On the morning of 9/11 from his Greenwich Village apartment, David Del Tredici could hear the sirens — and their unsettling sound opens his newest work “Paul Revere’s Ride.” Patriotism may have led Del Tredici to the famous Longfellow poem (“Listen my children and you shall hear…”), but his grand and colorful setting for soprano, chorus and orchestra is more fantasy than jingoism. It receives a thrilling,...

Tenors will forever owe a high note of thanks to the late gay British composer Benjamin Britten, since virtually everyone of his many works featured a glorious role for his lover, the late tenor Peter Pears. One of the most intriguing British singers since Pears is tenor Ian Bostridge who takes up three prime Britten song cycles in a beautiful new recording with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Simon Rattle (EMI). Bostridge...

In the anything-goes environment of the 1970s musical avant-garde, the late African American composer and baritone Julius Eastman was both out and outrageous. Giving his pieces names like “Crazy Nigger” and “Gay Guerrilla,” he apparently took inspiration from Richard Pryor (“That Nigger’s Crazy”) as much as from any high-minded musical theorems. Eastman’s antics even managed to rattle the Zen-like John Cage,...

After gay composer Ned Rorem turned 80 back in 2003, he decided to try some things that he’d not done in a long time, like going into a bar. “Since I don’t drink or smoke anymore, I don’t know what to do in a bar,” says Rorem, who nevertheless went looking for distraction at the Townhouse, a sweaterbar on Manhattan’s upper east side. “I stayed for 28 seconds,” he says. That was long enough for a 38-year-old...

“I dreamed of dancing as a child,” says gay dancer and choreographer Richard Daniel. “But I thought a good Midwestern Jewish boy didn’t go to dance class.” Being a good boy hasn’t been a priority for sometime now, but Daniels, 54, still seems haunted by youth.  How else to explain his fascination with Apollo, the eternally young god of art and creativity? For “Telling Tales,” his program of dances for the...

For more than 20 years, he’s been a star in the most elite realm of classical ballet. But his name is more like ESPN. Jock Soto was a mere 16 years old in 1981 when Peter Martins, director of the New York City Ballet, plucked him out of the company’s school. Just four years later Soto was promoted to the troupe’s top tier of dancers. “At that time I was the youngest principal. I was in shock. It was hard to live up...

It was early July 1965, just a few nights before the grand opening of the new Saratoga Performing Arts Center. New York City Ballet dancer Shaun O’Brien and his companion, Broadway actor Cris Alexander, were in a taxi on their way to a late supper at Hattie’s Chicken Shack. The crusty cabdriver asked the two men what they were doing in town. O’Brien explained that he was with New York City Ballet, which was...

His husband. Her wife. The coupling of these words may cause your tongue to stumble, but for many people in committed gay or lesbian relationships, the terms are longed-for alternatives to euphemisms like partner, companion or lover. Yet there’s far more at stake in the cause of same-sex marriage than just better terminology. Filmmaker and Troy native Jim de Seve, whose documentary “Tying the Knot” opens...

“I’m the type, if I see something I tackle it,” says classical pianist Anthony de Mare. And he’s not just speaking figuratively. The pianist, who makes his Carnegie Hall debut on March 15, is known for throwing his bulked-up body fully into his music making. In “Playin’ Myself,” his 2001 show that toured the U.S. and abroad, de Mare recited poetry, sang and even tap danced – all while playing the piano....

“Whitman and his universal message of love and tolerance and embracing real freedom needs to be heard,” says the gay jazz pianist and composer Fred Hersch, discussing his new recording “Leaves of Grass” (Palmetto). The disc features musical settings of the great gay poet Walt Whitman and coincides with the 150th anniversary of the first publication of the landmark collection “Leaves of Grass.” “Just as Whitman...