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...

Twenty years before actress Meryl Streep and author/director Nora Ephron brought Julia Child to the silver screen with “Julie & Julia,” composer Lee Hoiby put the famous chef on the operatic stage.  His operetta “Bon Appetit!” starred Jean Stapleton (Edith Bunker) and debuted at the Kennedy Center in 1989 before going on to a successful run Off Broadway. Like many of Hoiby’s other theatrical works, “Bon Appetit!” was created in collaboration with his companion Mark Shulgasser.  The couple have long lived in a far western nook of the Catskills, the little town of Callicoon,...

Margaret Cho made her reputation with her mouth, which is as funny as it is foul.  The stand up comic, who appears Saturday night at The Egg in Albany, has developed a cult following through live performance, various television appearances and several concert films.  Through it all, she’s found humor in cringe inducing topics like exploring her bisexual side, the embarrassment of returning rented porn videos late, and even the chores associated with her menstrual cycles. “If Richard Pryor had a period, he’d talk about,” she once declared. Given her success, Cho’s certainly never had...