Rostam Batmanglij is keyboard player, writer and producer for the band Vampire Weekend. He came out earlier this year and appears in the current issue of OUT (“Interview with a Vampire”) and has also just given an interview to Towleroad.

They’re a small town family. Robert, Tony and Annamaria. Maggio is on the faculty at West Chester University, outside Philadelphia. His partner Tony La Salle is an artist. They’ve been together since 1991 and adopted a daughter, Annamaria La Salle Maggio in 2001, when she was one month old. In 2003, they settled in Lambertville, New Jersey. “We wanted to live in a small community where we’d be known by everyone,” explains Maggio. “Tony has an art gallery where he shows his work. We can walk to school. I’ve written pieces for the local regional orchestra. And when we first...

“Moby Dick,” the latest opera from Jake Heggie (“Dead Man Walking”) premieres Friday April 30 at the Dallas Opera in its spiffy new Winspear Opera House. Ben Hepner leads the cast as Capt. Ahab.  Libretto is by Gene Sheer.  Patrick Summers conducts. Stage direction by Leonard Foglia. I’ll be attending a performance on May 8, as part of the annual convention of the Music Critics Association.  Look for a review on here in the days following. In the meantime, here’s a preview story and a video of the creative team yacking about the collaborative process (compliments...

David Leisner can’t escape Spanish music. He’s a guitarist. “It’s been a crusade since early in my career to demonstrate that guitar programs don’t need to have Spanish music,” says Leisner.  “Most of the guitar repertoire is not Spanish at all! The pieces most people think of by Albeniz and Granados were originally piano pieces. “The majority of music written for the guitar before the 20th century is from Italy and from Central Europe.   In the 20th and 21st centuries, only a very few important composers for the guitar were Spanish, the most famous being Rodrigo....

I’m proud to introduce HudsonSounds.org, a new online resource for music in the upper Hudson Valley, New York’s Capital Region and The Berkshires. HudsonSounds.org provides calendar listings for hundreds of classical music events, and blogs by a dozen prominent and insight folks from the local musical community. There’s also links to music news headlines and a CD and DVD store. The listings are already full up with the onslaught of summer events, including New York City Ballet and the Philadelphia Orchestra in Saratoga Springs, Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, SummerScape at...

Jennifer Higdon can add the 2010 Pulitzer Prize to her ever-growing list of accolades. She received the award today for her Violin Concerto, which was premiered by soloist Hilary Hahn (her former student at the Curtis Institute) in 2009. It was commissioned by the Indianapolis Symphony, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and The Curtis Institute of Music. The concerto is published by Lawdon Press, which is run by Higdon’s longtime partner Cheryl Lawson. Read Higdon’s program note on the piece here. In January, Higdon, 48, received the Grammy Award for...

If you’re open to noticing it, music of gay composers is being performed all the time.  I’ve just made it my job to point it out now and then. And there’s a nice stream of special events during the second week of April in Manhattan. Here’s the run down: Choral works of JOHN CORIGLIANO and MARK ADAMO. New York Virtuoso Singers, Harold Rosenbaum, conductor 3 p.m. Sunday April 11 St. Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church Surely it’s no accident that these two composers are paired on the same program, but the choir’s website never mentions that the two are married. _________ Copland’s...

Big classical music institutions (i.e. symphonies and opera companies) have long been on the Stephen Sondheim bandwagon and the occasion of his 80th birthday year (which is today–3/22/10) has been a great excuse for them to further horn in on the musical theatre domain, where the composer has excelled. But one classical pianist, Anthony de Mare, has come up with a fresh approach to celebrating Sondheim.  About five years ago, de Mare began talking with composer friends — and he knows lots of composers — about them making short (10 minutes or less) piano arrangements/reworkings/homages...

British composer, conductor and pianist Thomas Ades, 39, is no stranger to Carnegie Hall. He and/or his music seems to be there multiple times every season lately.  And on Saturday March 27, he makes his piano recital debut in the big hall, Stern Auditorium. His program features a “concert paraphrase” (sounds like Liszt) of his own opera, “Powder Her Face” (1995).  Can’t forget that when the opera was performed in a semi-staged version at BAM in the late 90s, the biggest hook for news coverage was the oral sex scene. The rest of Ades’ program is wide ranging,...

The internationally known opera director Francesca Zambello has been named the new general and artistic director of Glimmerglass Opera. She assumes her post in Cooperstown on September 1st, succeeding Michael MacLeod who leaves at the end of the summer season after a five-year tenure. “Francesca Zambello brings a wealth of experience.  She will take the company to a new level of excellence,” said Elizabeth Eveillard, Chair of the Board of Trustees of Glimmerglass Board. “It is a great honor and personal pleasure to be invited to lead the company,” said Zambello in a press statement. Having...