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George Lewis – Minds in Flux – Music Review

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George Lewis - Minds in Flux I was asked to listen to and possibly review George Lewis and his work  ‘Minds in Flux’.  I decided to listen to some of his other works:

  • “Interactive Trio “for Trombone, Two Pianos, and Interactive Music System, 2011
  • George Lewis: Voyager

George Lewis was born on the 14th July, 1952in Chicago, Illinois, USA.  He is an American composer, performer, and scholar of ‘experimental music’.

As a writer and listener, I have not heard George Lewis before, I do love listening to a wide variety of music, from Choral singing to Wagner, to Dave Brubeck, Bach, Beethoven, Morricone, John Williams to name a few, indeed I have also listened to an interpretation of 2000AD-year-old Greek music.

I would say that the overriding quality I feel for music is melodiousness; it needs to create a feeling of encompassing joy. And unfortunately, I do not find that George’s music does this for me.  At the beginning of the 20th century, classical music took a turn (for me) for the worse.   Composers like Schoenberg sought to free the dissonance completely so that dissonant intervals and chords are equal to those of consonant ones. (Dissonance on the rise! – https://alevelmusic.com/alevelcompositionhelp/3-composition-into-the-c20/dissonance-on-the-rise/ )

As I have mentioned, I listen widely to music, and this includes other cultures, Chinese, Arabic, Persian, Indian – they all have remarkable music, and often to our Western ear their tones and spacing do not seem quite right – here I beg to differ, for often the music is sublime.

I find George’s music to well crafted, but, I do not find it encompassing, it sets my nerves on edge, and it does not wrap me in comfort.  Minds in Flux is 27 mins and 25 seconds long and Lewis says about his piece, “Digitally mediated entities emerge from the orchestra, to mutate into recombinant doppelgangers that follow diverse spatial trajectories around the hall”. 

It is well-crafted piece of music as I have already said, and brilliantly played by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Sounds Intermedia, Donald Runnicles (conductor) and Ilan Volkov (conductor), but compared to the other two pieces on the disc:

  • Ralph Vaughan Williams – Serenade to Music

and

  • Richard Wagner – Siegfried Idyll

I am left cold and without joy

 

Links:

Gisela Meyer at the NPL Musical Society

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Gisela Meyer plays pieces of the night

NPL Musical Society

On Friday the 18th November, I was invited to a lunch time concert in the National Physic Laboratory Science Museum to be given by Gisela Meyer, the concert had as its theme ‘Night Pieces’ and consisted of pieces by four composers/artists:

  • John Field (1782-1837)
    • Nocturne in Bb major – Cantible
    • Nocturne in A major – Poco Adagio
  • Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936)
    • Notturno – Lento
  • Romeo Wecks (1994)
    • Nachstuck I
    • Nachstuck II
    • Nachstuck III
  • Marice Ravel (1898-1937)
    • Gaspard de la nuit
      • ON
      • Ondine
      • Le gibet
      • Scarbo

As mentioned the concert is held in the NPL in the Scientific Museum, which is a former hunting lodge and one time home of William, Duke of Clarence (later King William IV) with views across Bushy Park.

The setting is spectacular, but like all government buildings is in need to some TLC (Tender Loving Care).  I was advised that the maintenance contract is coming up for renewal, which may explain why it appears so tired and dilapidated. From looking around the outside territory of the building and the building sitting behind it to the right, it would not surprise me if it was to end up as development territory into very well appointed apartments easily within the million pound bracket or more because of the location and proximity to London!

Now returning to the concert and Ms Meyer; I think everyone enjoyed the range of items performed, though for me the highlight was Gaspard de la nuit by Ravel.  I have attempted to find a video of Ms Meyer playing, but nothing turned up during my searches, so here instead you have pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet playing:

 

Ms Meyer was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany where she undertook her  undergraduate studies (Piano with side subject Cello)  and her postgraduate diploma (Piano solo) in Weimar, Gisela obtained a MMus in Accompaniment at the Guildhall School for Music and Drama.

The four pieces are different but similar in that they in the main allowed you to drift away slowly loosing yourself in the music, and does Ms Meyer who is wonderfully accomplished, but almost seems dwarfed by the grand piano, which she plays with total command.

If you are interested in classical music, and have the time, and are in Teddington then I would definitely recommend getting in touch with  the NPL Musical Society organisers by contacting Frances Wilson on info@franceswilson.co.uk

Gay orchestra stage family concert for Christmas

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EastEnders actor Nina Wadia will introduce the London Gay Symphony Orchestra’s first Family Concert this December

| BY DAVID HUDSON
Peter and the Wolf

Photo: www.justindavid.co.uk
 
The London Gay Symphony Orchestra (LGSO) always throws an annual Christmas concert, but this year’s event will be a little different as it will be the company’s first ever Family Concert.
The concert will take place on Sunday 14 December at 5pm at St Sepulchre-without-Newgate on Holborn Viaduct in central London.
The event will be introduced by actor Nina Wadia (EastEnders and Goodness Gracious Me), who will also take on the role of the narrator in Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. This tales tells the tale of a brave little boy outwitting a big bad wolf with the help of a supporting cast of birds, ducks and cats – who will all be played by orchestra members.
Other works that will receive an airing will include Ravel’s Mother Goose, Grieg’s Peer Gynt, and Suppe’s Light Cavalry.
The company promise mince pies, milled wine, some seasonal surprises and instrument demos during the interval, with the opportunity to younger members of the audience to have a go with some instruments themselves.
‘The orchestra always do a Christmas concert: this year we fancied trying something different and a family concert is an idea we’ve had simmering away on a back burner,’ said the orchestra’s Nathan Evans to GSN.
‘There are a couple of reasons why we’re doing it. One is selfish, in that it gives us opportunity to play some great repertoire we’ve never played before – and to work with Nina Wadia [pictured right]. The other reason is musical, in that it gives us chance to do our bit and introduce a younger audience to classical music.’
‘Most importantly, culturally, members of the orchestra, and of our audience, have been starting their own families for some time and we wanted to create an event that they could share with them.
‘Eighteen years ago, on our foundation, such an event may have generated negative press but it’s a refreshing indication of the changes in social attitudes, and family units, that no-one has batted an eyelid.’
 
If you are in London, then Gay orchestra  family concert for Christmas is the place to be.
For more information, check LGSO’s official website.

– See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/gay-orchestra-stage-family-concert-christmas251114#sthash.nIVJZszq.dpuf

Letters to My Brother

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Letters to My Brother

When 18-year-old Tyler Clementi jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge in September 2010, he became an overnight symbol of the fight against cyber-bullying and homophobia. Here, his older brother reclaims his memory from the headlines and pays tribute to his abbreviated life.


Tyler (left) and James Clementi / Photo courtesy James Clementi
I ’m not sure when I first realized my younger brother was gay. I think I knew he was for as long as I knew I was. I had no idea how to bring it up; it was just something we left dangling in the air, unsaid. I was open about my sexuality with friends, but around my family there was this barrier that felt unbreakable. It slowly dawned on me that I wasn’t the only one, that I had a brother who was also gay — my baby brother, whom I had always felt protective and paternal toward. I knew I was in a position to be a confidant, a role model. But I wasn’t ready to do any of that. It would have made it much less lonely for me to grow up with an older brother who had gone through and understood everything I was dealing with — and I wanted to be that for Tyler. I didn’t start to come out to the people in my life until I was in my early twenties, so I always thought Tyler would follow the same timeline and we wouldn’t need to address the rainbow-colored elephant for a few more years. I was terrified to talk to him, accustomed to secrecy and scared I would make everything worse somehow.
The summer after Tyler graduated from high school we made plans to see Toy Story 3 together, and I looked up the schedule online. I walked into his room without knocking to ask what times would work for him, and there was that awkward moment where he realized that I was standing behind him. I realized my little brother was looking at gay porn. Caught off guard, I acted like I hadn’t seen it, and I think he was initially relieved. But from this moment, there was a growing anxiety, an urgent pull from inside myself that was compelling me to talk to him, and I knew it was time — probably way past time. I gave myself a day to stress out over the right words, the best place, the perfect time. And then I just did it.
SLIDESHOW: FAMILY SNAPSHOTS OF THE BROTHERS TOGETHER
It was the Fourth of July. We had spent the day at the movies, the diner, the fireworks. So many opportunities, and I kept chickening out. That night, I found him in the house listening to Katy Perry, and I saw that, if I couldn’t do this now, something was really wrong with me. I overthought it — because it ended up being this simple.
Me: “I’m gay.” Tyler: “Oh. Me too.”
 
It was great because we had always known, but now we could talk about it. I saw so much relief and genuine happiness in his face. It felt like the beginning. We talked for hours about sex, relationships, bars, fake IDs, homophobia, everything that had been off-limits before. I was really taken aback by how assured and poised he was, how much better he understood himself and his desires than I did at 18. It was startling, but it also fit with my sense of him as a young man, still figuring it out but grounded in his own worth and value.
Two months later, he left to start his first semester at Rutgers. I think he left excited to grow up, to live life. I was looking forward to the days ahead and the years of brotherhood still to come.
Pipsqueak,
You were one noisy kid. I remember walking inside and the most beautiful sounds of Tchaikovsky and Mozart would waft through every room. And I hated it.
Remember how I used to bang on your door and scream at you to stop being so loud? It was so unfair that I had to listen to your noise all the time — why couldn’t you just pick up a quieter hobby!? I would refuse to attend your recitals and concerts because I had to listen to you play all the damn time at home. Wow, do I regret that.
It is so quiet now. You were really talented; it was a gift. I’m not sure I ever told you that… maybe you didn’t care. It’s not like you needed my validation; I know nothing about classical music and you knew you were the shit when it came to that damn violin. I just feel really bad for not telling you how awesome you are, how much I respect your skills and dedication. I regret not listening to every note with open ears, not going to more concerts. Fuck you for making me feel bad; it’s not fair that you did that to me. But I would tell you now if I could, I really miss the noise!
Hey Ty,
So the other day I was at Barnes & Noble, trying to find a book to read since I have a lot of free time now that I can’t sleep, can’t hold a job, don’t want to be around friends or family, and pretty much need to escape my life. Anyway, I was browsing at the newsstand and I saw you. I always do. This time you were staring back at me from the cover of People. I keep thinking that I’ll look up and see you for real, the way you should be, but it’s always more reminders of the way you are. I’m sure the other customers found my anxiety attack entertaining. How am I supposed to respond to seeing you on People, though? It’s a lot to digest, you being a celebrity and all. I always knew you would make it big; I just thought you’d be around to enjoy it.
I wonder what you would think, seeing all the commotion you’ve caused. It is surreal and meaningless to see you as a mere story on The New York Times, a brief glimpse at a life with none of the detail. You were a typical college freshman, trying to adjust to a dorm room, make some friends, meet a cute guy, and enjoy your independence, and no one noticed. The headlines tell of how you were violated and ridiculed; your last moments are a cautionary tale, a scandal, something to sell and entertain.
You are on every talk show, newspaper, and blog, being held up as the issue du jour for the masses to “care about,” like they ever read you a story or wiped away your tears or spun you around in the air until you were dizzy. I wish it didn’t take you dying for your soul to know peace. I wish you could read the hundreds of letters we got, hear the thousands who rallied and marched for you, know the millions who followed your story on the 6 o’clock news. You were never alone; it just felt like it.
When you were here with me, you had no idea how important you were, and it took your death to make that point. Now you are gone. How will you know how much I love you, how much we all do? It’s not like you can read your big cover story. It’s not as though you can hear me crying.
 
SLIDESHOW: FAMILY SNAPSHOTS OF THE BROTHERS TOGETHER
Little Peanut,
I always thought that, between you and I, you were the stronger one. That’s why, as protective as I felt toward you, I never worried that much. I saw the best parts of myself in you. Of course, we looked like twins, albeit six years and a foot and a half apart. But — let’s face it — you were better. Where I dabbled (pretty pitifully) in painting, you devoted hours of every day to the violin since you were eight, then picked up the piano, and even taught yourself the freaking harmonica. Never one to be outdone, when I was biking a mile, you were unicycling two. Where I was shy, you were fearless. When I tiptoed out of the closet at 22, you were out and proud at 18.
I remember asking if you had a boyfriend, or if you wanted one, and you scoffed at me. “I just want to hook up.” That’s what you said — and that’s fine — but I think maybe you didn’t see how much more you deserved.
Sometimes I wonder who that guy was, the one in your dorm room. He doesn’t matter. You were so young, and there were going to be others. But in that moment, what did it mean for you? Were you bored, scared, over it, into it, what? Everyone knows their first, but who ever thinks of their last? I’m sure you didn’t even realize that it was the final time you’d be close to someone. He shouldn’t matter, but being the last gives him a strange importance. Did he make you happy?
You had a lot of growing up to do and a lot of baggage to work through before you could really feel comfortable with who you were. You’d roll your eyes at me and dismiss it with one of your “whatevers,” but it’s true. Libidos aside, when you told me you were only looking for hook-ups, I totally didn’t believe you. Sure, sex is amazing, but love is the best part. It was there within your grasp.
Dear Tyler,
I guess I never really told you how much I admire you, how much I wish I was more like you. We came from the same gene pool, the same family, the same town, the same schools, the same church, everything the same. But I always saw a confidence and strength in you that I didn’t
recognize in myself. Where did you get that? When I thought about where I was going to be in five or 10 years, I could never picture it — my mind would be blank. But when I imagined your future, I saw the world at your feet. You were supposed to show me up, do it better than I could. I wanted that for you. I saw amazing professional accomplishments for you, but also personal ones. I know now that you felt so alone, but Jesus Christ — you are so, so easy to love, with your kind eyes and gentle heart. I know so many people you had yet to meet that would one day love you almost as much as I do. Even after what you did, I cannot see you as a sad or depressed or lonely kid. To me, you will always be my sweet, tender little brother.
I’ve heard the story so many times: how you did it, the night you jumped. The first time, and every time I’ve been told about it, read it in a paper, heard it on TV, or dreamt about it at night, it still confuses me. I know you and I know that is not who you are. And that is never how I will think of you, alone and cold and at the end.
You are youth, potential just beginning to unfold. You are blood, my connection to the past, and my hope for the future. You are beauty, fleeting and marvelous. I know there was pain, and I’m sorry for that, but you were joy, too. Your voice, your smile, tiny hands clinging to mine. I will never let go.

SYMPHONIC VARIATIONS ON A GRUMPY THEME

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Out-take from upstart Vol. 9 No. 4 (1997)
 
Agitato con fuoco
The Daily Torygraph sorry, Telegraph (Thurs. 17.04.97) had a ‘think-piece’ by Norman Lebrecht.  It was on the position of women in (what record vendors call) ‘classical’ music.  It isn’t really very secure.  Lebrecht quoted some orchestral musicians’ sexist (and racist) utterances.  They were German-speaking musos, which was… interesting.  He admitted that the managerial end of the ‘classical’ game is a male preserve.  As is – his- critical end.
His musings on opera, however, take the (dog) biscuit.  Here is the paragraph in full:
“Why must classical music be a boy’s own zone?  The reasons are twofold: orientational and orchestral.  Like all arts, music attracts a dis-proportionate influx of minorities, including a sizeable homosexual element.  Homosexual men preponderate in areas of operatic and vocal activity, as organisers and audience, chorus and critics.  Their input is indispensable, both creatively and commercially, but their collective attitude is resistant to women.  Of all the impediments to openness and equality, theirs is the most deeply embedded.”
Another minority in classical (and other musics) is pompous Tory gets.  Lebrecht – inevitably – bashes musicians’ unions.
This article was to be entitled WITHOUT COMMENT – but Lebrecht’s assertion is not merely absurd and childish, it calls into question his adequacy for his post.
Gay men have tended to dominate the operatic stage in the English-speaking world.  But, apart from Britten’s all-male Billy Budd, they all wrote substantial pieces for women.  Britten’s first and last large vocal pieces Our Hunting Fathers and Phædra were written for sopranos (Sophie Wyss and Janet Baker respectively).  The opera Lucretia was tailored to Kathleen Ferrier’s voice… but this has the look of excuse-making and accommodation.
Lebrecht’s assertion is so breathtakingly bigoted that it is difficult to believe it was published in a broadsheet that fancies itself as an intellectual power house of the political Right.
If Lebrecht, or his editor, Max (‘Hitler’) Hastings, want a heterosexual Tory to carry the banner for vocal music they’ll have to go back to Elgar.  And he was a plebeian Papist.
 
Andante febrile
The Style section of the Sunday Times (May 4, 1997) has a piece about Ms Marta Brennan.  She is suing the New York Metropolitan Opera.  She was an assistant stage director.  The ‘Met’ subjected her to a “hostile work environment”.  Her grounds were that the management (in particular her immediate boss David Kneuss) favoured young Gay men.  Brennan (“a 46-year-old heterosexual female”) also claims that other employees had been “similarly discriminated against”.
The ST (aka Rupert’s Sunday Liar) emphasises the Gay male aspect of the case.  But Brennan’s formal complaint suggests that Kneuss “favoured younger homosexual male and younger homosexual female employees” (our emphasis – upstart).  The Times dug up another case of ‘reverse discrimination’, in 1988, (by the ‘Met’).   Dr. Leonard J. Lehmann’s contract was not renewed (by the director, John Dexter, who is English).  Dr. Lehmann claims the latter had a reputation for “pinching little boys’ behinds”.  The relevance of which to his case seems a wee piece strained.  (Where did Dexter find ‘little boys’ in an opera house?  Were they wheeked-in off the streets?)
 
Allegro con brio (tempo di balletto)
We were always under the impression that opera was the butch element in these great theatres.  Ballet was – allegedly – the queer’s own art-form.  Especially in the eyes of simple-minded, fat-arsed journos.
They found it difficult to square the fact that many of the men in dance were screaming binkies.  And superb athletes.  They (the drunks – sorry… journalists) decided it was all done by wires (and padding).
The real problem most non-ballétomanes had with ballet was the fact that dance in the twentieth century in the English-speaking world has been the domain of powerful women: de Valois / Mrs Connell, Rambert / Ramberg, de Mille, Martha Graham.  Even in Ireland the most substantial figures are Patricia Mulholland and Joan Denise Moriarty.
Strong women and muscular homos with painted faces (and tights!).  Is it any wonder Sexual Norm stuck a cork up his bum and ran?
 
Scherzando giocoso
The US Southern Baptists’ denunciation of Disney for extending spouse-right to Gay employees’ long-term partners gives us a piece of Urban Mythology:
Ten-year-old, having heard the news, wakes parent at (or before) the Skraik o’Dawn:
“Hey, Pop, I’m so glad we’re Catholics — we can still go to Disneyland!”
 
Allegro agitato
In his Monday column in The Times (14.07-97) Must we learn to hate Norman Mailer?, Melvyn Bragg mused on the differences between individuals’ personal and artistic attributes.
(Mailer has been exposed as a vicious wife-beater).
Bragg writes:
“Do you think less of Peter Grimes when you know what we do now know about the often vicious sexual exploitation of young children by Benjamin Britten?”
What “vicious sexual exploitation of young children”?
Even ‘biographies’ designed to slag Britten off can’t dig up anyone younger than 17, in whom BB took a sexual interest.  And there is no evidence that he actually had sex with anybody in their teens.  He almost certainly did not have sex with anybody until his mid-twenties.
(Peter Grimes was Britten’s first opera.  Premiered in 1945 it gave many listeners a great post-WWII boost.  And the illusion that England was embarking on a – musical – ‘Golden Age’).
Possibly a (very long) moratorium should be put on journalists (even quite superior ones like Bragg) throwing wild, un-researched allegations about.  The painters Dalí and Matisse are described as “endorsing Fascism” in this short article.  You might as well call the ardently Catholic composer de Falla a Communist.  He endorsed the (entirely bourgeois) Spanish Republic.
This is penny-plain, tuppence-coloured, let’s-not-engage-our-minds journalism.  And a tribute to the Blessed Rupert’s dumbing-down of a great (if overly staid) newspaper.

WHEN LOVE COMES TO TOWN

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Auth: Tom LENNON
Pub: The O’Brien PressWhen Love Comes to Town
The central figure (hero, if you like) of this story is 17 -year-old Neil Byrne. He is a sportsman and a good scholar. He is implicitly middle-class (his parents incessantly gripe about money, that’s how one knows). His response to the trauma of coming out, or being outed by circumstances, simply does not ring true.
Neil responds to an ad in what’s clearly Hot Press, but aborts actual contact because the other man (the advertiser) is not as appealing as he claimed. Surely an intelligent youth would have noticed ads for Tel-a-Friend, or articles on various Gay campaigns He makeSean intervention on a radio phone-in programme, but doesn’t hang around for the phone number (or numbers) which usually follow such broadcasts. ,
There wouldn’t have been much of a story then, admittedly; but one got the distinct impression, reading this, that we were not dealing with the 1990s (it was first published in 1993) but with the 70s, even ’60s. Master Byrne is just going to experience certain emotionSeand prejudices, whether these ring true or not.
The other characters are rather shadowy, and authorial prejudices show:- sissies (including married transvestites!) are sound; bisexuals-are abused as what people in Belfast called “bendy-tries. “. The blurb claims Neil is “a new type of hero” in Irish fiction, but there are stock characters. The Mother is loving, suffering and forgiving (but,naturally, uncomprehending). The Da’s a bastard – as are nearly all of the heterosexual men, Neil’s fellow students for example. The treatment of the women is a bit off-hand, even slightly misogynistic. Neil’s lover is a grumpy Belfast man called Shane who loves him and leaves him (but not before introducing him to the joys of classical music)!
Tom Lennon (it’s a nom-de-plume [de guerre?]) has his cake of a happy ending, while giving us the full tragic-suicide finale (this happens inside Neil’s head: he is a bit of a Drama-Queen on the quiet). His is a well-made, entertaining natural-ist/realist novel. But one is left rather wishing for something a bit more substantial and a bit more real.
Not everything in this island is rosy for Gay people – young, old, women or men – but l7-year-olds knew in 1993 (and know today) that there iSean infrastructure, built by Gay people, of telephone helplines, campaigning and social groups, as well a sporting and religious ones,bookshops, bars, bistros, saunaSean safer-sex projects. There’s a social group in deepest Fermanagh! Since law reform in the Republic, GCN’s listings have grown t0 include six of the smaller towns.
All of this suggests a dramatic change – which is surely worth writing about.
[Sean McGOURAN]

A Few to View – Artists Galore

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Artists Galore

The joyous thing about travelling around is visiting places old and new, and in particular for me are art shows and artists galore. Each week throughout the United Kingdom and Spain, indeed Europe, exhibitions are taking place of established professional artists, and of amateurs whose work is no less valid to look at and review.

A while ago whilst in Belfast, I had the opportunity to see work put together by students who had been attending classes in the Crescent Arts Centre. As you can imagine there was a wide variety of skills on display, but each and every one of the artists deserve a resounding thank you for their efforts and for also being willing to show their work.

 

LInk to Crescent Arts Centre website, who run both classes and also put on a wonderfully wide range of shows covering from folk, to jazz, to classical to plays and musicals.  Please give them a look and if you are around,  go to one of there shows or exhibitions, you will not be disappointed.

Here are a few pictures to show some of the art shown:

 

Every LGBTQ+ Person Should Read This

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Founder and Director of Quist
Posted:
 
Dearest Queer Person,
Chances are you don’t even know that you are holy, or royal or magic, but you are. You are part of an adoptive family going back through every generation of human existence.
Long before you were born, our people were inventing incredible things. Gifted minds like the inventor of the computer Alan Turing and aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont live on in you. The imprint that bold and brilliant individuals like Lynn Conway and Martine Rothblatt (both transgender women alive today) made on modern technology is impossible deny as present-day engineers carry their torch in the creation of robots and microprocessors. More recently speaking, one of the co-founders of Facebook publicly acknowledged his identity as a gay man, as did the current CEO of Apple.
We were so often gods and goddesses over the centuries, like Hermaphrodite (the child of Hermes and Aphrodite), and Athena and Zeus, both of whom had same-sex lovers. In Japan it was said that the male couple Shinu No Hafuri and Ama No Hafuri, “introduced” homosexuality to the world. The ability to change one’s gender or to claim an identity that encompasses two genders is common amongst Hindu deities. The being said to have created the Dahomey (a kingdom in the area now known as Benin) was reportedly formed when a twin brother and sister (the sun and the moon) combined into one being who might now identify as “intersex.” Likewise, the aboriginal Australian rainbow serpent-gods Ungud and Angamunggi possess many characteristics that mirror present-day definitions of transgender identity.
Our ability to transcend gender binaries and cross gender boundaries was seen as a special gift. We were honored with special cultural roles, often becoming shamans, healers and leaders in societies around the globe. The Native Americans of the Santa Barbara region called us “jewels.” Our records from the Europeans who wrote of their encounters with Two-Spirit people indicates that same-sex sexual activity or non-gender binary identities were part of the culture of eighty-eight different Native American tribes, including the Apache, Aztec, Cheyenne, Crow, Maya and Navajo. Without written records we can’t know the rest, but we know we were a part of most if not all peoples in the Americas.
Your ancestors were royalty like Queen Christina of Sweden, who not only refused to marry a man (thereby giving up her claim to the throne), but adopted a male name and set out on horseback to explore Europe alone. Her tutor once said the queen was “not at all like a female.” Your heritage also includes the ruler Nzinga of the Ndongo and Matamna Kingdoms (now known as Angola), who was perceived to be biologically female but dressed as male, kept a harem of young men dressed in traditionally-female attire and was addressed as “King.” Emperors like Elagalabus are part of your cultural lineage, too. He held marriage ceremonies to both male-identified and female-identified spouses, and was known to proposition men while he was heavily made-up with cosmetics. Caliphs of Cordoba including Hisham II, Abd-ar-Rahman III and Al-Hakam II kept male harems (sometimes in addition to female harems, sometimes in place of them). Emperor Ai of Han Dynasty China was the one whose life gives us the phrase “the passions of the cut sleeve,” because when he was asleep with his beloved, Dong Xian, and awoke to leave, he cut off the sleeve of his robe rather than wake his lover.
You are descended from individuals whose mark on the arts is impossible to ignore. These influential creators include composers like Tchaikovsky, painters like Leonardo da Vinci and actors like Greta Garbo. Your forebears painted the Sistine Chapel, recorded the first blues song and won countless Oscars. They were poets, and dancers and photographers. Queer people have contributed so much to the arts that there’s an entire guided tour dedicated just to these artists at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
You have the blood of great warriors, like the Amazons, those female-bodied people who took on roles of protection and had scarce time or interest between their brave acts to cater to the needs of men. And your heart beats as bravely as the men of the Sacred Band of Thebes, a group of 150 male-male couples who, in the 4th century B.C.E., were known to be especially powerful fighters because each man fought as though he was fighting for the life of his lover (which he was). But your heritage also includes peacemakers, like Bayard Rustin, a non-violent gay architect of the Black civil rights movement in the U.S.
We redefined words like bear, butch, otter, queen and femme, and created new terms like drag queen, twink and genderqueer. But just because the words like homosexual, bisexual, transgender, intersex and asexual, have been created in the relatively recent past doesn’t mean they are anything new. Before we started using today’s terms, we were Winkte to the Ogala, A-go-kwe to the Chippewa, Ko’thlama to the Zuni, Machi to the Mapuchi, Tsecats to the Manghabei, Omasenge to the Ambo and Achnutschik to the Konyaga across the continents. While none of these terms identically mirror their more modern counterparts, all refer to some aspect of, or identity related to, same-gender love, same-sex sex or crossing genders.
You are normal. You are not a creation of the modern age. Your identity is not a “trend” or a “fad.” Almost every country has a recorded history of people whose identities and behaviors bear close resemblance to what we’d today call bisexuality, homosexuality, transgender identity, intersexuality, asexuality and more. Remember: the way Western culture today has constructed gender and sexuality is not the way it’s always been. Many cultures from Papua New Guinea to Peru accepted male-male sex as a part of ritual or routine; some of these societies believed that the transmission of semen from one man to another would make the recipient stronger. In the past, we often didn’t need certain words for the same-sex attracted, those of non-binary gender and others who did not conform to cultural expectations of their biological sex or perceived gender because they were not as unusual as we might today assume they were.
Being so unique and powerful has sometimes made others afraid of us. They arrested and tortured and murdered us. We are still executed by governments and individuals today in societies where we were once accepted us as important and equal members of society. They now tell us “homosexuality is un-African” and “there are no homosexuals in Iran.” You, and we, know that these defensive comments are not true–but they still hurt. So, when others gave us names like queer and dyke, we reclaimed them. When they said we were recruiting children, we said “I’m here to recruit you!” When they put pink and black triangles on our uniforms in the concentration camps, we made them pride symbols.
Those who challenge our unapologetic presence in today’s cultures, who try to deprive us of our rights, who make us targets of violence, remain ignorant of the fact that they, not us, are the historical anomaly. For much of recorded history, persecuting individuals who transgressed their culture’s norms of gender and sexuality was frowned upon at worst and unheard of at best. Today, the people who continue to harass us attempt to justify their cruel campaigns by claiming that they are defending “traditional” values. But nothing could be further from the truth.
But now you know they are wrong. Just imagine the world without that first computer or the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling, or a huge part of the music you’ve ever heard from classical Appalachian Spring to classic YMCA (I mean, we’ve held titles from the “Mother of Blues” to the “King of Latin Pop!”). How much less colorful would the world be without us? I’m grateful that you’re here to help carry on our traditions.
So, happy LGBT History Month! I hope to celebrate with you here at Quist. This list of LGBTQ history online resources is a good place to start in exploring more specifics about this heritage.
Lesbianamente*,
Sarah Prager
*Actually a term as a way someone signed a letter for a lesbian organization in Mexicodecades ago!
This piece was inspired in part by facts and sentiments from Another Mother Tongueby Judy Grahn (published 1984). Ritualized Homosexuality in Melanesia edited by Gilbert H. Herdt (published 1993) is also referenced. Many of the referenced facts are cited so many places it has become common knowledge. Christianne Gadd contributed significantly to this piece. This post originally appeared in The Advocate.
 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-prager/every-lgbtq-person-should_b_8232316.html?ir=Gay%20Voices?ncid=newsltushpmg00000003

The Irish Scene: Gay Guide to Ireland by Mike Parker (Part I)

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First published in our paper magazine – upstart
 
Publisher: Gay Men’s Press (29 May 1996)
Mike Parker compiled the (English) Northern Scene in this series, which I praised in a previous upstart. Yes: I didn’t much like this book.  MIke, who was so efficient shoving a quart (almost a gallon) quantity into a pint pot in his last outing seems to be one of those people who was lyrical when theyh come across the word “celtic” or even just “Irish”.  He also decides that history loms large here, so he gives us some of it.  “Daniel O’Connell, a brilliant young Kerry man…won the County Clare constituency in the 1828 election.  As a Catholic, however, he was barred from taking his seat.  British Prime Minister William Pitt… scrapped the ban”.
In 1828, O’Connell was in his fifties, PItt the Younger had been dead for a quarter of a century.  The Elder Pitt (Lord Chatsworth) had snuffed it in the 1780s.  Mike also appears to be saying the Irish Labour Party only just got into power recently.  Labour has held Cabinet seats since the 1940s, and has been a constant in government for fifteen years (it is being described these days as “the-even the– Party of government”).  There is also some very odd stuff abut the Celtic Twilight/Literary Renaissance (one would have thought that someone visiting Ireland, whether the political entity or the geographical expression, over the past twenty years might have noticed that we have become less provincial and embarrassed about our contribution to ‘art’ (painting and sculpture) and ‘classical’ music, there is a booming industry in art-books and a quite large discography of the latter).  The ‘folk’ and pop/rock end of things hardly needs mentioning.
Mike Parker admits that he has spent his holidays in Ireland in a Guinness-induced haze, which is fair enough – so do I – in fact, I spend my non-hols in a Guinness-induced haze, if I can manage it.  He also says that the outer rim of Ireland is more interesting that the centre, that’s his business, though I quite like the Irish midlands and south east, which he rather gives short drift.  I think Wexford, town and country are very interesting, but I’m not the author.
The problem here, is that Mike has to write more ‘touristy’ stuff than in his English book, as the “scene”, as such, is not really very big (the whole population of the island is less than Greater Manchester, or Merseyside, or the West Midlands).  He deals with the scene very well.
He compares Limerick with Derry (no ‘Londonderrys’ here – not even for the sake of a bit of alliteration), and rather approves of them, but he does not investigate what effect having a university has had on the town(s) and their scene(s).  Mike appears to believe that Limerick is still brooding on KIng Billy’s government reneging on the Treaty of 1691 – I doubt it.  Limerick was the Holy City of Irish Catholicism for over a century.  This came to a climax during De Valera’s period (if the word “climax” is permissible in the same sentence as “De Valera”).  Dev represented County Clare, just down the road from Limerick City, and his long supremacy is characterised in this book as ‘insular’.

The Pope’s Divisions

Catholic Ireland at that time quite often spoke of itself in the same breath as Communist Russia, and was not in the least fazed by the huge disparity in population and power.  Ireland, (which had not been Catholic in the days of Gaeldom), became, not more Catholic than the Pope – but just as Catholic as the pope wanted.  Missionaries spread out from Ireland through Latin America, the British Empire (and most of the other colonial empires) and the Orient, proselytising with a vigour the Bolshevik might have (and probably did) envy.  All of this was cultural vandalism of the first ordr – but to give the Blackcoats their due, they destroyed pagan, Gaelic Ireland’s immemorial culture before they set out.  Whtever this was – it was decidedly not smug insularity….
Part Two to follow
 
 

Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington’s Gay Composer

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Editorial:  Strayhorn “made” the Ellington ‘sound’ (it is very elegant, just a pity I don’t think jazz should be ‘elegant’), he was despised by the Be-boppers (possibly the fact that he was queer might have had something to do with it), but in a sense they were even worse.  Strayhorn was a Ravelian (though Ravel used jazz ‘tropes’ – so it was mirror flattery, though Ravel was dead before Strayhorn got into his stride. 

   The be-boppers (c 1943[ish] ’til the lat[ish]1950s), were Bartókian.

   That would had been fine, if they had applied Bartók’s procedures (to Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian – and general Balkan / SE Europe ) folk music.  But they applied it to a form of music which was in the very easy stages of development, which could have been disastrous, fortunately it’s idiot (in many ways) child rock grew up to be something substantial.

   Strayhorn was very cute in a cuddly sort of way. Killed himself with ‘drugs’ and smoking – ‘straights’ as it happened.

   A victim of tobacco.

Sean McGouran

 
Reposted from OUT

BY JULIEN SAUVALLE
APRIL 29 2015 4:44 PM EDT

Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington’s Gay Composer

Billy Strayhorn

As the world celebrates Ellington’s birthday, we look back on his openly gay pianist, composer, and friend Billy Strayhorn.
You’ve likely never heard Strayhorn’s voice, but you’ve heard his work: From the early 1940s to his death in 1967, the composer, arranger, and pianist helped Duke Ellington craft his greatest hits, including “Chelsea Bridge” and “Take The ‘A’ Train.”
Strayhorn was born in 1915 in Dayton, Ohio. One of the very few openly gay jazzmen of his (or any) time, he studied at the Pittsburgh Music Institute, and, while still in his teens, began composing the songs “Something to Live For” and “Life Is Lonely”, later renamed “Lush Life”, which opens with the line “I used to visit all the very gay places.”

Though the word “gay” had a different meaning at the time, sexual freedom and personal individuality were a big part of jazz music. Some blues women already alluded to homosexual love in their songs, and Strayhorn’s own lyrics reflected his passions, always in a nuanced and poetic way. “It’s major to know that Strayhorn wrote ‘Lush Life’ as a prolifically gifted, gay black male teenager living in Jim Crow America,” says Candice Hoyes, a soprano jazz singer who recently released her debut album, On a Turquoise Cloud, a compilation of rare Duke Ellington songs that includes two Strayhorn compositions. “Everyone marvels at how wise beyond his years, how introspective the melody and words are. But when you consider his work, you get it.”
Strayhorn met Ellington in December 1938, when the musician and his band performed in Pittsburgh. After the show, Strayhorn got Ellington’s attention by telling him how he would have re-arranged his songs –and then, he proceeded to show him. Impressed by the young man’s skills, Ellington invited Strayhorn to meet the band again in New York. It marked the beginning of a collaboration that spanned three decades.

Strayhorn Ellington

Strayhorn (left) with Duke Ellington (Photo: The Duke Ellington Center)
“Strayhorn and Ellington had a soul connection,” Hoyes says. “Strayhorn’s musical genius with melody, lyrics, and his classical training, all combined with Ellington’s assertiveness and vision to make some perfect music.”  Ellington was particularly fond of Strayhorn, referring to his acolyte as “my right arm, my left arm, all the eyes in the back of my head, my brain waves in his head, and his in mine.” Ellington was also a father figure for him: Strayhorn’s own father was abusive, and Ellington saw and embraced his genius early on, when Strayhorn was only 23.
Among his friends in the New York jazz scene, Strayhorn had the most influence on singer Lena Horne, who wanted to marry him and considered him to be the love of her life. Strayhorn used his classical background to improve Horne’s singing technique, and they eventually recorded songs together, but, to Horne’s dismay, Strayhorn was in a committed ten-year relationship with Aaron Bridgers, a jazz pianist who eventually moved to Paris (alone) in 1947.

Billy Strayhorn Aaron Bridgers Billy Holiday Harlem

Left: Strayhorn (center) with his partner Aaron Bridgers (left) and singer Billy Holiday (right). Right: Bridgers and Strayhorn at a party in Harlem. Pictures viaqueermusicheritage.com
In the 1950s, Strayhorn left Ellington to pursue a solo career, coming out with a few albums and revues. He was also a champion of civil rights: An ally to Martin Luther King, Jr., Strayhorn wrote activist compositions that honored King and his movement, including “King Fit the Battle of Alabama” for the Ellington Orchestra, which was part of the historical revue (and album) My People, released in 1963 and dedicated to King.
A few months before King’s assassination, Strayhorn died from esophageal cancer, at 51. He was in the company of Bill Grove, then his partner of three years. Devastated after hearing the news, Ellington recorded a memorial album, And His Mother Called Him Bill, which included Strayhorn’s beautiful piano balad “Thank You For Everything”, also known as “Lotus Blossom.” Ellington performed the song alone while the rest of his band was packing up, leaving him to reminisce about his creative soul mate, and the timeless music they made together.
For more information on Billy Strayhorn, go to BillyStrayhorn.com.
Candice Hoyes’s album On a Turquoise Cloud, including Strayhorn’s “Violet Blue” and “Thank You For Evertyhing”, is available now at Onaturquoisecloud.com