One City Chorus, a social justice group, sings uplifting music and donates their earnings to charity.
Jon Arterton
It’s not a choir, it’s a chorus, says One City Chorus founder Jon Arterton. A chorus, he adds, invites everyone to sing and has no religious affiliation.
Arterton founded the nonprofit social justice singing group, One City Chorus, with his husband James Mack in 2016, right after Donald Trump became president. It was a divided time, Arterton said, and a social-issue based chorus offered an inexpensive way to bring people together.
At the first rehearsal, 60-70 people came to the Dr. Carter G. Woodson Museum to sing – no auditions needed.
“It was simple. We put out fliers saying that we’re going to sing songs about justice and equality,” Arterton said. “Word spread and after a couple seasons we were substantial enough to perform at the Palladium.”
In 2020, COVID-19 forced the chorus to stop performing and meeting. They met again only after the COVID-19 vaccination became available. They started rehearsing in a larger space: Lakewood United Methodist Church. One City hopes to eventually “go home” to the museum, Arterton said.
Arterton and his husband, Mack, are no strangers to choruses like the one they founded in St. Petersburg. The duo had a classical music chorus in Cape Cod called The Outer Cape Chorales before they moved to Florida.
Mack was born into the Southern Baptist Church and sang in the religious choir until he came out when he was 21.
“Singing in the church wasn’t really an option anymore,” Mack said. “So singing again finally after all those years was healing to me.”
Arterton has a long list of musical successes, including founding The Flirtations, a gay a capella group who performed in Carnegie Hall and twice being a Vocal Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Festival.
Today, he’s the Director of Music at the Unitarian Universalist Church of St. Petersburg.
“We visited St. Pete and we really loved this city; it reminded us of Cape Cod,” Arterton said. The couple moved to Gulfport. “We were here two months and thought maybe we needed something to bring people, black and white people, together to sing.”
Currently the chorus has 60 members and is climbing back to normalcy, but Lynette Hardy, chorus member and Woodson Museum administrative assistant remembers the early days of One City.
Back in 2017, she volunteered to open the doors of the museum to allow the chorus to rehearse. Soon, she began singing herself.
No auditions needed – this chorus welcomes everyone.
Jon Arterton
“One thing about me is I love to sing, I like the music we sing, and I like the people,” Hardy said. “The thing that’s important about the chorus is the people that we bring together.”
The chorus is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that depends on the kindness of strangers. On May 1, One City is performing at Lakewood United Methodist Church in St. Petersburg.
The concert is free, and donations will benefit UNICEF, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund.
One City Chorus Benefit Concert for the People of Ukraine Lakewood United Methodist Church, 5995 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. St. S., St. Petersburg. May 1, 4 p.m.
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