Drag performers. Classical music. The links between these art forms might not at first seem obvious, but there’s plenty that unites them, as we’ll discover at one of the highlights of Classical Pride.
‘We're breaking down barriers and celebrating the shared DNA between drag and opera,’ says conductor Oliver Zeffman, who created the event last year and is programming it again for 2024 as it expands significantly. ‘It's all about embracing the camp and the glamour of both worlds.’
London drag scene stars Snow White Trash, Barbs, Beau Jangles, Freddie Love and Vinegar Strokes will vie for the top spot in the competition, to be judged by drag superstars Monét X Change (who’s also a baritone), Thorgy Thor (a violinist), plus queer operatic tenor megastar Nicky Spence.
‘One of the points of Classical Pride is to show that what people consider to be “queer music” is probably Madonna or Kylie, but actually classical music has had LGBTQ+ composers and performers for hundreds of years,’ says Zeffman. ‘That's not as well-known partly because classical music is not as part of the mainstream culture as pop music. So this is a way of saying that classical music has always been part of queer culture and that’s something to celebrate.’
Also coming up will be My Beloved Man, which celebrates the love affair between composer Benjamin Britten and tenor Peter Pears. The Fourth Choir, London’s LGBTQ+ classical choir tells their story through the letters the couple wrote to each other: living illegally as a same-sex couple, the hardships of the Second World War, their success and the challenges of Britten’s final years.
Their story is illuminated with music by Britten and his contemporaries as well as Britten’s beloved Purcell and Monteverdi, plus the world premiere of a Classical Pride commission by Isobel Waller-Bridge, to a text written by a refugee relocated by one of Classical Pride’s charity partners, Rainbow Railroad.
Free performances include violist Stephen Upshaw playing Julius Eastman’s Gay Guerilla, an improvisatory, minimalist take on Martin Luther’s 16th-century hymn A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, recast as a manifesto about being a gay, Black man.
The culmination sees the London Symphony Orchestra and conductor Oliver Zeffman celebrate LGBTQ+ classical music in a diverse programme presented by Nick Grimshaw.
‘Given that the LGBTQI+ community has given so much to classical music, it always struck me as odd that there wasn’t a celebration of that, until last year,’ says Zeffman. ‘So this will be a wonderful chance to do that again, in an expanded and even broader programme.’
Words by James Drury
Classical Pride, 3-7 Jul, various venues
