13 hours ago
Classical Pride review — queer composers, a drag queen and the LSO
I never imagined that I would see that fastidious composer George Benjamin sharing a platform with Jonny Woo, a voluminously bewigged drag queen who served as the concert's presenter and easily looked around seven feet tall. But that was the wonder of London's grand finale to this year's edition of the LGBTQ+ showcase Classical Pride, which highlights queer composers both past and present. It was an event so joyful and welcoming that a packed Barbican Hall couldn't stop clapping, whether the London Symphony Orchestra was playing emotionally tumescent Tchaikovsky (the suite from Swan Lake) or the rarefied sensuality of Benjamin's Dream of the Song, a 2015 song cycle for lyrical countertenor, gently wafting women's voices and a small ensemble.
The audience indeed leapt into applause before this had finished, possibly keen to move the concert on toward something more user-friendly. But even if Benjamin's crystalline undulations wouldn't have been everyone's cup of tea, it was easy to appreciate that the countertenor Cameron Shahbazi was a superb singer; that the LSO, conducted by Classical Pride's founder Oliver Zeffman, was being very refined; and that the voices of Tenebrae added their own magic, weaving and wafting in the background.
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Nothing stayed in the background, of course, with the powerful American mezzo Jamie Barton, famous waver of the Pride rainbow flag at the Last Night of the Proms in 2019. Each of her three numbers, nonetheless, struck a different musical note. First came the premiere of a commissioned song from fellow American Jake Heggie, forming the third in his cycle Good Morning, Beauty, exploring a love relationship's evolution over time. Written in dramatic cabaret style, Or Am I in a Rut (words by Taylor Mac) made an immediate impact. So, in the operatic vein, did an aria from Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila, even though Barton's urgent delivery finally became more shrill than winning. No miscalculation, happily, disturbed her sensitive account of Over the Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz.
What else? There was Jennifer Higdon's blue cathedral, a reflective and ultimately uplifting tone poem, triggered by the death of Higdon's younger brother, although the best LSO showcase remained the Swan Lake suite, dashingly conducted by Zeffman, with some gorgeous harp finery from Bryn Lewis. I should note as well the early evening half-hour song recital that usefully paraded talented young artistes (soprano Harriet Burns, baritone Jonathan Eyers, pianist/composer Edward Picton-Turbervill), but also reminded us that the shape and acoustic of a sparsely filled Barbican Hall make clearly hearing the words being sung close to mission impossible.
★★★★☆
Barbican, London
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