Queer Songbook Orchestra brings old anthems to new life

Orchestra presents Songs of Resilience at PuSh Fest and in New West


Three years ago, freelance trumpet player Shaun Brodie hit a wall in Toronto. Burnt out from an endless scramble for paying gigs — a constant struggle for a professional musician — he had also just endured a stinging rejection from journalism school.

With no shortage of vision, but faced with scant opportunities for meaningful artistic expression, he decided to innovate.

“I was completely at loose ends,” Brodie says. “My thought was: how could I interweave my passions for music and queer storytelling? And, consequently, how could I give my fellow musicians in Toronto more paying work?”

So Brodie gambled, and founded what has since become Toronto’s Queer Songbook Orchestra (QSO), a professional 11-piece pop chamber ensemble, now its third season.

Each QSO performance blends the familiar and the unexpected, with all-new interpretations of pop classics from many of Canada’s top composers and arrangers. Each QSO piece also features narration from members of the ensemble that illustrates its connection to the queer canon, and its personal resonance for them.

(The Queer Songbook Orchestra performs its own haunting arrangement of “Constant Craving” by kd lang.)

“By building a living, joyful archive of songs that celebrate the stories of queer artists, we explore the unifying and empowering elements of music and narrative. We challenge the contradiction of a public which adores the art, but often marginalizes the artist,” Brodie says.

“The vision is simple,” says Jordan Tannahill, who also played a key role in QSO’s formation. “Celebrate the lives of queer artists who, despite often producing work to great acclaim, never had the chance to communicate what this work really meant to them.

“And then, allow audiences to experience that missed opportunity. We want them to revel in the untold stories behind each piece,” Tannahill says.

The QSO will play the Anvil Centre Theatre in New Westminster on Jan 28, 2016, and headline the PuSh Festival the following evening. Tannahill — appointed as Club PuSh’s curator-in-residence for 2016 and 2017 — advocated successfully for these opportunities.

“We strive to make every PuSh experience a visceral one for audiences,” says PuSh associate curator Joyce Rosario. “The QSO is no exception. Their work enables audiences to communally experience music’s healing properties.”

“We want people to leave QSO’s show with a serious case of the warm fuzzies,” Rosario says.

 

Queer Songbook Orchestra
Thursday, Jan 28, 2016, 8pm at the Anvil Centre Theatre, 777 Columbia St, New Westminster
Tickets $34 at ticketsnw.ca
Friday, Jan 29, 2016, 8pm at Club PuSh at the Fox Cabaret, 2321 Main St, Vancouver
Tickets $27 at pushfestival.ca

Read More About:
Music, Culture, Vancouver, Arts

Keep Reading

Jimmy Heagarty

‘Big Brother 27’ star Jimmy Heagerty is making for great TV. It could be even better with more queer people

By very virtue of their sexuality, queer houseguests cannot have the same experience as their straight competitors

‘RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 10’ delivers a wildly entertaining finale—after a waste-of-time semifinals

It’s hard to figure out just what producers were thinking with this merge format
Andrea Gibson, left, and Megan Falley, the subjects of the film "Come See Me in the Good Light," pose for a portrait during the Sundance Film Festival on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025, in Park City, Utah.

Andrea Gibson helped me see life in the good light

Gibson’s poetry about queerness and mortality taught thousands of people how to reject apathy and embrace life
Collage of greyscale photos of a sofa, chair, shelf and the lower bodies of two people, against a purple and pink background

We need queer gathering spaces more than ever

The 11-part series “Taking Space” explores where we go next as the lights of gay bars dim