PRIDE CONCERT

Four choruses will perform a joint concert in celebration of Pride, including Ottawa’s newest chorus, Olé, which is making its debut.

Ottawa choirs Tone Cluster, Ottawa Gay Men’s Chorus and Olé will perform Sat, Jul 3 and Sun, Jul 4 – with special guest Schola Cantorosa, a gay men’s chorus from Hamburg, Germany, making its Canadian debut.

The concert will take place at Bronson Centre (211 Bronson Ave). Show time is 8pm. Tickets are $15, available at Leading Note, After Stonewall, mother tongue books, One in Ten and Wilde’s.

“Each choir certainly has its own style and its own sort of repertoire that it likes to sing,” says Jane Perry, Tone Cluster’s musical director. “The audience can expect a lot of variety.”

Along with the debut performance of Olé, Perry says there are two things that are exciting about the performance.

“It’s always nice to host a choir that’s not from Ottawa and in this case to have a choir coming that’s from Hamburg is a thrill,” she says. “They sought us out to come over here and perform.”

It has been a long time since a selection of Ottawa’s gay choirs has gathered to perform in the same show, she adds.

“I think the last time was at Glebe high school about six years ago and there hasn’t been anything since, so this is just a nice show of solidarity in the choral community,” says Perry.

The concert is in advance of the Seventh International Gay and Lesbian Choral Festival, Jul 1724 in Montreal.

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