MANKATO — Linden Kirscht and Aster Coyour are two people whose musical journeys seem to have led them to the Mankato Community Queer Choir.
As artistic co-directors of the recently formed vocal group, they are eager to help members of the LGBTQ community and allies find their voices in Mankato’s strong and varied arts landscape. One of the people who played pied piper to get them here is Jessica Lanes.
“The idea for the Mankato Community Queer Choir was spawned from attending a Twin Cities Gay Men’s Chorus concert in February or March of this year, and they partnered with the Des Moines Gay Men’s Chorus,” Lanes said. They noted the two groups had different combinations of men, women and transsexual members.
“It made me feel like I wanted to make something larger for southern Minnesota, you know, to have additional participation.”
Since that time, Lanes and Lucas Youngerberg have been working to get the organizational pieces aligned, have spread the word and hosted nights where interested people could learn more. With good turnout for those, they looked at bringing in a director or directors to lead rehearsals.
“Jessica actually reached out to me personally via Facebook,” said Kirscht, who came to Mankato after spending a few years teaching in the public school system. Now Kirscht does private voice lessons, teaches music composition, performs and enjoys opportunities to direct.
“I’m very happy that post teaching in the public schools, I’m still able to utilize my skill set in music education and vocal performing to build a community and build a space where not only people feel safe and welcome in terms of their voice, but also their identity,” they said.
While studying music education and vocal performing at Winona State University, their emphasis was in the classical world, opera and art song (Western vocal music composition, usually written for one voice with piano accompaniment). Kirscht found a good directing partner in Coyour, whose strengths and interests are complementary.
After earning a bachelor of fine arts degree in vocal choral education at Missouri State University, Coyour continued learning and performing throughout Europe and with Darmon Meader, who founded New York Voices.
“I definitely love jazz and I love pop. For my personal voice, I’d say jazz, pop and musical theater,” they said. “Overall, I like to experiment with different things, and I really love blending genres in a lot of the music that I write.”
That variety of musical styles, combined with the different skill levels, ages and experiences, promise to make the Mankato Community Queer Choir one that will explore opportunities for the LGBTQ community and allies, Lanes said.
“We definitely want to do many genres of pieces, but I think we definitely want to make it a safe space where everybody feels comfortable and, hopefully, everybody looks forward to practices,” Coyour said. “At the same time, we want to teach people how to express what they sometimes can’t (otherwise) through music and through an art form that gives many queer people joy.”
Although some of the choir made an appearance at Mankato Pridefest in early September, their first concert is scheduled for Jan. 10, with work ongoing to select and learn pieces for it.