people before the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting of 2016.

They'll remember the Supreme Court's 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges striking down gay-marriage bans.

And they will talk about local history, from the controversy that swirled around a 1989 Southwest Missouri State University production of "The Normal Heart" that culminated in an arson attack to the repeal of the city's SOGI nondiscrimination ordinance, narrowly decided by voters in 2015.

Elliott said the chorus expects the audience to be uplifted by the concert's themes of persistence through adversity.

"We want people to understand we'll, no matter what, we'll stick together and whatever it takes, we'll work for equality," he said. "I think people are becoming more aware."

Elliott said the chorus performs concerts in spring and during the holiday season, rehearsing Monday nights at Brentwood Christian Church. (A series of 7 p.m. open rehearsals, including "non-strenuous" auditions for men who'd like to join the chorus, will be held Mondays from Aug. 14 to Sept. 12, Elliott added.)

He said when the group was forming in 2010 and 2011, members (there are currently 15) considered naming it "Gay Men's Chorus of the Ozarks," but they decided it was important to be clear that straight and transgender men were welcome to join. The chorus currently has straight and gay members, Elliott said.

Springfield has another choir group with roots in the LGBT community, Queen City Voices, which split off from Men's Chorus of the Ozarks in 2015. It also performs spring and holiday concerts, often at the Springfield Art Museum.