[This Senior Spirit column appears in the current March/April 2019 issue of Boston Spirit magazine. Subscribe for free today.]
Our current LGBTQ elders lived in a time that barely resembles the world today. For starters, homosexuality was against the law in all 50 states and there was no acceptance, protections or community supports. The stories from those who lived during this time are a vital part of LGBTQ history, but sadly, few have the resources or courage to write them down to be passed on to future generations. Thankfully there is one group in Massachusetts that is committed to bringing some of these stories to life and using them for social change.
Palaver Strings is a musician-led orchestra currently based in Boston whose mission is to use music to address social issues, promote education and healing, and inspire peers and community to support the arts.
When Palaver Strings comes to a new community to perform, they seek out the relevant social issues in that area and use them to inform their music and their community programs. In 2017, when the orchestra selected Jamaica Plain, Matthew Smith, 28, the co-artistic director and JP resident, proposed that Palaver Strings undertake a project that would engage with the LGBTQ community. In their search to find issues that were important they realized that one of the most overlooked groups within the LGBTQ community was their elders. Smith saw this as an opportunity to break some of the negative stereotypes about older LGBTQ people and create a forum for cross generational dialogue through music and social action. His co-artistic director Maya French and the rest of the orchestra were fully on board, and the LifeSongs project was born. After reaching out to The LGBT Aging Project and JP-based Ethos, the orchestra began to get the word out about the project to LGBTQ seniors in the area.
Bostonian Ken Mendoza, 72, had a difficult time when he was coming out in the 1960s. He didn’t think he would ever be a part of a community or be accepted by his family or peers. When he heard about LifeSongs, he knew he had to participate, even though he wasn’t a singer or songwriter. After the first meeting when his team of orchestra members asked him about his life, he spoke about old journal entries he made in high school. He still had those journals, and he used those words to frame his song, which opens “I’d like to know if a man can love another man/ And if that so-called unnatural love
is really so unnatural.”
This is the process that Palaver uses with each season of the LifeSongs project. They select three to five LGBTQ older adults each year and assign each participant to a team of three musicians and a lyricist. In the first two meetings the senior talks about his or her life including the challenges, celebrations and lessons they learned over the years. These sessions form the framework for the song that is created, and Matt Brady, Palaver’s resident lyricist, supports the team to turn these stories into a song that captures the essence of that person’s life. The lyrics are then set to music, orchestrated, rehearsed and performed during one of Palaver’s public concerts.
That first year of LifeSongs featured three songwriters. Palaver also collaborated with a handful of singers from The Boston Gay Men’s Chorus who volunteered to shadow or sing with the songwriters to give them extra confidence.
Now in its third year, the project is supported by grants from the Mass. Cultural Council and The Boston Foundation’s Equality Fund. Smith has been deeply touched by the range of themes that come out in the songs over the years as well as the diversity of LGBT elder songwriters who have joined the project. This year’s cast includes three African American older adults, an older lesbian social activist and a 93-year-old gay man who didn’t come out until his 80s.
The experience working with the musicians in Palaver has been incredibly powerful for each of the songwriters. Bradford Greer, one of the current participants wrote Smith and said “I hope you know that when you pick up your instruments, you open your hearts and unleash hope into the world”.
Smith is pleased that Palaver has been able to literally and figuratively turn these stories into songs that define the heritage and diversity of this generation of LGBTQ elders. He adds that as a younger gay man it is critical for him and his peers to hear these stories about being happy, having rich friendships and relationships that last a lifetime.
For the first time Palaver Strings will be doing three public performances with this year’s LifeSongs participants including Ken Mendoza’s song which has been translated into four-part choral harmony and will be performed with singers from The Boston Gay Men’s Chorus accompanying Mendoza.
When Mendoza was asked what this experience with Palaver has mean to him he shared a story from last year’s Pride festival. “I was asked to perform my song at the 2018 Pride Lights festival and I was on the stage and terrified, but I looked out in the audience and saw all the members of Palaver who were looking up at me with such love. I realized that I had found the support and community that I never imagined was possible when I was younger.”
LifeSongs will be performed at The Boston Center for the Arts on March 8 at 2 & 7 PM and March 9 at 7 PM. For more, including song samples, visit palaverstrings.org.
Bob Linscott is assistant director of the LGBT Aging Project at The Fenway Institute.
