Gay Cuban choir begins 1st U.S. tour
LOS ANGELES — Gathered around a keyboard in Los Angeles, conductor Ernesto Lima Parets stopped his singers and told them to try again.
On Saturday, the men are scheduled to begin their first U.S. tour, performing a repertoire of Cuban classics, pop hits and the Estefan song with the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles.
In an era of renewed relations between the U.S. and Cuba, the joint performance would mark another step toward fostering collaboration between the LGBT communities in each country.
Both choirs had charted history in their respective countries: GMCLA was founded in 1979 and lost over 150 members during the height of the AIDS epidemic.
The journey from Havana to Los Angeles started in 2014, when Cuban American producer Fermin Rojas and his husband, Jay Kubesch, visited Cuba and decided to start the group.
A former singer with Miami’s gay men’s chorus, Rojas wanted to bring the gay choral movement to Cuba, a country where a culture of machismo has long pervaded daily life and homosexuals had been imprisoned and sent to labor camps decades ago.
In recent years, gay rights have expanded and a visible LGBT community emerged.
“Having an audition for a gay men’s chorus in Cuba was kind of like, ‘OK, how do you go about doing that?’” Rojas said.
Because it’s never been done before.
Rojas hired a renowned pianist to direct the choir and began spreading the word about an open audition.
GMLCA executive director Chris Verdugo said watching a Pride Parade from a balcony in Havana made him think of Los Angeles decades ago, when gay organizations like the choir began to emerge.
The island prohibits job discrimination by sexual orientation; a comparative federal law in the United States does not exist.