One Voice Mixed Chorus

About Us

One Voice Mixed Chorus, Minnesota’s gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and straight allies choir, is dedicated to building community and creating social change by raising our voices in song.

This year marks our 20th anniversary season, and the celebration is just getting started. As part of our commitment to outreach, we established an innovative collaboration with young spoken-word artists and performed on a community-building tour to Iowa. In January we presented a concert dedicated to the choral masterworks of Johannes Brahms that received raves from audience members and the press alike. For these performances, we were honored to work with four-time Grammy winner Vance George, formerly the music director the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. This concert also featured a collaboration with Central High School in St. Paul, further demonstrating our commitment to education outreach and our work to make our schools more welcoming of GLBT individuals.

In June we will perform a special retrospective concert, inviting chorus alumni back to the stage for a selection of audience favorites from the past two decades. Guest host Dan Chouinard will lead the audience in remembrances and story-telling. Later in July, we will perform at the Gay & Lesbian Association of Choruses (GALA) conference in Miami.

We are proud of our work to present a positive role model of GLBT people in our community, using the power of music to change hearts and minds. This commitment to social change is a fundamental aspect to all One Voice activities.

Why We Need a New Website

This year, as a result of years of growth, we at One Voice have moved into a new office, completed a rebranding campaign, and hired two additional staff members. As part of our move to our new home, we have brand-new, fully-updated computer systems for the first time in our history. Our website, however, is a legacy from our past. We are just starting the process of updating it, and somewhat overwhelmed by the challenge that poses.

We are dedicated to social change, making the world more welcoming of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals. But we have reached the unfortunate conclusion that our current website makes it difficult for us to interact with the very community we’re trying to change. Because the website has been cobbled together over the years, it has grown increasingly difficult to navigate, with all important information crowding and overlapping on the homepage.

The navigational chaos makes it difficult for people to use the site, but the dull presentation blocks people from even wanting to use it. We need a more dynamic site that captures our group’s colorful personality; one that encourages people to find out who we are, buy tickets, donate, audition for the chorus and attend our concerts.

On a technical side, we want:

• Intuitive navigation and logical flow between various pages on the web.
• A fully functional shopping cart that allows people to effortlessly buy tickets, and allows us to track sales, use special promotional codes and post seating charts or maps to our venues.
• A musical preview page where singers and audience members can preview songs, musical score information, composer information and interviews with our music director, gaining a greater understanding of our musical selections and why they were chosen.
• Since many of our songs are newly commissioned, a programming history page that can help fellow choruses explore our repertoire and possibly perform these works themselves.
• An easily accessible media page where venues, organizations and other boosters can rapidly download press releases, basic information about the group, PDFs of posters, publicity photos, our logo and bios of the performers.
• An easy way for people to contact us, without leaving our e-mails visible for every spammer in the world.
• An easy-to-use donation page that has enough stories, photos and emotional content that people will truly want to donate us. Related to this, an easy-to-use back end for us to use once they donate.
• An interface for members only, containing rosters, schedules, rehearsal sound files, office forms and other resources.

These changes would allow us to truly engage the community through our website—as opposed to having a passive website that simply functions as a clearing house for information on the chorus. This website will have a broader reach than our performances alone, and for a group dedicated to outreach, this wide exposure is critical.

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Messages From Supporters

When the judges choose which non-profits will be selected to participate in this year's F1 Challenge they will take into account testimonials from beneficiaries, donors, volunteers, board members and other

One Voice Mixed Chorus is phenomenal. Not only musically, but also in it's outreach efforts to the overall community, especially it's outreach to schools. It's recent concerts featured a local high school concert choir. Many of these students had not had exposure to GLBT people. Everyone walked away from the experience of rehearsing, singing new music, lunching with new friends, and performing excellent music much richer. One Voice serves as a family for many, a place to call home and be accepted for who they are. They also help teach these values to the broader community. Their work is so important to our divided world, I cannot say enough good things about them.

Carolee Lindsey-Donor, volunteer, Board Treasurer

One Voice Mixed Chorus is not only a talented and entertaining group of singers, but it also boasts a huge volunteer cadre called the 5th section. These volunteers put many, many hours into providing free services and time that help the chorus as a whole evolve and grow into the successful organization that it is today. This said, there is still much room for more growth, expansion and learning. One of our goals in our mission is to reach out to others, and the more focus we can give to our marketing and our website, the further we'll be able to extend our reach. I am proud to be a member of such an amazing collaboration of talent and I proudly serve as a singer and volunteer, considering it a labor of love.

James Gottfried, Singer and 5th Section Volunteer

I think One Voice's web site could use this overhaul, so our online presence is vibrant as our offline presence in the community. The current web site doesn't take advantage of many modern advances in web architecture or presentation. If the look and feel of the web site was updated and made more flexible, we would be able to invest more resources where they directly impact our mission, versus today - having to invest financial and volunteer resources in a web site which doesn't meet our audience, staff, or members' needs. Thanks for your consideration. Best wishes from One Voice!

Earl Moore, board co-chair

This is an organization that knows how to build successful relationships. That applies to the kind of community building within the organization that is a key component to thier mission, as well as to relationships with other organizations, individuals, performers, and constituents. While most of those relationships are forged the old fashioned way by a handshake or a hug, the ability to connect electronically is becoming an even greater imperative in our community and culture today. The web site is the hub of that connection. As this organization expands its reach, the hub supporting those connections needs to be able to accommodate the vision. In a world that undervalues the arts and is often biased against GLBT people, One Voice is an organization with the vision to be part of a change for good.

Cheryl Winch (donor, member, volunteer)

OVMC provides a multitude of services but the one that strikes closest to my heart is their dedication of beautiful music. Choral music poses some of the greatest challenges to produce competently, not to mention wonderfully, and OVMC does an incredible job, both with classical and contemporary. This dedication is also seen in their varied, admirable goals, all of which are worthy of immense support. OVMC is fighting the good fight - everything possible should be done to ensure it can continue to do so.

Elaine Mae Estabrooks, donor

It is unfortunate, but true, that so many of the activities in the GLBT community tend to reach only a small cross-section of our diverse community. One Voice is an exception to this rule. I appreciate their connection not only to the broad spectrum of GLBT individuals but also to other local performing arts groups, such as Mu Daiko, of which I am a member. (Mu Daiko is a taiko drumming group that is part of Mu Performing Arts, an Asian American performing arts group). These unique collaborations continue to promote understanding in our community and to explore new avenues for creating art.

Community member

I attended my first One Voice concert just this past week. I experienced an evening of wonderful music and an opportunity to see people of different experiences and ages come together. I was witnessing how music can be an avenue for social change. I also used their website to purchase my ticket and learn more. It did not match up. They are doing amazing work and the website was just okay. Their work and mission could greatly benefit from technological support and expertise, improving their communication and operations. This allows their great work and music to extend further.

Jill C, new audience member and new donor

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One Voice Mixed Chorus
732 Holly Ave., Suite Q
St. Paul, MN 55104-7125

Our Mission

For 20 years One Voice Mixed Chorus has united gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender people and straight allies in working for social change. One Voice is known for its musical excellence, diverse repertoire, humor, and strong commitment to community outreach. One Voice’s 80 singing members span ages 17 to 70, and its “Fifth Section” boasts more than 40 non-singing volunteers. Together, they dedicate their time and energy to the One Voice mission: “Building community and creating social change by raising our voices in song.” Originally formed as a way for gay men, lesbians and straight allies to unite Audience surveys demonstrate how our message is reaching a broader and broader audience, since the most recent statistics show that more than half (55%) of our concertgoers self-identify as heterosexual. One Voice is the largest GLBT mixed chorus in North America, and has performed for thousands of people in the Twin Cities, greater Minnesota and beyond.