The amazing resiliency of the human spirit often means that out of pain and sadness comes humor, hope and healing.
That truism will be demonstrated Sunday at a benefit at the Patchogue Theatre as the New Century Singers present "Sing for the Cure," a musical and narrative work originally commissioned by the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, which the chorus sang at Carnegie Hall in February.
"It's a very powerful piece of music," says Karen White, chairwoman of the benefit concert for New Century Singers. "It was created as a way of honoring survivors - and those who didn't [survive]."
The Port Jefferson Station-based chorus sang at Carnegie Hall with Dallas-based Turtle Creek Chorale, which was the first chorus to present the 10-song work. The groups had met at previous GALA (Gay and Lesbian Association) Choruses events and were invited to the Carnegie performance by Turtle Creek's leader, Tim Seelig. "It was a packed house, quite an experience," White says.
According to the Komen Foundation's Web site, "Sing for the Cure's" words come from librettist Pamela Martin, who interviewed breast cancer survivors, their partners and loved ones to weave a work of empowerment and hope. Her words are set to music provided by 10 composers.
White says this "musical journey" takes the audience from diagnosis (one piece is written from the point of view of a health care worker who learns first that the patient will be getting the news that he or she has breast cancer) to treatment and coping with side effects (a humorous song focuses on picking out a wig and learning to give up Oreos and start eating macrobiotic food, White says).
"Sing for the Cure" seems an apt work for the New Century Singers, founded in 1995 by Elaine Kirkland of Mount Sinai, the group's conductor and artistic director. The nonprofit, nondenominational chorus performs sacred music - everything from spirituals to contemporary works - and includes members of both the Long Island gay and lesbian community and their friends and supporters. It usually presents two concerts a year, in venues including local churches and synagogues as well as the holiday-time Dickens Festival in Port Jefferson and Pride events in the spring.
The Patchogue performance will benefit four local breast cancer support groups, Babylon Breast Cancer Coalition, Cure Mommy's Breast Cancer, Huntington Breast Cancer Action Coalition and Long Island Lesbian Cancer Initiative, along with Thursday's Child, an HIV support group, and that's part of the reason New Century Singers is reprising its Carnegie Hall performance in Patchogue.
"We're really singing because we want to bring awareness," White says of the singers' first benefit. These grassroots support groups, she says, are the ones that are right there to help when someone gets a diagnosis, providing rides to treatment or watching a patient's children, for instance, or helping out those who are financially strapped by high-cost medical care. She says each support group will have a table set up in the theater's lobby with information on how to help.
"Each of us can relate, through family and friends," White says. "Every one of us knows someone with breast cancer."
WHEN & WHERE
"Sing for the Cure," Sunday, 4:30 p.m., The Patchogue Theatre for the Performing Arts, 71 E. Main St., Patchogue. Tickets, $25, $22 for students and seniors. Get tickets at the box office, 631-207-1313 or patchoguetheatre.com.
