Every year I make an effort to make a playlist for pride month attempting to highlight LGBTQ musicians in genres or spaces that some people may not expect, and this year I had some trouble deciding what kind of theme to do, until I listened to the 2021 recording of Julius Eastman's Feminine by the ensemble Wild Up. Eastman was a black gay man operating in the wold of the New York Post-Modernist/Minamalist scene. His flame burned brightly, but tragically briefly, and this piece, one of his earlier ones is gorgeous. And so I decided that I'd get a little intellectual and share some of my favorite chamber (classical, if you will) and experimental compositions either written by or recorded by LGBTQ artists. I could expand on this list with some composers who were debatably outside of the realm of heterosexuality, such as Camille Saint Saens or Handel, but I wanted to only include the composers that were more or less out. Luckily there's a venerable list here! In addition to Eastman, there's chameleonic cellist/art pop/disco/minimalist composer in his own right Arthur Russell, iconic American composers like Aaron Copland and Samuel Barber, firebrand experimentalists Annea Lockwood, Meredith Monk, and Paulien Oliveros, instrument inventor Harry Partch, world renowned pianist Vladimir Horowitz, Leonard Bernstein, who needs little introduction (if any), trans electronic music pioneer Wendy Carlos, women's suffragist and part time composer Ethel Smyth, master of recorded sound degradation William Basinski, Peter Grimes composer Benjamin Britten, champion and/or bane of pretentious music lovers everywhere John Cage, and of course, Tchaikovsky.
This is just a small snapshot of contributions of LGBTQ people to the great Music Canon™, and my knowledge of some aspects of chamber music is admittedly spotty, so I'm sure there are many, many more great compositions out there to hear! But hopefully you find something in here to listen to! Given the nature of many of these compositions it is my longest playlist yet, despite probably the fewest inclusions, so take some time to enjoy them, possibly with a nice cup of tea 🙂
