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. ...

A FULL EVENING OF ORCHESTRAL MUSIC BY HENRY COWELL When’s the last time that’s happened anywhere? Leave it to Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra to make it happen. 8 p.m. Friday January 29, Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center (pre-concert talk at 6:45 p.m.) The program: Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 3 (1944) Atlantis (1931) ( NY Premiere ) Variations for Orchestra (1959) Symphony No. 2, “Anthropos”...

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...

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...

Sharon Isbin performed solo and with Joshua Bell in an Evening of Classical Music at the White House on November 4. Here’s a shot of the First Listeners taking it in, followed by two beautiful clips, compliments of the White House. In the first, Sharon performs Albeniz’s Asturias and Mangoré’s Waltz Op. 8, No. 4, then it’s a duet of Paganini’s Cantabile.

With five entries in each of more than 100 categories, the nominations for the 52nd annual Grammy Awards (announced on December 2) surely include plenty of gays and lesbians. But scanning the classical nominations, we’ve got: Conductor Marin Alsop’s recording of Bernstein’s Mass nominated for Best Classical Album Guitarist Sharon Isbin’s “Journey to the New World” nominated for Best Instrumental...

Conrad Cummings’s fourth opera is “The Golden Gate” based on the best selling “novel in verse” by his old friend Vikram Seth.  The action takes place in the early ’80s in San Francisco, which is where the composer and novelist first became acquainted.  Set in two acts with a libretto by the composer, the opera has been in the works since 2006 and, as Conrad discusses on his web site,...

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...

Last Tuesday night in New York I was the guest at a lovely little dinner party at the home of Denes Striny.  He’s a tenor and voice teacher and later that evening his most famous student, soprano Lauren Flanigan, would be starring in a revival of Hugo Weisgall’s “Esther” at the New York City Opera.  We’ve become friends because we are both former students of Michael Cordovana, a retired assistant conductor from...

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...