Lucy Watts walked into a choir practice in 1994 looking for safe harbor.
What she found in Jubilate! — a choir open to any woman — is a mutual joy of expression.
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“It’s a wonderful feeling just to be surrounded by the sound of their voices,” Watts said.
Jubilate! The Women’s Choir of Corvallis is celebrating its birthday this year with a couple of additional shows. Watts has been there since the start, playing along with the choir as an accompanist.
“The entire 30 years,” she said.
The singers of Jubilate! are professionals and hobbyists and friends, running a skill gamut from dabbling to total musical knowledge. Jubilate! doesn’t audition anyone, yet includes world-class musicians.
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“It comes together in this beautiful, harmonized sound,” Watts said.
At a rehearsal on Monday, April 22, some of the 50 to 80 women who sing with Jubilate! stepped to the front of the choir and introduced each song by describing themes that had drawn them to the space.
They saw diversity, hope and inclusivity.
And change — founder Betty Busch started Jubilate! as a lesbian choir at a time when there weren’t a lot of places for a woman to just be a woman, regardless of who they loved.
“Not all of us are gay or lesbian, but many of us are,” Watts said. “And for a lot of us, it was a way of seeing that, ‘Wow — this is a big, happy family.’”
Busch had emailed a calling for would-be choral singers, and Watts, a professional pianist, quickly accepted a gig accompanying the choir.
“I was looking for a community at that time,” Watts said.
Watts knew Busch as an Oregon State University music professor, a political organizer and a proudly gay woman.
“I went to work politically,” Busch said.
Christian nationalists and conservative Republicans were circulating homophobic voter initiatives when Busch landed in Corvallis. That was 1991, and Oregon Ballot Measure 9 sought to list homosexuality, along with “pedophilia, sadism and masochism as abnormal, wrong, unnatural and perverse” in the state’s constitution.
Busch watched election polling sites. She publicly called for safety for gay women.
And then Ballot Measure 13, sometimes called “Son of 9,” dropped in 1994.
“I liked that work, but I thought there’s a more joyful way to come together than this,” Busch said.
She responded by starting a choir.
She said music in much of her life had been a realm of performance. Busch played French horn and sang in high-level orchestras and choirs, where musicians show up and focus almost solely on the piece of music they’re hired to perform.
“It’s not about the community,” Busch said. “You don’t know the name of the person next to you when you sing those kinds of pieces.”
But Busch sang in a women’s choir at a music festival in Michigan and wanted to bring that experience to Corvallis.
“For one thing, I was singing with a bunch of other lesbians,” Busch said. “I was singing with people who were like me but not like me.”
Their songs were pro-women, she said, and pro-gay rights. Busch found a group that refused to be silenced by the Christian nationalist agenda.
“Political words that were positive and encouraging,” Bush said.
Women who helped advocate alongside Busch for gay rights in Corvallis joined Jubilate!, which, she said, took on a “planetwide singing mission” of including all voices.
The choir sings music from traditions and languages including Arabic, French, German, Hebrew, Spanish, Swahili and Zulu. Watts said the Jubilate! repertoire is classical, contemporary, spiritual — anything that fits the name.
“Basically, 'Jubilate!' means a cry of joy,” Watts said.
Jubilate! succeeded. The choir’s held semiannual concerts every year, and performed at Pride festivals and other events where themes such as social justice are a good fit.
“I love them. I know all these women, and many of them have become my best friends,” Watts said.
Of the 15 people who showed up for that first rehearsal, five still attend — Ellen Saunders, Virginia Stockwell, Julie Williams, and Busch and Watts.
Watts said she still thinks of it as the space where a young professional musician could go to just be themselves.
“I’ll always feel that way,” Watts said. “I even go as far as to say Jubilate! is my church, even though I now have a church. It’s very welcoming.”