CARBONDALE – “What are you doing for your mental health?”
That’s what Tasha Morwell said to her friend and fellow LGBTQ+ community member Scott Johnson the day after the 2024 general election in November. It was a moment in history when most challenged identities, and especially LGBTQ+ people, felt fear and anxiety about a second Trump presidency.
Scott Johnson, center, is leading southern Illinois’ new queer choir, while his husband AJ Bernal is helping behind the scenes and founding a new chamber music group, Maroon Resonance. Tasha Morwell, right, leads the Wesley Foundation at SIU in Carbondale and is co-founding the group with Johnson while also arranging to donate space at the foundation’s headquarters for choir rehearsals.
The answer the two found is something that will benefit not just LGBTQ+ people, but southern Illinos’ music community as well: a queer choir.
The fledgling group will hold its first meeting Jan. 22 at the Wesley Foundation on the grounds of Southern Illinois University, and more than 30 people are already signed up.
“It’s important for the queer community to know it’s not all doom and gloom,” says Johnson, an SIU graduate who returned to Carbondale after a few years living in Lexington, Ky.
“It’s important in this current time to say that we are here, we are visible, AND we are constructive, and we are creative. We are all of those things that make good citizens, so to speak,” Johnson said. “I also want people in the LGBTQ+ community to remember they are still surrounded by so many people who support and love them, and who appreciate what they bring to society.”
Love of group music drives Queer Choir founding
Morwell was once part of the Black Tulip Chorale in St. Louis, a mixed LGBTQ+ chorus. She was surprised to find Carbondale’s high-profile LGBTQ+ community didn’t already have its own queer choir.
Johnson, meanwhile, had already promised himself he’d start a “community choir” in Carbondale sometime in 2025. When Morwell approached him about the queer choir, he didn’t hesitate to say yes.
Originally from Alabama, Johnson said the choir is also a chance for him to enjoy his life’s passion, music, outside of his career, he says. His husband AJ Bernal, also a music grad of SIU, is helping behind the scenes.
Southern Illinois’ queer choir would join about 200 other LGBTQ+-identified choral groups nationwide. They include the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus and the Artemis Singers in Chicago; Iowa’s The Quire of Eastern Iowa and the Des Moines Gay Men’s Chorus; and the River City Mixed Chorus in the Omaha-Council Bluffs area.
Queer choirs have a history rooted in providing a positive, safe form of visibility inspired by activism. The first-ever gay choir started in San Francisco in 1978, shortly after the assassination of LGBTQ+ activist leader Harvey Milk.
Bernal, who identifies as a trans’ man, is contributng to southern Illinois’ music offerings in another way. He is leading a new chamber music group, Maroon Resonance, that aims to “revitalize and bring some fresh classical music back into the area,” he says.
The group has already held one performance, with different combinations of classical instruments including brass, woodwinds, keyboard and voice.
Its next performance is coming Jan. 16.
New choir to rehearse at Methodist Church’s Wesley Foundation
The new queer choir’s rehearsal space will be the Wesley Foundation at SIU, 816 S. Illinois Ave., that Morwell leads. Donating part of its space to the choir fits in perfectly with the Wesley Foundation’s goal of communicating that it is open and affirming, she says.
“UMC is going through a reckoning with the LGBTQ+ community and what it means to be queer and Christian,” she said. “This seems like a good chance to both provide something I felt was needed, and to help get word out that we are a safe place, that we are open and affirming, and that we are a place for all, and inclusive.”
Earlier this year, the worldwide United Methodist Church (UMC) ended a 56-year ban on accepting LGBTQ+ people and same-sex marriage.
Providing a “home” for the queer choir is part of Morwell’s broader effort to provide services beyond worship to even more challenged identities in Carbondale. The nonprofit also operates a food pantry, free meals and study space in addition to worship and group meeting space.
Soon, the Wesley Foundation aims to provide a theater space, movie nights and video game tournaments. Also coming soon: laundry facilities, to supplement the “free laundry day” already provided once a month in Carbondale by another church.
You can sign up for the choir at this form, or by emailing Johnson at dsjohnson02@gmail.com, or Morwell at umwesley@siu.edu. Participants are asked to provide a starting donation of $10 for students, and $15 for community members, to help pay the costs of a pianist.
(photos courtesy Ayna Lorenzo of Mothwing Photography)
