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Overview:
The Queer Choir Collective’s festival, with visiting guest artists and local musicians, is happening from June 13-15. The organizer said they hope it's a moment to find joy in a difficult moment for queer people.
At a moment when queer people in the United States are increasingly concerned with an ongoing culture war that denies the existence of many, singing may not seem like the top priority for dissent.
But Elias Wolf, the director of the Queer Choir Collective and a performer in the choir, said art is an important part of protest, though it’s not a traditional tool like a rally or a strongly worded letter to a representative.
That’s why Wolf has organized the queer vocal festival “Sing the Body.” The festival runs from June 13-15, centered on a concert Saturday at Springfield’s Richard E. Wildish Community Theater with a lineup featuring queer, trans, Black and brown artists.
“When people don’t have their basic needs met, to be like, ‘OK, let’s get together and sing’ can feel superfluous or extravagant or luxurious,” they said. “But that’s also sort of the purpose of this event, is to be able to frame radical joy and connection as a form of resistance, and something that we need in these times.”
The festival will be hosted by the local Black queer poet and musician Jalen Thompson, and guest artists include Portland-based artists trans opera singer Katherine Goforth and the Afro-Indigenous poet and songwriter Kiara Mctear, the Eugene-based Black queer and trans neo-soul artist zurray!, and DC-based headliner Be Steadwell.
Those artists will be backed by an intergenerational group of more than 40 singers from Queer Choir Collective and a house band. Two other queer a capella groups that are part of the Queer Choir Collective, HomoPhonic and RISE Youth A Cappella, will also sing.
Tickets are available for $22 for the Saturday concert and for $111 for the all-access festival pass. The full festival includes a Friday evening kickoff party, Saturday workshops at the Wildish from Steadwell, Goforth and Wolf, and an outdoor community sing-in event on Sunday.
Tamara Campbell, a 60-year-old Eugene resident and a queer lesbian who sings in the choir, joined last fall after the 2024 presidential election after seeking out a community group that met regularly and included queer activists. It has since become vital to Campbell, who will also be singing in the festival.
“Joy and love and kindness is the counterbalance to this administration,” she said. “It’s just essential to help us stay buoyed as we fight what is happening.”
Alysha Shipley, a 37-year old Eugene resident and a queer singer in the choir, said Wolf makes room for the rage and grief that queer people are feeling now in the music itself.
One song in the festival repertoire, “Dying,” includes a lyric that Shipley thought spoke to the current moment: “You think that you’re dying, but you’re being born.”
“This administration is trying to kill us and trying to kill people of color, and it feels like we’re dying,” she said. “But there’s this beauty in the collapse too, right? It’s collapsing, and whatever’s coming out of it is being born.”
