He’s the principal cellist in the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, but Jeffrey Krieger is widely known in new music circles as an electric cellist. For some 20 years now he’s played the electrified instrument and collaborated extensively with a wide range of composers in the creation of multimedia performance works involving computer and videos. A 1993 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts made possible extensive...

As a trombonist and composer Monique Buzzarté has performed in traditional orchestras and chamber music settings and collaborated in the most advanced realms of new compositional and experimental techniques.  Based in New York, she was dubbed a “Soloist Champion” by Meet the Composer in 2008 for her long advocacy of contemporary works.  Since 1983, her project New Music from Women: Trombone has commissioned...

David Leisner can’t escape Spanish music. He’s a guitarist. “It’s been a crusade since early in my career to demonstrate that guitar programs don’t need to have Spanish music,” says Leisner.  “Most of the guitar repertoire is not Spanish at all! The pieces most people think of by Albeniz and Granados were originally piano pieces. “The majority of music written for the guitar before the 20th century...

Raise your hand if you can name a GLTB community orchestra. (And it doesn’t count if you or your spouse is a member of one!) Sure, there’s lots of gay choruses. Here in little Albany, New York we’ve actually go two. And GLTB marching bands usually show up out of the woodwork when it’s time for a parade. But gay orchestras?? Well, I can find ten.  They’re located in five countries, with two launched...

Douglas Quint can’t remember which came first in life, ice cream or music. But he’s made both into professional pursuits. As a bassoonist he’s got an active freelance career across the northeast and a fine pedigree, having studied at Tanglewood and earned a bachelors from the Manhattan School of Music and a masters from The Juilliard School.  He’s a member of the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston and with his long-time...

Big classical music institutions (i.e. symphonies and opera companies) have long been on the Stephen Sondheim bandwagon and the occasion of his 80th birthday year (which is today–3/22/10) has been a great excuse for them to further horn in on the musical theatre domain, where the composer has excelled. But one classical pianist, Anthony de Mare, has come up with a fresh approach to celebrating Sondheim.  About five years...

British composer, conductor and pianist Thomas Ades, 39, is no stranger to Carnegie Hall. He and/or his music seems to be there multiple times every season lately.  And on Saturday March 27, he makes his piano recital debut in the big hall, Stern Auditorium. His program features a “concert paraphrase” (sounds like Liszt) of his own opera, “Powder Her Face” (1995).  Can’t forget that when the...

The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Chorus with music director David Robertson will premiere Meredith Monk’s newest orchestral work in a one-night-only performance on Saturday, March 13. Along with the as-yet-untitled piece, the program will feature Monk’s 3-minute hit “Panda Chant” (1984) and another work for orchestra and chorus, “Night” (1996/2005).  Monk and members of her vocal ensemble...

Cellist Eric Edberg trained at the North Carolina School of the Arts, the Juilliard School, SUNY Stony Brook, and Florida State University and is a faculty member at the DePauw University School of Music in Greencastle, Indiana. He writes a marvelous blog about whatever musical matters are on his mind and sometimes they also involve being gay. That caught My Big Gay Eye and I reached out to him by email. Little did I know...

Macho star of the Bourne film franchise Matt Damon will play the gay lover of Liberace in a Steven Soderbergh film slated for 2012. As previously announced, Michael Douglas has been cast as the most flamboyant pianist in history. “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...