Ten years ago pianist Christopher O’Riley needed something to play as filler for the “station identification” breaks during the first season of “From the Top,” the weekly syndicated radio show about young musicians.  He started dabbling with piano arrangements of songs by Radio Head, the alternative rock band.  His imaginative treatments of the music — ruminative, stirring and colorful — opened up an entirely new career avenue for O’Riley, who performs a program of original arrangements and classical selections on Sunday afternoon at The Egg in Albany. “There’s a crosspollination...

Where would church music be without the centuries of contributions from gay men? Actually where would the church itself be, including the priesthood… but that’s another discussion. Virgil Thomson wrote his share of sacred music and a big batch of it is included in the new collection “Heaven is Music,” (Albany Records).  The performances by the Gregg Smith Singers are from throughout the choir’s long history, presumably drawn from both concerts and recording sessions. In the back of the CD booklet there’s a little caveat the about the mixture of digital and analog recordings. While...

One morning a month or two ago I was in the car and “The Writer’s Almanac” with Garrison Keillor came on the radio.  After the list of birthdays and such, the short segment ended, “And here’s a poem by Ricky Ian Gordon…” I wanted to shout out, “Wait! He’s a composer! He’s ours!” But the plain spoken sentiment, as well as the unique name, meant it had to be the same guy.  (“The Tulips,” the poem that Keillor read, is available on the Writer’s Almanac site.) More evidence of Gordon’s activity as a poet comes with the new disc of “Green Snakers” (Blue Griffin Recordings), ...

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 been enough for these still ambitious performers.  Instead, with music director and accompanist Paul Ford they crafted a seamless evening of scenes — dramatic, comic...

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 speaks to me on so many levels.  I was raised very Catholic — star altar boy, 16 years of Catholic education, and plenty of years in church music or “pastoral music”...

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 & Winter is up for a Grammy Award this weekend in the classical category Best Crossover Album. Tho Theo can do all kinds of wild and experimental things with his voice (why...

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, is a composer with ample classical chops, but he also knows how to improvise — and not just with notes. He turned his long-scheduled return to The Egg on Friday night into a...

Mark Adamo’s “Late Victorians” comes from the large body of musical works that somehow or other address AIDS.  Composers — primarily if not exclusively gay composers — have been grappling with the subject for 25 years now.  According to my research for the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS, the first work in the genre was “Inquiries of Hope: Ten Poems of Kirby Congdon” (1984) by the late Louis Weingarden.  The list continues to grow, as Ricky Ian Gordon has just released a CD of “Green Sneakers” (2007) a response to his partner’s death.  The most famous of them...

The contemporary performing arts in New York have no better friend than GWEN DEELY. She’s as devoted and busy an audience member as they come.  (All the more so, since she’s got a day job and doesn’t get free tickets like us critics.) I visit her in Manhattan regularly and she always gives me a report of the great events she’s attended. This year she seemed to have had a lot of peak experiences, including her own performances as a chorister at the Guggenheim, BAM and Lincoln Center. A former staff member of the music publisher C.F. Peters and also Composers Recordings, Inc., Gwen wrote...

Everybody knows that gay men do up the best holiday decorations. But what about music for the season? Well, “The Nutcracker” and “The Messiah” are bigger and older hits than even “Rudolph” or “White Christmas,” at least in my book. And both were written by gay men, Tchaikovsky and Handel, respectively. There’s nothing quiet as inspired as “The Messiah,” at least the Christmas section, but performances of the full oratorio can be a slog, even if the choir is up to snuff.  ”The Nutcracker” is something else all together. My...