Nashville in Harmony
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At every year-end concert, my high school chorus sang the same simple refrain: “There is no such beauty as where you belong.” The line made us cry every time because the chorus room was where we belonged — it was a place where we could talk about our emotions, fears and triumphs with people who were really listening, and it was a place where we could channel those feelings into meaningful art.
There’s a place just like that here in Nashville. Nashville in Harmony, a community chorus of singers from the LGBTQ community and its allies, has performed around the city for the past 20 years, building community among both its members and its audiences.
The ensemble has around 100 members, and auditions new members about twice a year. They rehearse three hours per week during concert seasons — a big commitment, but the results speak for themselves. I observed a rehearsal leading up to the group’s May concerts with the Nashville Philharmonic Orchestra, and heard gorgeous music from a group that seemed totally locked into performance mode.
“It’s a little more than a hobby,” says director Wesley King. “It’s a commitment to the organization, to your fellow singers. It’s a commitment to the mission.”
That mission includes using music to spark social change and reflection. At their May concerts, Nashville in Harmony performed “The Tennessee Waltz,” in which a singer laments their love being stolen away. It’s usually taken to be about a man and a woman, but King says members have found an alternative meaning.
“There’s a lot of people who are talking about the fact that, with ‘Tennessee Waltz’ at least, they think about it in the context of extremists trying to take away the South from them,” King says. “They grew up here, they were born here, they have Southern values, and somehow these extremists are like, ‘No, you don’t belong here.’”
For founding member Rodger Murray, just being able to sing in an openly queer group is a big step in a state like Tennessee. He was part of the Nashville Men’s Chorus, a precursor to Nashville in Harmony that never quite found its footing. At one of their concerts, they planned to sing “Someone to Watch Over Me,” a song in which Ella Fitzgerald famously longs to be with her ideal man.
Group members say live music and community make for a fulfilling Friday
“Some of the guys said, ‘Well, I can’t get up in public and say I want to add my initial to his monogram,’” Murray says. “And so that kind of broke us up.”
These days, Nashville in Harmony is a proudly queer organization — with a lot to be proud of. They’ve performed concerts across the state, helped kick off a Nashville mayor’s inauguration, and this year sent a group to perform at Carnegie Hall. Murray is proud of the ensemble’s evolution and how they spent months perfecting a complex Beethoven piece for their May concerts.
“We feel like that’s just the work that we have to put into it, but we enjoy doing it,” Murray says.
Brandi Emrys, an alto, joined the group in January. Her story will seem familiar to former band and chorus kids: She performed classical music at a high level throughout college, but she put down her instrument to focus on building her career after graduating. Nashville in Harmony, she says, isn’t just a way for her to perform with others again.
“I also wanted to be a part of something where I felt like I could create a family,” she says. “In my past jobs, it’s been really hard being a part of the LGBT community and having to hide a part of myself. I wanted to start building a community with people who are like me and who have had experiences like I’ve had.”
That community isn’t a monolith. Members come from all different careers and interests, and I was particularly struck by the wide range of ages I saw in the ensemble. Some members work in the arts professionally, and some learn the pieces by rote since they can’t read music. There are also non-queer allies in the group, something Emrys finds particularly inspiring.
“It helps remind me that there are people out there who love us for who we are, no matter what, and who are fighting for us and will continue to fight for us,” she says.
When I ask Emrys what the chorus means to her, I’m not surprised at all to hear her say it’s her place to belong, too.
“It’s a place where you can find peace,” Emrys says. “It allows me to take all the things that I’ve experienced in the week, all the things that have gone wrong, all the things that I’m really frustrated and mad about — especially with our government and politics — and it gives me three hours of respite. I feel like I can breathe for that little bit of time.”
