With record numbers of state bills filed to erode the rights of transgender  youth or silence discussion of LGBTQ+ topics in schools, Coro Allegro, Boston’s LGBTQ+ and allied classical chorus, invites you to join us in raising our voices in "Letters to Our Children: Voices across Generations for LGBTQ+ Youth."

The concert features the world premiere of award-winning composer Andrea Clearfield’s HERE I AM: I AM HERE, a powerful cantata inspired by moving open letters to a transgender child and to a survivor of conversion therapy by leading LGBTQ+ youth advocates Mimi Lemay and Sam Brinton. Joining Coro Allegro are Mimi Lemay and Sam Brinton as narrators, and guest artists, soprano Sonja DuToit Tenglad, tenor Jonas Budris, the Arneis String Quartet, and pianist Yulia Yun.

Clearfield work is paired with  "When Music Sounds,” New England composer Ronald Perera’s beautifully crafted setting of poems on music by Walter de la Mare, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Emily Dickinson, as well contemporary Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo’s  soaring “Dark Night of the Soul” and “Luminous Night of the Soul, based on text by 16th-century mystic St. John of the Cross and contemporary writer Charles Anthony Silvestri.

The 14th Annual Daniel Pinkham Award will be presented to Sam Brinton for their work to end the dangerous and discredited practice of conversion therapy.

ADD YOUR VOICE:  Inspired by Lemay and Brinton's moving letters, Coro Allegro and community partners like the Boston Alliance of LGBTQ+ Youth (BAGLY) invite the public to submit their own open messages of support and affirmation for LGBTQ+ youth and their families via the Letters Project. Learn more at our website coroallegro.org

Sponsored by Steve Vorenberg & Kerry Marshall and supported in part by grants from Choral Arts New England, the Equality Fund of the Boston Foundation, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

This production is recommended for ages 10 and up.