“The Other Mendelssohn” is the name of musicologist R. Larry Todd’s latest book, a thorough-going biography of Fanny Mendessohn Hensel that uncovers lots of unknown material, perhaps most importantly about the large number of her own works as a composer. If you’re currently busy surfing the web, then you may be like me and not have sat down, turned off the media and read a good music biography in more than a while. So, in honor of Women’s History Month, the author has been good enough to give people like us some highlights of Fanny’s life and almost forgotten...

On the night of January 12 in Minneapolis, Jeffrey Brooks had a dream in which his friend and fellow composer Eleanor Hovda appeared, informed him that she had died, and urged him to pass on word to David Lang, another close friend and the co-founder of Bang on a Can in New York. Hovda had indeed passed away, exactly two months prior, after eight years of declining health and a three-month stay in a hospice in northern Arkansas.  Hovda, 69, shared a home in Fayetteville with her companion of 20 years, the conductor Jeannine Wagar. A native of Minnesota, Hovda spent much of her career in New York...

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 artists, Lastovicka, a composer who lives in Philmont, New York (Columbia County) and E.M. Lauricella, a poet from Yellow Springs, Ohio. “There are definite analogies to...

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 as 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 and sometimes even to large audiences he could be quite a risque reconteur. Here’s an excerpt from Anthony Tommasini’s 2005 profile for the New York Times: A proud...

But he does seem to have trouble with the whole “living composer” thing. The evidence? He recently started a fundraising endeavor aimed at producing more concerts and recordings of his music and named it “Martin Hennessy is Dead!” Martin’s frustrations with the music business are common, of course. After all, not everybody can be a John Corigliano or Jennifer Higdon.  It’s a given that being an artist in our society requires a healthy dose of fortitude and self reliance.  But one’s storehouse of such inner strengths can run low at times. In 2008, Martin’s comic opera...

Around 1998 when I was pulling together artists for the disc “Lesbian American Composers,” Laura Kaminsky wrote me a rather curt letter about the whole project. A simple “No, thanks” would have sufficed. I’d actually forgotten about that, having put out of my mind some of the stormier aspects of bringing to market that title and the two volumes of “Gay American Composers” discs at CRI.  But Laura and I have remained friends for years and she herself reminded me of the letter about a year ago when we had a little reunion at Symphony Space. The occasion...

Does anybody remember Day Without Art? December 1st is still World AIDS Day but in the arts today AIDS ain’t hot any more. That’s both good and bad, I suppose.  Our artists aren’t dropping like flies, as they did in the late 80s and early 90s. But HIV still takes a heavy toil on gay men, just more subtly and more slowly. (For evidence, see “Another Kind of AIDS Crisis” from the November 9, 2009 edition of New York Magazine.) Back in the day, the worlds of dance and visual art appeared to suffer the most AIDS deaths. Music’s involvement seemed to be more about fundraising through concerts...

Chris DeBlasio (1959-1993) Twenty years ago in New York Mimi Stern-Wolfe, a pianist/conductor/impressario, started producing concerts of music by composers with AIDS, roughly timed to coincide with World AIDS Day.  Among those who attended performances of their music were Chris DeBlasio, Kevin Oldham and Lee Gannon (all now deceased), as well as the still very vital Fred Hersch.  A CD of highlights was released a few years ago, and a chronology of the series is available at www.ArtistsWithAIDS.org. The series returns again this year on Sunday December 6 at St. Marks in the Bowery. The program...

One of Lee Hoiby’s most popular works in recent years is a setting of the final correspondence from US soldier Jesse Givens before his death in Iraq in 2003.  ”Last Letter Home” has already been performed as a work for male chorus or for solo baritone. On November 8 in La Jolla, California a new version with string orchestra debuted. Here’s a video of baritone Andrew Garland performing with Hoiby at the piano.

After being a fixture in lower Manhattan for several decades, lesbian composer Eve Beglarian has gone on a yearlong quest in search of America. For her exploration of the heartland she’s traversing our continent’s major artery, the Mississippi River. Her journey began in August at the river’s headwaters in Lake Itasca, Minnesota. With a car, a kayak, and a bike, plus the company of various fellow travelers (friends who sign on for a few days or weeks at a time), Beglarian is following the water’s southern flow and getting to know the sights and sounds of the river and the land, the cities...