Our Story
It's an exciting time for Our Voice Milwaukee the new identity of City of Festivals Men’s Chorus!
We started in fall of 2010, as a small group of men who had a common goal for Milwaukee to once again have a gay men's chorus.
Since our debut, we have performed for the Milwaukee community at several venues. We have performed at Pridefest on the Miller (Main) Stage for the last 6years. We were the driving force behind gathering together a community chorus of 70 people to perform as part of the 'it gets better tour' when they came to Milwaukee in early 2014. We’ve been delighted to be representatives of the LGBT community by performing at games of the Milwaukee Bucks and Milwaukee Brewers teams.
To express our viewpoint, on August 12th, 2013, the Board of Directors passed the following as our Chorus Values Statement"
Our Voice Milwaukee Value Statement
We value creating a safe atmosphere of compassion and respect, where we nurture each other’s development both personally and musically. We encourage our members to express their individuality, and value their contributions, allowing for growth, creativity and development, both collectively and individually.
We value the important contributions of each member and the time we spend together as a group. We realize that what we are attempting to do can not be done alone. We are dependent on each other to create the harmony in our music and in our community that we strive to achieve.
We value the joy of singing and making beautiful music together. We accept the challenge of working to improve our musical skills in order to provide high quality male choral performance that is entertaining, and honors the traditions of male choral music, and LGBT male chorus music.
We value the important opportunity we can provide to members and friends of the LGBT community and the community at-large; to join us in song, to hear the harmony we create in our music, and to form working partnerships. We make these efforts in hope to build bridges of compassion, break down barriers of prejudice and ignorance, and build a foundation of equality and respect for future generations.