As well as the music, the bakers of the band got busy and produced a wide selection of cakes for a bake sale, and Emma from The Butch Institute was on hand with a wonderful range of jam, jellies and chutneys.

The evening was a great success, entertaining (and feeding!) the large audience and raising money for the band’s activities.

The LGSW Spring Fayre took place on Saturday April 6th at 7.30pm at St. Sepulchre-Without-Newgate Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2DQ.

London Gay Symphonic Winds (LGSW) brought festive fun to the city in 2012 with a Christmas concert in support of London-based charities The Food Chain and Opening Doors London. The band put together a real ‘Christmas Cracker’ – a programme of carols and festive favourites, which will also featured readings by our special guests VG Lee, Clare Summerskill and Will Davis.

The venue was the 12^th century City of London church St Sepulchre-Without-Newgate, aptly known as the National Musicians’ Church.

We were delighted to be raising funds on this night for The Food Chain and Opening Doors London (Age UK’s LGBT project in London), two charities with which we’ve enjoyed a close relationship for many years.

Special Guests

Clare Summerskill

Clare Summerskill is a playwright, a singer-songwriter and a lesbian comedienne. She regularly performs her own one-woman comedy shows and tours them to theatres internationally. She also has written and produced several plays and films in the verbatim theatre style. Her published works include We’re the Girls! (Diana Publishing, 2008) Hearing Voices, a play based on service users’ experiences of the mental health system (Tollington Press, 2010), and most recently Gateway to Heaven – Fifty Years of Lesbian and Gay Oral History. (Tollington Press, 2012).

www.claresummerskill.co.uk

Will Davis

Will Davis is the award-winning author of My Side of the Story, Dream Machine and The Trapeze Artist, and is also the Books Editor for Attitude magazine.
My Side of the Story won the Betty Trask Prize in 2007. The sequel, How Not to Survive is now available as an ebook on the Kindle. Will’s latest novel, The Trapeze Artist, about a man who runs away with the circus, was the launch title of exciting new publishing imprint Bloomsbury Circus. Will has been training in aerial circus for several years and both teaches and performs on rope, silks and static trapeze. He has always been fascinated by the beauty of movement and the danger of the circus, and feels nowhere are these two extremes more fully realised than in the aerial arts. You can see him in action on his website – www.will-davis.co.uk

VG Lee

VG Lee is an author and stand-up comedian. She has published four novels; The Comedienne, The Woman in Beige, Diary of a Provincial Lesbian and her most recent, Always you, Edina, by Ward Wood Publishing. In 2008 her short story collection, As You Step Outside was published by Tollington Press.

In 2009 and 2010 she appeared at the Edinburgh Festival with her one woman show SHUSH! and as part of the Laughing Cows band of comediennes. She was also a finalist in the prestigious ‘New Act of the Year 2010’ at the Hackney Empire

Her work has appeared in Mslexia, Chroma and Poetry Review with short stories in many anthologies including Boys & Girls and Men & Women, two lesbian and gay anthologies from Glasshouse Books.

In 2012 VG Lee was nominated for a Stonewall Award for Writer of the Year and also became a regular contributor of humorous articles for The Lady Magazine.

www.vglee.co.uk

On Saturday October 13th, London Gay Symphonic Winds embarked on a musical journey around the world. ‘Around The World in 80 Minutes’ took place at 7.30pm at St. George’s Church, Bloomsbury and featured some of the best international wind band music together with the usual fun and surprises that have become the LGSW’s trademark.

The evening took the audience to France (Ellerby’s Paris Sketches) via America (Gershwin!), Japan (Saint Saens’ La Princess Jaune) and even went to the plains of Africa (Barry’s Out of Africa). It was a global treat that was truly out of this world.

The concert was a fun mix of jazz, chat, coffee and pastries  – with LGSW performing some crowd-pleasing tunes.

Then after the concert the band played a free concert in the foyer of the Brighton Dome, where lots of our friends from Brighton came along to join in the fun.

[See a full gallery of photos here]

This week, LGSW teamed up with the LGBA (Lesbian and Gay Band Association) to put on a display of formation marching and playing at this year’s World Pride march in London.

The LGBA were represented by musicians from cities all over America (and one from Dublin) who flew over to join us for a week of events and rehearsals, culminating in Saturday’s march.

The week kicked of on Wednesday with a boat party on the Thames, where we enjoyed the sights of the London skyline and the sounds of the London Gay Big Band‘s excellent tunes. Then on Friday it was time for Michael Tolliver and Ron Hughes from the LGBA to show the UK players how bands from the USA put on a show. We spent an afternoon in Battersea Park lining up, marching in step and even incorporating some basic choreography into our playing – it was a totally new experience for many of the British players, but everyone was soon looking like a well drilled unit!

Saturday’s Pride parade started rather on the damp side, with a significant amount of rain as we gathered together, but it soon dried up and we even had some sunshine as we started the march. The repertoire on the day was a collection of gay anthems (Born This Way, YMCA, Bad Romance, We Are Family) and the crowds lining the route cheered us on and even joined in with the singing and actions. Probably the biggest cheers of the day came as we turned into Regent Street and the heavens completely opened – soaking the band to the skin in minutes – but we kept on playing and entertaining the crowds regardless. Fortunately the warm weather meant we were dry by the time we got to the end.

The day really was a fantastic experience for everyone, and it was wonderful to have the chance to make some new friends from the LGBA, and also put on such a great-sounding and good-looking show for the people who had come to support Pride.

And we even made the evening news! – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-18722279 You can hear us from beginning, and there’s about 5 seconds of us marching.

During the summer we performed three bandstand gigs (in Clapham Common and Victoria Embankment Gardens), all of which were performed to great audiences in gorgeous sunshine – which isn’t bad considering the summer we’ve had!

LGSW’s Big Gay Summer was rounded off with our annual Brighton Band Camp on 15-16th September. This was an opportunity for the band to hang out together, play some tunes and recover from an action-packed summer season. We also played a free concert at the Brighton Dome.

Photos of the concert are here!

It was another very succesful night for the band, with a fully-packed St. George’s, Bloomsbury enjoying a musical nostalgia trip via Folksongs, The Beatles and Freddie Mercury. The band then rounded things of with the famous Fantasia on British Sea Songs, complete with flag waving, red white and blue outfits for the band members and a stunningly dressed singer delivering a rousing rendition of Rule Britannia.

It was truly a pink-hued slice of pomp and circumstance, and a fun and memorable evening for the band and audience.

Signs that the 2012 Olympics are on their way can be spotted all over town.  From the construction, to the posters, and even events in support, Londoners are looking forward to this massive global event.  On Friday, 9th December, the London 2012 Olympics Pride House had its official launch and the LGSW were delighted to be included.

Wondering what a ‘Pride House’ is? Pride House will be one of the many Olympic ‘houses’ in London during the 2012 Games.  It aims to provide an awesome venue for fun and entertainment, but more than that it’ll be a networking hub for the global LGBT community and also be a focus for programmes aimed at education, tolerance and the encouragement of diversity.

The launch event was a great success.  The evening began with drinks and canapés, and some light music provided by a string quartet from our friends at LGSO. We quickly moved to speeches from several notable people, including Pride House Director Chad Molleken, who inspired us with a vision of what this House aims to be: more than just a public venue, Pride House will be a symbol of acceptance to the world.  A cocktail reception and networking break was next, where the LGSW performed pop classics such as Take That’s “Shine,” Britney Spears’ “Toxic,” and Lady Gaga’s “The Edge Of Glory.”

We were honoured to be a part of this fantastic event and hope to work closely with the Pride House team again in the coming months!

More information about Pride House can be found at their website: http://pridehouselondon.co.uk/

Photo credit: Nicolas Chinardet of Zefrog

A selection of LGSW players provided our unique brand of fun, pop-tastic musical stylings during the champagne reception and dinner.  We don’t think the guests quite knew what hit them when we started into Britney Spears’ Toxic after grace was said!

With the support of the LGSW and the organisation’s wonderful staff and volunteers, the event raised over £35,000 for The Food Chain!  This phenomenal amount will help the Food Chain support people during times of medical or financial crisis and ensure that people are provided with the tools they need to manage their own condition and live healthy independent lives.  For more information about the work of the Food Chain, please visit their website.

We are always pleased to team up with charities for events and causes that are close to our hearts, so if you think we can help your organisation, please get in touch with us.

The London Gay Symphonic Winds is an LGBT wind orchestra of around 40 woodwind, brass and percussion players of all levels based in central London.  The LGSW regularly performs two solo concerts per year and has performed for Pride London, Age Concern, the Food Chain, London Zoo’s Gay Day, and various band stands across London.

For more information, please email enquiries@lgsw.org.uk with Concerto Audition in the subject line.