SCHENECTADY – It was 30 years ago that Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin opened in the Broadway production of “Evita,” and earned Tony Awards for their efforts.  With their reunion tour that arrived at Proctors Theatre on Saturday night, they could have coasted through some chestnuts and reminisced about the good old days and still probably have sent the near capacity crowd home plenty happy. But that wouldn’t have...

Disappointed that the Naxos recording of Bernstein’s Mass with Jubilant Sykes as the celebrant and Marin Alsop conducting the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra didn’t win a Grammy last Sunday. I heard the performance at Carnegie Hall in October 2008 and loved it.  But it was a weird weekend in Manhattan, with the joy of Mass one night followed by the deadly experience of Adam’s Doctor Atomic the next (full review). Mass...

The Sunday Times Magazine featured a rather definitive profile (4,500 words!) of jazz composer/pianist Fred Hersch. Writer David Hadjdu (author of the Billy Strayhorn biography “Lush Life”) calls Fred’s music, “luxurious, free-flowing, unashamedly gorgeous” and shows how it’s beauty has been out of step with the traditionalist currents of jazz but also prophetic of a new trend just arriving....

Chris Lastovicka swears that she never thought of the gay allegory in her opera about UFOs and alien abduction until I asked.  Maybe I’ve just been exposed to too much queer theory and too many “gay readings” of the Harry Potter books, in which the magically gifted (GLTB folks) are hopelessly lost among the muggles (straights). But the opera “Crossing the Horizon” is, after all, a collaboration between two lesbian...

Thanks to all of you who visit this site, My Big Gay Ears surpassed 5,000 hits today. That’s since launching in late September 2009. But only 13 comments?? Come on folks, let’s get some conversation going! I invite you to consider this posting an open forum for ideas and suggestions on how to build on the site, help promote out musicians, and encourage new talents — or whatever else you think MyBigGayEars...

Composer Jennifer Higdon earned her first Grammy Award, in the category of best contemporary classical composition, and guitarist Sharon Isbin earned her second, as best instrumental soloist. The awards were announced in Los Angeles prior to the telecast.  Higdon’s winning piece was a pecussion concerto performed by Colin Currie with Marin Alsop conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra.  Isbin won for her disc...

“Horowitz once said that there were three types of pianist: Jewish, gay, and bad,” writes Stephen Hough on his blog for The Telegraph.  The entry was prompted by a a listener and psychologist who sensed gayness in Hough’s playing and delved deeper. Continues Hough, “Was the earlier age of repression and illegality – the fear of policemen waiting at the dressing room door – a reason for the loneliness...

Twelve Songs by Charles Ives Theo Bleckmann and Kneebody Theo Bleckmann could sing me to sleep anytime he likes, even if he doesn’t want to snuggle.  The German-born, New York-based singer and composer has got a warm and engaging voice and oodles of good taste and insight.  He’s given an imaginative yet intimate treatment to songs of Charles Ives in a new disc with the experimental quintet Kneebody. The CD on Winter...

Apparently Earl Wild lived up to his name.  The virtuoso pianist who died on January 22 at age 94 was out for most of his life, and promiscuous with music as well men, though he is survived by a partner of 38 years Michael Rolland Davis. Wild’s repertoire was enormous and his performance style grandly romantic.  He transcribed all kinds of things for the piano and also composed.  And to those taken into confidence...

Except for my ears, there’s nothing gay here (at least as far as I know). These are my reviews for the Times Union (Albany, NY) from last weekend. I’ve decided to start posting more of this sort of thing, since these assignments are what can keep me from providing more original content on here. Daniel Bernard Roumain & The Mission January 22, 2010, The Egg, Albany Daniel Bernard Roumain, also known as DBR,...