GMCLA (Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles) annually present the best holiday concert in town. Honoring both Chanukah and Christmas, this year's show entitled Naughty & Nice was most definitely more nice than naughty with special guest artist Melissa Manchester at the top of her form. There were most definitely fun shenanigans though in the mildly naughty department. Take for example the off-center"Chanukah in Santa Monica", the raucous stomp number "Christmas This Year" closing the first half, and those Malibu Monks doing their unbelievably dextrous thing by turning over those lyric cards with split-second timing on the "Hallelujah Chorus".
There was also a delightful "Mr. Grinch" sung out with the delicious flavor of streetcorner barbershop harmony (Greg Knotts, DJ Pick, Ken Harned and David Sperber) and an electric closing "Joyful, Joyful" by Kudwig Van Beethoven as performed in the film Sister Act 2 with some great original choreography by Michael Peters. On the nice side nothing was more beautiful sounding than Richard Carpenter's arrangement of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" as performed regally by trio Curtis Foreman, Chris Etscheid and Louis Ramirez with Ethan Lin on flute.
Manchester was at her glorious best making four separate entrances with three costume changes singing her signature "Whenever I Call You Friend", "Midnight Blue", the heartfelt "A Mother's Prayer" and, especially for the season, a simply lovely "Cradle in Bethlehem" by Bryan Alfred.
There was also a fun singalong segment of bells tunes that included "Sleigh Ride", "Silver Bells" and "Jingle Bells". Kudos to artistic director/conductor E. Jason Armstrong for consistently fine work.
Maybe there was more nice than naughty, but that's just fine, as GMCLA is the nicest, most versatile chorus around bar- none...and whatever they do, they do it better than anyone else. I can't wait for Christmas 2012.
