Festival draws LGBTQ choirs from across Canada to Halifax

Halifax is playing host to over 600 participants in the Unison Festival at the Halifax Convention Centre through Monday.

The LGBTQ choral festival is held every four years and draws choirs from across Canada.

It is being hosted by the Halifax Gay Men's Chorus and the The Women Next Door choir.

The festival was last held in Calgary in 2018. The current festival was supposed to be held in 2022 but was rescheduled because of COVID-19.

Tim Cross, the co-chair of the festival and the executive director of the Nova Scotia Choral Federation, told Information Morning Nova Scotia ahead of the event he was excited to have his personal life as a gay man "collide" with his work life and see the festival hosted in Halifax.

"There are choirs coming from across Canada, from Vancouver all the way to St. John's and everywhere in between," Cross said.

"There'll be over 16 choirs coming ... so it's going to be a huge event for us, people are so excited to come to the East Coast."

3 commissioned pieces

Cross said one of the highlights of this year's festival will be the performance of three new musical pieces commissioned by the LGBT Purge Fund that will be performed on Monday, the closing night.

The pieces will be in keeping with the purpose of the fund and pay tribute to LGBTQ people who were expelled from the military and civil service in Canada for decades.

Cross said the composers and arrangers for each of the pieces will attend the premiere.

As she prepared to lead the Newfoundland and Labrador's Spectrum Queer Chorus into a packed convention hall on Sunday, artistic director Alice Hietala said the experience of attending the festival has been "a bit overwhelming."

Hietala said it is the choir's first appearance at the festival.

Finding encouragement

She said events like the festival are important for helping community members validate their experiences and find encouragement in the face of challenges that may come in the future.

A jubilant Neil Rogers was in the audience on Sunday afternoon to see his wife perform with the Singing Out choir of Toronto.

After the choir appeared, Rogers described the performance as "touching" and "beautiful."

"Lisa grew up in Halifax," Rogers said. "This is really where she's from. And I think that's even more special for her to get the opportunity to come back home and sing so beautifully with the others in the choir."

Don Houle said he had to scramble to get tickets but it was a big event.

Houle said he goes to concerts by the Halifax Gay Men's Chorus and was curious to hear other choirs.

"This time I get to compare what I see at home to what's available across Canada. So that's really good," Houle said.