Black Lives Matter | Boston Gay Men's Chorus

Over the last 50 years, artists have turned to John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Imagine” in times of tragedy. One of the most moving renditions of the song was performed on November 14, 2015, the morning after a series of terrorist attacks at multiple locations in Paris killed 130 people. Pianist Davide Martello, playing on a piano stained with blood outside of the Le Bataclan theater where 90 people had been killed the night before, performed “Imagine” to a crowd of weeping mourners.

The delicate ballad, written in 1971 as an anti-war anthem, remains as much a hymn to political protest today as it was five decades ago. In the days following the 9/11 terrorist attacks “Imagine” was put on Clear Channel’s “do not play” list because it was seen as too subversive. Even so, sales of the song soared and artists ranging from Neil Young to Tori Amos performed it in high profile settings to comfort survivors and a grieving nation.

Last June, we performed “Imagine” as the penultimate song at our Pride concert. The version we sang was arranged by Mari Esabel Valverde, one of the few out transgender composers working in the industry today. We chose her arrangement because it plays with rhythm in deeply personal ways, making it possible for a 200+-member chorus to convey intimacy while singing in unison. This can be heard throughout the song, but most movingly near the end with the line, “And the world will live as one.”

We offer this video of our performance of “Imagine” from last June in homage to Black people of all genders who have lost their lives to police violence. The artwork included is from “Last Words,” a series of images depicting the last words of 11 victims of police violence created by Shirin Barghi, an Iranian multimedia journalist and filmmaker, who made them in response to police riots in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014.

“Seeing the way the authorities here used terms like ‘rioters’ and ‘looters’ to dismiss and trivialize overwhelmingly non-violent demonstrations in Ferguson was painful,” Barghi said at the time. “It brought back vivid memories of similar tactics used by Iranian officials against protestors in 2009.”

Photographic images and footage included in the video are largely from anti-violence, Black Lives Matters protests that have taken place in the Greater Boston area in the first week of June, 2020.

[frogmouth]

Perfect choice. And the graphics white on black packed a punch. Photos telling also.

[stumarston]

How do you qualify for this choir? Do they take your word for it?

[carlosalbertooliveiraville]

BEAUTIFUL HOMMAGE ! THANK YOU, FOR SHARING AND MAKE YOUR VOICE PRESENT AT THIS PAINFUL MOMENT OF HUMANITY ! FROM YOUR BRAZILIAN FRIEND, SINGER KALEBA VILLELA LOVE & KISSES