Check Out Tim Wilson’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tim Wilson.

Tim, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I grew up in West Virginia where my family attended a Baptist church with several different choirs, so I have always enjoyed choral music. I attended my first LGBTQ chorus concert in June 1982 with the inaugural concert of the Denver Gay Men’s Chorus (DGMC) at the Aladdin Theatre (Colfax Ave. and Race St., where there is now a Walgreens). I became a “chorus groupie” immediately. I have attended hundreds of LGBTQ choral concerts now — DGMC, Denver Women’s (Feminist) Chorus, Harmony: a Colorado chorale, Sound Circle/Boulder, Resonance: Women’s Chorus of Boulder, Sine Nomine, PFLAG Festival Chorus at PFLAG’s national convention in Denver in 1984, Celebration ’90 Festival Chorus in conjunction with Gay Games III in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1990, and eight out of 11 GALA (Gay And Lesbian Association of) Choruses Festivals from 1983 (the first in NYC) to 2024 (the most recent in Minneapolis, which featured 120 choruses and 7,000 singers and support staff).

My life has been enriched immeasurably by these many choruses, concerts, and festivals, so when Judith Nelson approached me in the summer of 2018 to ask me to volunteer if she created a Denver-based chorus for LGBTQ+ elders and allies, I could not say No. It was time to “give back,” so I became a founding board member of Sage Singers, which had its first rehearsal with 15 singers in October 2018. The chorus has grown to 60+ singers today. I am now a non-singing volunteer on the Member Support Team. I am a grant writer for the chorus, and I organize group outings to other performing arts opportunities as a social outlet and community-building activity for chorus members.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Sage Singers’ membership has grown steadily since its inception, which is always a nice challenge to have. We persevered through the COVID pandemic and have been thriving ever since. Founding Artistic Director Kevin Crowe moved from Denver to pursue his PhD in Choral Conducting at the University of South Carolina, and our second Artistic Director Keith Arnold moved to Washington, DC, for an opportunity within his Unitarian Universalist denomination. Interim Artistic Director Jana Thomas retired with her wife to Albuquerque, NM, and our current Interim Artistic Director is Ro Rains. We now have a search team working to identify and introduce to the chorus strong candidates for our next (non-interim) Artistic Director. Any challenges are not unlike those of any other performing arts nonprofit, and Sage Singers is resilient and strong, because it was formed by and for elders who have been leaders for decades in the larger LGBTQ movement for justice and equality. We recently applied for a Technical Assistance Grant with the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation and have been notified that Sage Singers will be funded to support the hiring of a professional consultant for strategic planning. This is happening at an ideal time, when the organization is 6.5 years old, going on 7 (just like a kid, for whom each half year is important!).

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am retired now, after an eclectic professional life: 17 years in bank operations in three states, followed by 12 years as a “professional queer activist” (AIDS Treatment News/ATN in San Francisco and PFLAG Denver), and finally, 15.5 years working for Fairmount Funeral Home and Cemetery. While working for ATN, I organized my Latino friends to translate HIV treatment information into Spanish and helped the editor/publisher create a special Spanish-language edition of the newsletter in preparation for a workshop at the ILGA (now the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association) World Conference in Acapulco, Mexico, in 1991 — one of the first sources anywhere for HIV treatment information in Spanish. While working for PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) Denver, I received an Honorary Lifetime Membership in the Gender Identity Center for my advocacy on behalf of the trans community. I conducted PFLAG workshops at the ILGA World Conferences in New York City (1994) and Rio de Janeiro (1995); at the latter conference, I was interviewed by the media, and the next day information about PFLAG was included in a leading front-page article in Brazil’s largest circulation newspaper (equivalent to the NYTimes in the US). By being my authentic gay self and with a supportive manager, Fairmount Cemetery joined what is now the Colorado LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce, and it hosted the monthly Business After Hours networking social event twice. This past December, on behalf of Sage Singers Denver, I made a “good will” trip to Mexico City to show our chorus’ support for their 100-voice chorus, Coro Gay Ciudad de Mexico.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
I loved being outdoors — in the woods behind our home in West Virginia or fishing on the rivers there. But even more, I enjoyed vacationing in Colorado at the cabin on Grand Mesa that my Grandfather Wilson built in 1950 and fishing on the numerous trout lakes on the Mesa. My great aunt’s husband owned one of the biggest orchards in Palisade, CO, so on August vacations, that meant fresh peaches and fresh trout, if the fishing was good, three meals a day!

Pricing:

• $20 for a Sage Singers concert in-person
• $15 for a Sage Singers concert streaming

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.sagesingers.org
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SageSingersGALAChorus/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@sagesingers9481

Image Credits
Tim Wilson, Carol White, Ro Rains