OGMC Interview with Denis Whitaker

By June Kamerling

I had the pleasure of interviewing Denis Whitaker in September 2021. It was great to get to know a bit more about his many skills and talents, after singing with Denis in the chorus and being on the Marketing Committee with him. Here is what Denis told me:

JK - How did you find the chorus and when did you become a member?

DW - “In January 2010, I saw a clip in the paper about auditions for a gay men’s chorus.

I didn’t  know such a chorus even existed. It had been around for 10 years but I hadn’t heard of it.

I hadn’t been singing for a while, and I needed to make some new gay friends. The chorus was my door into a new world of music, friendship and community. I auditioned for Michael Patch. With my musical back ground I got in, though Michael assigned me to sing 1^st tenor. I did it even though 2^nd tenor was more fitting for my voice. Eventually I moved to T2."

JK - How did you come to live in Martinez?

DW - “Years and years ago I went to Yosemite Valley with a friend and fell in love with it again. I decided I wanted to live there, so I got a job at Ahwahnee Hotel as a bus boy. The rest is history…..I took a number of restaurant and hotels jobs over the years.

Later on I was working in Menlo Park for a restaurant chain, The Velvet Turtle. They were closing that “store,” and they offered me a GM position in Pleasant Hill. I moved to Martinez to take that job….well, THAT business closed about a year later.

I had to find a job. I became a restaurant manager at Walnut Creek Marriott, then moved to catering sales and marketing for about 10 years. I was Director of Catering and Event Management when I retired. My back ground is 35 years in restaurant management, though I was trained to be an actor and a singer.”

JK - Tell me about your musical back ground.

DW - “Got a while?

I grew up in California… San Carlos and Orange County. I started studying music when I was 6; Hawaiian Steel guitar with Professor Sydney Gelb. Then accordion, then clarinet… I had perfect embouchure— I had buck teeth.

By the time I was 8, I was reading music.

In Catholic school I learned to sing Gregorian chants in the original notation from the nuns. At 16 I started taking voice lessons. My first solo recital was at 17, singing as a baritone. In college I was a drama major and music minor. In my 2^nd year in college I took singing lessons at Cal State Fullerton. My voice teacher vocalized me up to a high C, made me promise not to sing baritone ever again.

When I was living in San Luis Obispo I formed a vocal quintet with friends I’d been singing with. We sang SSATB. I LOVED singing harmony with one on a part.

Since I moved to Martinez I have sung with SF Symphony Chorus, The Mastersingers, Cantare con Vivo, Oakland Symphony chorus, and now, of course OGMC.”

JK - When you came into the chorus what was it like? What was the general feeling?
Who was there? Who did you connect with?

DW - “The members who’d been there from the very beginning were Peter Dempsey, José Colon, and John Rogers. The chorus felt solid. Michael Patch, the AD, quit suddenly a few years later. That’s when Stephanie Smith came in and things really started to change.

There were maybe 40 members when I joined. Most tended toward older. Back then the chorus had trouble attracting younger singers. It took a few years to get the 30-somethings….Joe, Dustin, Wally, Brian, Dave, Lorenzo….They all came in about the same time. Now we’ve got 20-somethings, so we have a wide range of ages.

A chorus like ours is unique in that a range of ages can come together and become friends. The younger guys didn’t know the history of the chorus or much about their own history as gay men.  Aside from churches and bars what else was there to bring gay men together across a range of ages? This is a great way to come together and form friendships in our community."

JK- What is your involvement in the chorus beyond singing?

DW - “I quickly became deeply involved with the chorus. In my 2^nd year I became part of the Artistic Committee, and then its Chair. Stephanie succeeded in building a better infrastructure. In 2014 I was part of a committee that re-wrote by-laws, with a strong Vice- President system to run the chorus if we didn’t have a Chorus Manager. With my management experience I was voted in as VP. I’m proud of what we did during that time. We’re stronger and more organized with a solid inner structure.

As a result, we can now attract independent board members who are not singers in the chorus, who have a good networks of people with knowledge, community and money connections. We don’t have a really solid financial base but I think we can get there now. These days I’m chair of the Marketing & PR Committee.”

JK- What do you want to see in the future of the chorus?

DW - “I’d like to see us grow in numbers and diversity. We have 7 new people joining the chorus post pandemic. This is great.

My seat on the Artistic Committee gives me permission to weigh in on what we sing. My passion is classical music, though I love other genres as well. Mostly right now I’m so happy to be back singing IN PERSON together.”