OGMC Interview with Dustin Bankston,
By June Kamerling
J: How did you find the chorus? Who was the director?
D: I found the chorus in 2011. After finishing law school I was moving to the Bay Area from Sacramento where I was in the Sacramento Gay Men’s Choir. When I moved here I inquired about a gay men’s chorus and found OEBGMC….at that time it was Oakland East Bay Gay Men’s Chorus. I was just in time for the holiday show season (Aug 2011). Stephanie Lynne Smith was just starting as interim director at the time. Wally Bee was running the auditions then and was the first person I met. Many of the current members were already in the chorus. Having just come from a gay men’s chorus in Sacramento it was just a nice and easy transfer.
J: What was your music background growing up?
D: I grew up in Mississippi. I started singing in choruses in school and church. I was in Show Choir through high school graduation and then I was in men’s glee club in college. I didn’t do musical theater specifically, but show choir was musical theater-ish…theater adjacent…we did dancing and musical theater songs but I was never IN an actual musical theater show.
J: How long did it take you once you were in OGMC to get involved? What was the progression till you became board president?
D: For a few years I was just a Tenor-2. I was also Section Leader for a bunch of years but that was all I did. Then I started volunteering here and there for other things…working a booth at an event, and one off things that didn’t require a lot of commitment. At some point I became Outreach Coordinator. No one was really doing that in an organized way. Then I was asked to be on the board since I was an attorney…it’s always good to have an attorney on any board. I was on the board for a year before I became President. I did that for 3 years. But now I’m Venue Coordinator…we need someone to investigate appropriate venues for us to sing in. There’s a lot more involved than one would think so it’s a time consuming job. We have to look at size of audience, size of stage (how many singers can fit?) acoustics, restrooms, general location, parking, public transportation, cost. Things you wouldn’t really think about.
We’re looking for venues that are not churches. There is lots of clamor for non-church venues so the competition is great and the rental fees are often high. We have a good number of church venues that work well for us and some of the churches have low rental fees. So Venue Coordinator is a lot of gathering information in a timely fashion season by season. Then I get to organize in order of priority. It's not easy. People don’t realize how much is involved.
J: How is the chorus different now compared to when you first joined? What would you like to see in the future?
D: It’s not dramatically different. We were fairly organized when I came in but we’re more organized now. Things are moving forward. I love the chorus as it is. I like what it does. I don’t need to see something dramatically different because it works for me and for the chorus members. But we can always be better. We can reach more people in the community to have a bigger audience and better shows that include a social justice message. As long as we provide sense of community and artistic outlet for the members, as well as something enjoyable for our audiences then we’re right where we need to be.
J: Do you find that your community of friends are mostly chorus friends? Was that true in Sacramento?
D: Here yes. I’ve made close friends in the chorus. I like that community function of the chorus. It gives us friends and our social group. In Sacramento I was in law school so I had friends from other sources than the chorus.
J: Do you think the chorus needs to grow in people numbers?
D: I think we were on a good track size wise before the pandemic and we’ll get back there. I think it could be a bit bigger but not gigantic. I’m confident it’ll get to where it needs to be. It needs to be large enough to accomplish what we want to accomplish. With about 70 singing members we can get a smooth running organization and great sound. We can do it with 50 too but 70 ish would be ideal in my opinion. I trust that things will organically move to where they need to be. If the chorus gets too big and people are not getting what they want, some will leave.
J: Do you think we need to be more active in attracting racial and gender diversity or do you think it will happen organically?
D: Mostly it can organically happen but at the same time we need to make sure that they are welcome. It may not be obvious and it needs to be obvious that we welcome diversity. We are historically a gay men’s chorus and it needs to stay as that for the community of gay men to be able to come together, be together, be gay men together. It’s performing a function for the gay men community, and then everyone else can be a part of it. Everyone in our chorus who is not a gay man usually has some kind of affinity for gay men in some way. They support the community and want to have that be a part of their community as well. Being primarily a gay men’s organization supports the needs of that community.