Margaret Jones' history of
Girls, Guys & Others:
The GGO Quire
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Hi Quire Folks and Friends.
I've spoken to all current choir members over the phone about my decision to discontinue the quire, but I would also like to expand on that and fill-in some details, and send something to former members and a few friends. So here's a brief history of Girls, Guys & Others: the GGO Quire.
The GGO Quire was the second choir I have formed, the first being The Perth Discovery Choir which began in March 1989 and which I conducted for 5 years. (PDC is still running, under conductor number four.)
There were several reasons for forming the new group in January last year, including
The quire was, in effect, an extension of my volunteer work with the International Foundation for Androgynous Studies (IFAS).
The GGO aims were stated in our first newsletter (1 February 2001):
To varying degrees we made progress with all of these aims. Congratulations are due to everyone who made an effort, and that includes all the members at the end of the year and some others who were long-time members earlier.
However, I have decided to discontinue the quire as the level of committment will be too difficult for me to maintain in the coming year. Running a quire is no small matter, it is emotionally challenging and ties up valuable teaching and accompanying time (I am now working quite a lot as an accompanist). Many hours were spent on quire matters each week between rehearsals.
Even financially, I can't afford to run the quire. One of my intentions with PDC was to make some money for my time, but the reverse happened---over the five years I ran it, I lost $3,000. So when I started GGO, I knew from experience that I should not even try to make something for my time, so I didn't. But, I am heavily in debt and need to reduce my number of hobby or voluntary activities and focus more on paid work. Something had to give, and it was GGO. I also need to resume the responsibilities I have to the eight other Australian composers and the thirteen West Australian poets whose works I publish through another enterprise, Hovea Music Press.
In 2002 I anticipate further involvement in IFAS matters, particularly on the political front. In 2001 IFAS educated a large number of people in parliament and elsewhere about TG and IS issues. A queer politician told us they'd never even heard about intersex people until we started educating and agitating in the gay & lesbian community in April. This coming year is going to be a big year for transgender and intersex people, and all hands will be needed on deck. And in February I plan to begin a challenging 20 week course in telephone counselling of queer people.
Anyway, back to the GGO Quire record. Here's a list of everyone who came to rehearsals anytime between our first rehearsal in January 2001 and our last in November 2001 (not in any particular order). Bear in mind that some of these people only came to one or two rehearsals, which is absolutely on par for any choir.
Jean Argyle, Alma Digweed, Coosje Griffiths, Patrisha Hawkins, Felicity Haynes, Cathie Travers, Sarah Collins, Jamel, Trillian, Gay Egg, Lynne H, Sarahjayne Marquès, Adam Barralet, Jaye Darling, Joanne Rawlinson, Mar Knox, Peter Omotosho, Deirdre Napier, Charles Tory, Simone Mazanetz, Naz Nasir, Katie Tiney, Jen MacNeeney, Yee-Ling Woo, Paul Richards, Kaye Morgen, Keith Lawrence, Ros Armstrong, Derry Jones (my mother) and Jacqui Korten. Our accompanists for performances were Brendon McCormack, Simone Mazanetz and David Bechly.
Among our participants we have had, in addition to many extraordinary people, the following eight transgender or intersex people: a 46 XY androgyne, who is possibly a DES affected person (that's me), a suspected 47 XXY androgyne, two other androgynes of unknown karyotype (genetic make-up), two MtF transsexuals, a 46(?) XXXY intersex mosaic androgyne post-operative MtF transsexual (one of our best members), an FtM transsexual (another great member), plus several people who told me they considered themselves somewhat androgynous or a-gendered. We also had at least one gay guy and a number of lesbians. One person who is not on the list but who was really keen to join if it could overcome travel problems, is a 47 XXY androgyne who in July became the first person in Australia to get a birth certificate which does not say 'male' or 'female'. Its new, re-issued birth certificate says: "Sex: indeterminate also known as intersex". And we were also blessed to have two other composers (besides myself) who had the Bachelor of Music degree in composition.
Over a period of just over ten months we had 43 rehearsals. Our eight performances were:
Another performance, to preceed the transgender and intersex film night in the Pride Festival, had to be cancelled at short notice due to lack of numbers.
A few more events of note:
The quire got a bit part in a 26 minute undergraduate documentary by Naz Nasir, titled 'Building Identities'. It's mainly about an inter-cultural person (Naz) and an inter-gendered person (me), but there is some brief footage of GGO and IFAS. Naz has given me all the fifteen or so hours she filmed of me, GGO and IFAS, so there must be a lot more which we could look at one day.
The quire participated in two joint projects with IFAS and TransWest (the Transgender Association of WA). These were the stall at the Pride Fair Day in Hyde Park on 30 September, and the float on the back of a truck in the Pride Parade through Northbridge on 27 November.
Towards the end of the year we added musicianship studies to our weekly rehearsals, which had a significant effect on the choir's standard. If we had continued next year, I would have done more of this.
A special mention for an outstanding contribution: Jaye, Deirdre (and myself) spent 32 person hours in Deirdre's art studio making the GGO Quire banner for the Pride Parade.
Housekeeping:
Please return any of the following scores if you still have them: When I Fall in Love, Do You Know Where You're Going To?, If You Don't Know Me By Now, Old Time Rock and Roll, When I Fall In Love, Panis Angelicus, Morning Has Broken, The Flower that Shattered the Stone.
Wire-bound and photocopied scores, and practice tapes, are yours to keep. Note: all the photocopies were made legally but that does not mean that copies may be made of them, nor that those songs may all be performed and recorded. Some are in the public domain, some are not. So, please don't return Sarah's The Lobster Quadrille or my excerpts from "...where eucalypts green-tip the sky", nor Laudate Nomen Domini, Non nobis Domine and Rex caeli, Domine, My Lord, What a Mornin' etc.
The GGO experience has been a highlight for me, one that I will cherish always. Thank you for contributing to it.
Best wishes,
Girls, Guys & Others: the GGO Quire, was formed by Matthew Margaret Dylan Jones in January 2001, as an extension of her ongoing advocacy and support work with the International Foundation for Androgynous Studies (IFAS). The quire's repertoire ranged through pop music, ninth century organum, sixteenth century motets, negro spirituals, and music composed by Sarah Collins, one of two other members with a composition degree, as well as music by Margaret.
The aim of the group was to achieve a high musical standard and to present people with variant gender or sexual physiology, and their supporters, very publicly in a way in which they could feel proud. You all know the term 'mixed choir', well this was a VERY mixed choir! Most members were mono-gendered people whose brain sex is the same as their body sex, but also included were male-to-female and female-to-male transsexuals and various kinds of intersex and androgyne people (such as Margaret herself). A major problem encountered at times was that male-to-female transsexuals were generally very uncomfortable singing as tenors or basses. On the other hand, it was notable that the intersex and androgyne members had no such troubles.
Margaret says "sometimes when people heard about GGO, they thought a choir with trannies and intersex people must be some sort of joke. I've been told 'It's not possible; there aren't enough transgender and intersex people; they aren't responsible enough.' " Due to the activities of GGO many people have now been disillusioned about the lack of ability in TG and IS people (some of whom have extraordinary musical and intellectual gifts).
Margaret Jones is a Perth-based composer, musician and music publisher, having studied piano and composition at the University of Western Australia. She is a long-established teacher of singing and piano, and works freelance as a pianist. Margaret is an Associate Composer with the Australian Music Centre.
She founded her first community group, the Perth Discovery Choir, in 1989. The PDC experience brought many new musical and people skills, but a hard-won lesson for Margaret was that one person really should not take on all the varied responsibilities of running a choir. Eventually a committee was formed, prompted by Margaret's growing realisation that despite membership fees, the group had cost her thousands of dollars out of her own pocket.
After five very busy years she passed on the leadership of PDC to other capable hands so she could devote herself to further studies and become a secondary school music teacher. She has since returned to private teaching and working as an accompanist.
Under the banner of Hovea Music Press she publishes her own small compositional output as well as works for a variety of forces by other Australian composers including Nigel Butterley, Roger Smalley, Meta Overman and others. The HMP choral catalogue includes 'Three Choral Works' and 'The True Samaritan' (Butterley), 'The Image of the Cross' (Overman, in preparation) and '...where eucalypts green-tip the sky' (Jones). Margaret writes in her programme note for the latter:
"For several years I had been intermittently involved in the practical side of the anti-clearfelling campaign to save old-growth forests. But eventually I felt that the best contribution I could make to conservation and social issues was by composing music.
"An opportunity arose when Phil Robertson asked me to deputize for him as the current conductor of the Perth Discovery Choir for a few weeks, and to write something for the choir's tenth anniversary concert. Around the same time (in 1999) I saw a colour photograph of a yellow tingle tree on the front page of a major newspaper. The felled tree was being taken out of the forest on a logging truck with observers lining the streets, a scene the story had likened to a funeral procession. Unknown to me, my father, the late John Joseph Jones, a well-known and prolific writer, had seen the same story. Two days later his poem, Yellow Tingle Tree, arrived in my letterbox. This poem became the final song in ...where eucalypts green-tip the sky. "
The cycle is for SABar, piano and one or more speakers, with thirteen poems by seven Australian poets. Six have been set to music for the choir, and the remaining seven are to be spoken&emdash;some with and some without accompaniment.
After a busy year which saw the GGO Quire give eight performances the ensemble was disbanded in December, in anticipation of a very busy 2002 for Margaret. This year will see her more heavily involved in IFAS and political lobbying on behalf of intersex and transgender people.
Margaret Jones, MusB(WA), DipEd, LTCL, ATCL, AMusTCL, AMusA can be contacted at 08 9381 2308 and hmpperth@cygnus.uwa.edu.au. See www.HoveaMusicPress.com
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