TUESDAY FEB 9TH, 2021

JK- I had the pleasure of interviewing Shawn on Zoom last month (unfortunately not in person).

I was hoping to have the interview ready to publish for our last Town Hall during Black History Month but the timing didn’t work out. So…here we are a month later.

First question I always ask…

JK- When and how did you come to the chorus?

SS- I had recently come back to the Bay Area after 4 years at Humboldt State (I was born and raised in the Bay Area…born in Oakland, raised in Alameda). In fall of 2016 I was visiting a friend in LA who is in GMCLA. When I heard them sing I thought “I need this”. I found OGMC (used to be OEBGMC) through an app called “Meet Up”. James was facilitating the app for the chorus at the time. I contacted him and he gave me all the information I needed for auditioning. 

JK- Is the chorus different now from how it was when you joined?

SS- I’d say the chorus is very different now from when I joined. The year before I joined there was not a lot of diversity. James had been trying to increase diversity in his advertising and recruiting new members. The year I joined there were a lot more younger people and people of color.  We continue to grow in diversity as we welcome trans people and women to sing with us. 

Billy was the director when I came in. I joined the chorus at that sweet spot when everything was going into a really positive trajectory. Billy greatly improved our professional look. He made us sound and sing better as a unit. 

JK- What’s your music background?

SS- I got started with music in my church choir. I was in the stands every Sunday trying not to fall asleep. I enjoyed singing but it was hard for tiny me to wake up at 6 AM and spend the entire day singing for the Lord.  Other than that I wasn’t participating in anything musically, just singing in the shower. I was in some high school musicals, but nothing in college.

JK- Tell me about high school musicals...Were musicals your “life” in high school as they are for many high school kids?

SS- I wouldn’t say they were my life but I really enjoyed them.  I went to Oakland School for the Arts to be an actor. It turns out only Drama majors got roles in plays so my next choice was musicals…..it turned out I really loved them and looked forward to the spring musical every year.  Usually I was in the ensembles but one year we did Seussical the Musical . I played Mr. Mayor which turned out to be really hard because I’m a bass and Mr. Mayor was a comical role with a higher voice. But I learned how to make the change in my voice and it worked out. 

In college I took some piano classes. I enjoyed it and tried to keep up with it but I didn’t practice enough and never took it further.  When I joined the chorus in 2016 after coming back to the Bay is when music really took off for me. 

JK- Did you start getting involved in chorus leadership and politics from the get go or did that come later?

SS- I’d say kind of from the get go….First season they leave you alone...then they say “Hey, You’ve been here long enough...come on, join a committee…” So I joined 4 committees. I really jumped in but it wasn’t too much work. 

JK- What committees did you join and how did it go? Did it lead to where you are now?

SS- I started with membership, finance, production and…I can’t remember the other.  I left the area for 7 months to move to Memphis but quickly came back. Steve Smith approached me about being a board member. I agreed, so I was on the board which makes you part of the leadership committee. Meanwhile, I was still on production and I dabbled with the marketing committee for a bit. I’m on the governance committee right now. That’s my general journey.

JK- Where do you see the chorus going at this point once we can be active and start meeting again?

SS- Once we can meet again I want to see us become more engaged in the local community that we have around us. Engaged in different ways than we have been...I love the outreach that we do and our concerts are great. I also want to see different kind of volunteer events. There are ways we can show up for our community that are high contact and low impact.  Wally suggested we do a clean-up around Lake Merritt…..things that will make us visible in the community around us. We can have fun being together and serve the community at the same time.

JK- Many people I’ve interviewed had said that the chorus became family and led to their involvement in their local gay community. Was that true for you being newly back in the Bay Area? Did you have a gay community before you joined chorus?

SS- Yes and No.  When I joined it definitely felt like family. And that is important to me. When I join any community it needs to feel like a family. OGMC was just the right size. I could get lost in the crowd if I wanted to without entirely becoming invisible, but I could also connect with so many different people personally. 

I was already connected to a few queer groups before I joined the chorus. When I first moved back to the Bay I was a health educator for Health Initiatives for Youth which is a non-profit in SF.  I worked with “We’re in Trans” youth across the Bay Area which connected me with local queer activist organizations so I felt like I was connected to local gay communities. I was also part of a queer volleyball group. 

JK- How do you see your involvement with BLM interfacing with the chorus?

SS- This goes back to what I said earlier about wanting to do more local events and showing up as a community. We, as a chorus, need to do more to show up for our people of color. We are a primarily white chorus and that does not reflect the diversity of our community. I want to see us reach out to the community around us to build some of those bridges and to create a culture of tolerance, acceptance and understanding of the diversity around us.

JK- Would you talk about the Black Lives Coalition? How did that come about?

SS- YES! I’d love to talk about that!  John Chastain approached me in June 2020 right after the killing of George Floyd. He said “We have to do something”. John and I started collaborating on what we could do as a chorus in the Oakland community to show our solidarity in a stand against racism. As BLC formed we had to look at “What can we be doing to be sure our own house is clean?”. We have to “clean house” so we can have the right impact on communities around us. We want to be sure the chorus shows up as welcoming and anti-racist. 

We welcome anyone to join the Black Lives Coalition. We meet Wednesdays at 7 PM. We have done a series of Town Hall meetings and we’re going to do a board and leadership diversity workshop and continue to make sure that the chorus strives to be welcoming to all people of color.

JK- I’ve learned a lot from the Town Hall Meetings. Thanks to you and the members of your committees for all the effort that has gone into Black Lives Coalition and reaching out to our very diverse community. It’s great to know that the chorus has been busy during the past year doing good in the world during the pandemic. We’ve stayed connected and afloat and we look forward to that work continuing into the future and especially to being able to sing together again.