Fred Hersch

“If you think too far ahead you drop the ball. This is why tennis and jazz are very similar,” he says, in the documentary “The Lives of Fred Hersch.”  He continues, “you have to play what is in front of you and what appears, and react to it.”

On Friday night he’ll be performing a solo piano concert at Chapin Hall in Williamstown, Mass.  “People should come expecting original music, and definitely some things by Thelonious Monk and some reworked standards,” he says.

Like the notes that arrive at his finger tips, the final order of the program will be spontaneous. “I’ll be deciding as I go,” says Hersch.

Hailed as one of today’s finest jazz pianists, Hersch is up for two Grammy Awards for his latest disc, “Alone at the Vanguard.”    Apart from his skills as both improviser and composer, Hersch’s health condition over the last 25 years has provided plenty of opportunity to stay present, both literally and figuratively.

In 1986, Hersch was diagnosed with HIV.  Soon after, he went public about his condition. More importantly, he survived the darkest era of the AIDS epidemic, when seemingly an entire generation of artists died in their prime.  Advancements in treatment, though, haven’t meant the end of problems.

In late 2009, Hersch suffered a precipitous decline, as a persistent cough led to a major infection. Late that year he was rushed by his partner to an emergency room, where doctors put him under a medically induced coma that lasted for two months.

“After I came out of it, it was a good 8 months til I could eat, talk or walk.  It was a near death thing and was going down hill fast,” says Hersch. “If I’d not gotten to the hospital when I did, I might not be talking to you.”

It seems an understatement to say that Hersch had a determination to continue with life and music.

In the year after rehabilitation was complete, he recorded two new albums.  He also began remembering the dream world of his coma, which included dancing a tango aboard a luxury airplane and hanging out with Thelonious Monk.  At first, he just typed out the fantasies into a computer file and got on with things.  But eventually he shared them with a friend, the writer and director Herschel Garfein, who fashioned them into a dramatic scenario that mixes the surreal dream world with the cold reality of the hospital.

The resulting show, “My Coma Dreams,” with original music by Hersch, was developed at Montclair State University last spring and subsequently had a short run in San Francisco.   Hersch describes the event as “jazz theater” and says that future productions are in the works.

“The people who’ve seen it have been moved and inspired by it and that’s what we want as artist,” he says. “So we achieved what we set out to do.”

Accomplishing what he sets out to do is typical of Hersch, who lists a large number of current projects, including a new set of songs for jazz vocalist Kurt Elling, and supervising a spring performance of his 2005 song cycle “Leaves of Grass” at the New England Conservatory, where he’s been a faculty member since 1980.  Touring, recording and teaching are ever on-going.

“I don’t sit around. I’m always doing stuff and I’m clinically and energetically better than I’ve been in years. The drugs are working,” says Hersch. “In November I had a full month of touring with my trio to eight countries. I came back in fine shape. Five years ago, I would have been whipped. It’s remarkable.”

“As an artist, we never know what’s going to come along and strike our fancy. I try to be open but also instigate things,” he says. “You have to roll with life and have patience and also know when to push yourself.”

Originally appeared in the Times Union.

Previously on My Big Gay Ears:

“Jazz and the Queer Aesthetic” in JazzTimes

Fred Hersch profile in the New York Times

Fred Hersch’s Whitman tunes

Kushner has a penchant for taking on big projects and important themes, starting with his most famous work, “Angels in America,” a six-hour, two-part play about AIDS that received the Pulitzer Prize in 1993. For further evidence of his ambition, as well as a somewhat outrageous sense of humor, consider the title of his most recent major play: “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures.”

Yet for all Kushner’s big involvements, he recently took time to come up with just the right new three-syllable word to replace another word that he decided was a little too mundane. It was while in the midst of final rehearsals in Cooperstown, where the Glimmerglass Festival is producing the world premiere of “A Blizzard on Marblehead Neck.” The new one-act opera by composer Jeanine Tesori, to an original libretto by Kushner, debuts tonight (7/21) and runs for five more performances through Aug. 22.

“When writing in verse forms, there are various strictures that you have to obey and a somewhat mathematical precision in searching for a word that will fit,” explains Kushner. “Writing lyrics, instead of writing language that’s supposed to approximate how people speak spontaneously, forces you in a slightly different relationship to language. It knocks the dust off the machinery a little bit.”

Creating “Blizzard” is certainly not Kushner’s first time immersed in music. His parents were professional musicians, and he has already collaborated extensively with composer Tesori. Their through-composed musical “Caroline, or Change” played on Broadway for 136 performances in 2004 and received six Tony Award nominations. The team also has an outstanding commission from the Metropolitan Opera.

“I can’t write or read music, but I love it, and go the opera all the time, though I’m sort of up and down about musical theatre,” says Kushner. “I love the chance at having this intimate connection to singing and to music.”

Asked if there’s a difference between writing for an opera versus a musical, Kushner turns to the diverging nature of the genres and their practitioners.

”I’m not entirely sure of the difference between a musical or opera, but when you go into an opera company with people trained to sing operatically, the expectation is different,” he says. ” ‘Caroline, or Change’ was commissioned for the San Francisco Opera with Bobby McFerrin, but he decided he didn’t want to write an opera. Director George Wolfe was happy about that, because he wanted to work with musical theater performers, not opera singers. There are certain things that musical theatre people know how to do that opera people don’t and vice versa.”

Similar to slotting in words to fit a musical line, Kushner and Tesori were given a very specific task when commissioned last year by Glimmerglass and Francesca Zambello, the company head who is staging the new work. Zambello already had in mind to produce “Later The Same Evening,” by John Musto and Mark Campell, a one-act that deals with the life of painter Edward Hopper. As a companion piece, Zambello requested another one-act about the life of an American artist. Kushner immediately thought of playwright Eugene O’Neill.

“I’m an O’Neill fanatic and have been working on a screenplay about his life for the past 13 years,” says Kushner. “If you’re a playwright, you go to O’Neill as the source. There’s really not much in the way of serious American theatre before he came along. He proved it could exist. He’s the father of us all, the first to stake a claim nationally and internationally for American dramatic literature.”

“A Blizzard on Marblehead Neck” depicts a rather infamous incident that occurred late in O’Neill’s life. It’s February 1951 and O’Neill, 63, gets into a heated argument with his wife, Carlotta. Although in failing health, he walks out of their cabin into a snowstorm and is rescued an hour later.

“The fight that he and Carlotta had almost ended their marriage, but in a sense he never recovered from it,” explains Kushner. “After an hour in the snow, he went into the hospital and stayed fairly seriously infirmed for the rest of his life.”

“Their relationship is a tortured love story. Most great ones are,” adds Kushner.

Besides the husband and wife roles, the opera includes three singers who portray famous drama critics of the era. They’re evoked through some insults the wife hurls at her husband, the sensitive artist. Dealing with tough reviews is a sore spot Kushner can identify with.

“The relationship between critics and playwrights is infinitely tormented,” says Kushner. “If you know of any artist who has no ax to grind, I’d love to meet them and find their secret.”

Kushner says the new opera is one of the shortest things he’s ever written. Just 20 pages of text, it spills out over some 40 minutes of music. Though the work is completed and ready to debut, Kushner’s enterprise starts to show through again during the final rehearsals in Cooperstown.

“When I was watching it, I had a vision of expanding it,” he says. “I’m very pleased with it and think I’ll try to give it further life. I’d like to write more, add one or two other sections, maybe make it a complete evening.”

Match the artist on the left with his (or her!) album/song/ensemble/venue on the right.  Answers follow.

Martin Bartlett                                                                           “Shakespeare’s Cabaret”

Louis A Botto                                                                              “A Letter for Queen Victoria”

Esquerita                                                                                     New York Philharmonic

Lewis M. Friedman                                                                  ”Im Nin’Alu”

Ofra Haza                                                                                    “Vintage Voola”

Paul Jacobs                                                                                Stompers

Christopher Keene                                                                     Reno Sweeney

Alan Lloyd                                                                                  The Western Frontier

Lance Mulcahy                                                                         “Knots Landing”

Will Parker                                                                                 Chanticleer

Larry Riley                                                                                  New York City Opera

Louis Weingarden                                                                   “The AIDS Quilt Songbook”

The Canadian electronic music composer Martin Bartlett (1939-1993) was a co-founder of The Western Frontier a cultural cooperative, gallery and performance space in Vancouver.

Tenor Louis A. Botto founded the men’s choir Chanticleer in San Francisco in 1978 and sang with it through 1989 when he devoted himself to administration and direction.

Esquerita (1935-1986) was a singer, songwriter and pianist (born Eskew Reeder Jr.). Known as a manic rock and roll performer, in the vein of Little Richard, a some-time rival.  His 1997 album was titled “Vintage Voola.”

A composer, pianist and impresario, Lewis M. Friedman (1944-1992) who in New York ran the cabaret Reno Sweeney from 1972 to 1977 and rock club s.n.a.f.u.  from 1980 to 1984.

Ofra Haza (1957-2000) was an Israeli singer and actress. Her biggest hit was “Im Nin’Alu” from her 1988 album “Shaday.”

Paul Jacobs (1930-1986) was the pianist and harpsichordist for the New York Philharmonic as well as a noted advocate of American composers. Elliott Carter wrote the piece “Night Fantasies” for him and spoke at his funeral.

Conductor Christopher Keene (1946-1995) was music director of the New York City Opera from 1982 to 1986 and succeeded Beverly Sills as General Director in 1989, a position he held until his death.  He was also co-founder of the Spoleto Festival USA.

Alan Lloyd (1943-1986) wrote the music for the Robert Wilson opera/theater piece “A Letter for Queen Victoria,” which played on Broadway for three previews and 18 performances in 1975.

Lance Mulcahy (1931-1995) wrote 17 musical theater works including two shows that ran on Broadway, “Park” (1970) and “Shakespeare’s Cabaret,” which played for 12 previews and 54 performances at the Bijou Theater in 1981 and earned Mulcahy a Tony nomination for Best Score.

Baritone Will Parker (1944-1993) created “The AIDS Quilt Songbook,” which debuted at Alice Tully Hall in June 1992 with 20 songs by a variety of composers and which has been expanded continually over the years.

A composer as well as an actor, Larry Riley (1952-1992) joined the cast of the prime time soap opera “Knot’s Landing” in 1988. He wrote the music for many of episodes of the show.  His stage credits include taking over the lead role in the original Bob Fosse production of “Pippin” (replacing Ben Vereen) and also appearing in the premiere production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “A Soldier’s Play.”

A classical composer, Louis Weingarden (1943-1989) was also a leather man who ran Stompers on West Fourth Street in Greenwich Village in the 1970s. It was a combination boot store and homoerotic art gallery (one of the first in New York) that exhibited Robert Mapplethorpe and Tom of Finland among others.

Principal source: Music Archive of the Estate Project for Artists with AIDS, by Joseph Dalton and Nurit Tilles.

• Nico Muhly and host Nadi Sirota play and discuss music of John Corigliano, Benjamin Britten and Lou Harrison

• Alex Ross (The New Yorker) and Ann Powers (Los Angeles Times) and host Terrance McKnight examine the out artists as well as the secretive/coded histories in 20th century music.

• Pauline Oliveros retraces her life from dance halls in Houston Texas to the experimental scene of California and New York.

• Gretchen Phillips and Kenny Mellman (Kiki and Herb) talk with David Garland and spin a wide range of favorites.

The entire thing is archived and available for listening. Sit back and enjoy.

Here are a few excerpts from the discussions.

I was born in 1981 which for a lot of purposes is after a lot of the really interesting stuff in the history of gay rights happened.  the battles of the 60s are sort of over…

As a young gay composer you have a lot of grandfathers and great grandfathers who you can look to. I imagine myself in a kind of constant dialogue with Benjamin Britten for instance because I find the coding of his homosexuality so interesting… I’m such a language nerd that I find myself doing the same things now, even though it’s sort of old fashioned.

– Nico Muhly

There have always been distinct links between classical music and gay culture going back to the days of Oscar Wilde. All the way through the 20th century and even the latter part of the 19th century, classical music has been an oasis, a refgue for gay men and women. Growing up you try to identify with pop music, but it has an explicit heterosexual context – boy meets girl. If you’re listing to something like Tchaikovsky’s “Pathetique” Symphony, It’s all abstract…

Then in the 1930s and 40s, it suddenly seems there’s this great surge of gay male composers in such numbers that they almost become the dominate party.  Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, Samuel Barber, Gian Carlo Menotti, Lou Harrison, Henry Cowell, Harry Partch, Leonard Bernstein on certain days of the week. Classical music became a beachhead for a more mature gay identity.

– Alex Ross

Thanks to Gay Ears reader Limor Tomer for alerting me to this terrific program.

Music would seem to unite Ohlsson and Chopin across the centuries. But even there, Ohlsson points out a contrast: “I love playing concerts. He hated playing concerts.”

Ohlsson will be playing another concert – all Chopin – this Thursday night at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, in honor of the Polish composer’s bicentennial year. It will be the opening of the 114th season of the Troy Chromatics and Ohlsson’s third appearance for the series.

One of today’s top virtuosos, Ohlsson, 62, was the first American to win the prestigious International Frederick Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 1970.  Over the subsequent years he’s embraced a broad range of repertoire. For example, he played Rachmaninoff this past summer with the Philadelphia Orchestra at SPAC and a Martinu concerto with the Albany Symphony Orchestra just last year.

Yet Chopin has always held a place of honor, not just because of the competition that launched his career.

“Growing up in New York I thought an all-Chopin recital was just a part of life,” he recalls. “I heard them with Rubenstein and Horowitz and Pollini and Ashkenazy. But it doesn’t seem to be as common now.”

Certainly there’s a huge amount of works by the composer to chose from. Ohlsson concurs, “I try to show his whole range and variety and that’s not difficult to do.”

“In the 19th century he was much criticized for writing salon music, but that’s a bit of myth. He did write lots of little two-minute things but he wasn’t always obsessed with the miniature,” continues Ohlsson. “In Troy I’ll begin with one of those narcotic nocturnes but then conclude the first half with a major piece, the F-sharp minor Polonaise, a big tragic statement. This is epic poetry, not small bites.”

Speaking of poetry, Ohlsson is well aware of the popular ideas of Chopin — who died in 1849 at age 39 — as the ultimate, tragic romantic.

“There’s that bad Hollywood idea of a neurotic composer who dropped his quill into perfume to write for a lovesick contessa. Those are just hyper-romantic, morbid ideas,” he says.

“In fact, Chopin helped change western music. He was the most harmonically advanced composer of his time and considered a wild child,” continues Ohlsson. “He was also writing masterpieces at age 19.  Okay, he wasn’t quiet as precocious as Mozart but what do you want?”

Originally appeared in the Times Union, Albany, NY.

Gay Ears addendum:

Ohlsson was quiet talkative and friendly during our phone interview. Because I’d gotten more than enough material from him for a little story to preview his Chopin recital, I decided the time was right to ask whether he remembered Louis Weingarden. A composer who died of AIDS in 1989, Weingarden wrote a solo piece and a piano concerto for Ohlsson.  I was curious whether Ohlsson had any interest in such ancient history.

William Hibbard (1939-1989)

“Oh Lou and I were good friends, roommates for a time and I’m planning to record his Tryptich. It will be part of an album that includes another composer who died of AIDS, William Hibbard,” replied Ohlsson.  He added that he probably won’t get around to recording it until 2011 at the earliest and that it won’t be an AIDS or gay-themed disc, though he of course is gay and out.  He pointed to a 2003 profile in the New York Times by James Oestreich that referred to his living in San Francisco with his companion, Robert Guter.

I told him that all of this would be of interest to readers of this blog.  He asked that the Times Union not make a headline out of it (“Gay pianist comes to town”). I replied that it probably wouldn’t even come up in my newspaper story but that such a natural progression in the conversation was unusual and refreshing.  ”I’m no coward,” he said.

Arenas died of AIDS in 1990 at age 47 and the epidemic still seems potent material for musical exploration.  Just two years ago the Fort Worth Opera mounted the operatic version of “Angels in America.”   But AIDS is almost a minor topic in the new three hour-long work.  Freedom — artistic and sexual — is the more dominate theme.

From his bed Arenas pleads for his two muses, played by sopranos in glittery ball gowns and beehive hairdos, to take him back to his youth.  Soon he’s cavorting on the beaches of Cuba and we follow his entanglement in revolutionary politics, pursuit of love and companionship, and achievement of international fame with the overseas publication of his visionary writing.

The young baritone Wes Mason played Arenas with remarkable vocal stamina and  physical dexterity to give a vivid portrait of the character’s playful creativity and steely constitution.  The singing quality of the mostly young supporting cast, though, was very uneven.   Bass-baritone Seth Mease Carico played the revolutionary officer Victor with terrific strength and clarity and Jesus Garcia, as a fellow writer, was suitable though a bit anonymous.  Tenor Jonathan Blalock, as one of Arenas’s lovers, sang with a reedy, disembodied voice and soprano Janice Hall’s one scene as the mother was just unpleasant.   A hearty chorus of about 30 was dispatched as a militant band in the first half and disco revelers near the end.

The Manhattan and Cuban locales were evoked by projections on various scrims, which after a while gave the production a weightless, floating quality.  Riccardo Hernandez was credited with scenic design and Peter Nigrini with projections.  Maybe they intended their imagery to foreshadow Arenas’ troubled life, but the beach scenes always had a heavily clouded sky and overly bluish cast.   The stage of Bass Hall also just felt too big for the piece, with many performers exiting with long dashes into the wings.  The two all male dance numbers by choreographer John de los Santos were acrobatic, choppy, and rigid, while the narrative and Martin’s lush scoring called for sensuality and seduction.

There’s plenty of Latin dance rhythms throughout and overall the opera’s pacing is quick with lots of short scenes that keep things moving. Martin’s orchestration is traditional but sometimes daringly light and understated.  Some pivotal choruses and ensembles were performed a capella.

The composer made his own libretto with assistance from Dolores M. Koch, who was a translator of Arenas’ writings.  Too often they have the characters announcing their feelings rather then trusting the music to communicate the emotions.  But in a rare accomplishment, almost every word is intelligible — a testament to both the singers and Martin’s skill at setting text.  The supertitles, by the way, provided the English lyrics as well as a Spanish translation.

A beautiful tune comes in the first act when Arenas and a lover sing, “Oh, our unhappy island, when will your troubles be done?”  Near the end of the show, the emotional and political themes come together in the line: “My death notice came not from a tyrant but from my lovers.”

The opera itself seems bolder in its handling of gay content than does the production by director David Gately.  When Arenas applies for sanctuary in the U.S., he’s harshly questioned about his sexuality — even asked by an official if he’s a top or a bottom and ordered to swish about to prove he’s a fag.  (As if his hip huggers and loud flowered shirt weren’t enough.) It was an awkward and painful moment to watch but not unbelievable either.

So why did the Fort Worth audience laugh?  There was nothing particularly campy or clownish in Mason’s movement and his face communicated shame.  Giving the audience the benefit of the doubt, perhaps it was a collective discomfort that came out as a chuckle.

Such powerful material in the libretto and score only highlighted the contrast to the staging, which played it safe with gay sensuality.  There were only two male-to-male kisses in the entire production. Both were pecks on Arena’s forehead, more motherly than passionate. And then there were those stiff dance numbers, with the men knocking against each other almost like football players.

Fort Worth Texas might be the most conservative area of the country after Orange County California.

Seven people were arrested for drunkenness, though numerous reports say that the individuals were pulled from the crowd randomly and violently.  A 26-year old man was hospitalized with head injuries.

The event occurred on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in New York.

Reports from Dallas Voice on the arrests and the ensuing investigations and protests:  7/1/09, 7/16/09, 8/7/09, 8/20/09, 10/30/09, 12/30/09

Meanwhile…

The one of the city’s premiere arts organizations, the Fort Worth Opera is gay, gay, gay.

And that’s not a redundancy. Just look at what they’re putting on stage.

In 2008 FWO presented the first full American staging of the operatic version of Tony Kushner’s landmark “Angels in America,” composed by Peter Eotvos.  A concurrent series of events throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area was titled: “More Life: The Art & Science of AIDS.”

Ava Pine and David Adam Moore, Fort Worth Opera

And on Saturday night the Fort Worth Opera presents the world premiere of Jorge Martin’s “Before Night Falls,” based on the autobiography of Reinaldo Arenas. The gay Cuban writer died of AIDS in 1990 at age 47.  His memoir was published in English in 1993. A 2000 film version was directed by Julian Schnabel and starred Javier Bardem, who was nominated for an Academy Award.

Here’s composer Jorge Martin – a gay Cuban American who lives in Vermont – talking about writing an opera about a gay Cuban:

Other coverage:  Opera News: “Long Night of the Soul” by Adam Wasserman.

Synposis, biographies, background in FWO’s newsletter “Libretto”

“Before Night Falls” runs for two performances (May 29, June 6) in repertoire with the Fort Worth Opera’s other 2010 productions, “Don Giovani” (May 30, June 4) and “The Elixir of Love” (May 28, June 5).  Look for a review on this site after the June 6 performance.

Wes Mason as Reinaldo Arenas, Fort Worth Opera

Previously on MyBigGayEars:
Darren K. Woods, Administrative star and “turn around master”

But those who knew Yvar are surely grateful. And based on the stunning performance by Winston Choi in this new CD on Albany Records there are also new generations finding beauty and power in the music.

Let me admit that I enjoyed the notes by Nils Vigeland, Yvar’s former student, a pianist and a director of the Mikahshoff Trust, as much as the music on the CD.

Vigeland explains the pairing of Ravel’s “Gaspard de la Nuit” and Yvar’s most important composition, “Elemental Fragments.” One was modeled after the other and both are tour de forces of piano showmanship.  Yvar called his piece “a spiritual child of Ravel’s Gaspard…”

In Yvar’s work, the middle movement “Shaman” is my favorite. I heard it a few years ago as a stand-alone with its original name, “The Long Eyes of Earth,” played by Anthony de Mare, another former Yvar student. It’s like a big ritual or meditation and there’s a gliss in the high treble that repeats over and again, to suggest a rattle.  The piece is structured on the Fibanacci number sequence (1-2-3-5-8-13, etc.) and is exactly 688 measure long. Dan Brown, or rather his character Robert Langdon, would love it.

The common biographical statements on Yvar never give the full sense of personality that I’ve heard about, especially when De Mare talks about him. But Vigeland reveals some of Yvar’s inner conflicts and questions, especially about the tricky balance of being both composer and pianist, and lets the different sides of the man come through.

At the University of Buffalo in the early to mid-70s:

He agreed to play nearly everything, often with mixed results because he was non-judgemental concerning what he was asked to do. This led to extreme censure form thse members of the faculty that demanded aesthetic loyalty. Concerning this, he had no confederate. He was committed to doing things, not staking out a political position.  the value of these activities was less important to him than the doing of them.

If all the work didn’t always advance his career, I think the embrace of so many kinds of music foreshadowed our post-modern, post-Uptown vs. Downtown era.  Yvar would probably fit in better to today’s music scene, tho then he might not be Yvar.

A decade later:

…in 1984 appearing at that bastion of high modernism, Darmstadt’s Fereinkurse, as an uninvited recitalist.  Having shown up without prospect but with an international reputation, he was given an impromptu midnight gymnasium time slot to take his chances with an unplanned event. The room was packed, the young audience intrigued by the late extension of the day’s activities. Yvar strode to the piano, blue blazer, loud tie and boutonnier in place and launched into… Ginastera’s “Danzas Argentinas.” What would be the young disciples’ reaction to this decided “outsider art”? They went wild with enthusiasm.

I didn’t know Yvar but a story like that makes me sure wish I did.  He was born in Troy, New York, the city where I’ve lived since 2005.  He died of AIDS (a fact noticeably absent from Vigeland’s notes) in 1993 at age 52.

As profligate a performer and productive a composer (more than 50 works) as Yvar was, there’s still not much on disc. Mode Records started a series called Edition Mikhashoff more than a decade ago but has only released a few titles to date, though it has a cache of his recordings and grants and bequests to fund them.  Lets hope more of Yvar’s recorded legacy – performed by himself as well as others – continues to appear with more than a trickle.

“God bless Matt. Hey, it’s easy for me – he’s in his prime,” says Douglas to Sun Media of Canada. “I said to him, ‘Matt, I love you, man. Boy, that Bourne must really be going strong.’ But good for him. He’s right taking chances. All those young guys – (George) Clooney – they’re taking risks … It’s smart trying to mix it up a bit and maintain those franchises and still get to do a picture that turns you on.”

As for any risk to the career of Douglas, he says, “At this point and at my age, why not? It’s not all autographs and sunglasses.”

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),  a narrative song cycle of nearly an hour in length performed by baritone Jesse Blumberg and the Miami String Quartet.  The text is more than a dozen poems written by the composer — I mean the poet — about his late partner, Jeffrey Grossi, who died of AIDS in 1996.

In the CD booklet, Gordon explains the title: “There was a day when I was staring into our closet from the vast desolation of our bed, and his sad little green sneakers suggested to me a text about the day we bought them together… (It) seemed to pour out of me… a cycle of poems that tells the story of that day and the period after, leading all the way up to his death.”

Some of the poems sets a scene or narrate, while at other points the words are addressed directly to Jeffrey.  As well as a symbol of loss, the Green Sneakers become a kind of metaphor for travel as the couple vacations or attends performances of Gordon’s operas.  And Jeffrey’s decline is described in detail.  There’s the difficult transformation of normal day-to-day activities into grueling tasks and the inexorable loss of weight.  And then the death and its aftermath, both emotional, and mundane — including donating the green sneakers and the rest of Jeffrey’s fashionable wardrobe to a thrift shop.   It’s effecting stuff, even just to list it as I do here.

Gordon’s musical setting is heartfelt but remarkably driven and never truly maudlin.  It just perseveres onward, not unlike the work of a caretaker or survivor.

The string quartet is smart choice for an accompaniment and backdrop.  It provides enough varied textures, and a balance of intimacy and depth.  A single piano might have been too close range, especially for live performance, and yet an orchestra would be too grand of a horizon for such deeply personal stuff.

The performance is beautiful and like the composition itself just distant enough, not morose or ponderous.  Blumberg has a handsome sturdy voice and the Miami String Quartet is energetic and clear.

There’s no politics nor hardly any anger in this work that is nonetheless distinctly about AIDS. It’s part diary, part memory book and requires immersion and preparation for its emotional wallop.