ChamberQUEER Pride Festival Announced At National Sawdust, June 10 And 12

ChamberQUEER is a multifaceted organization with the mission of highlighting historically underrepresented queer figures in western classical music and providing an intersectionally inclusive space within western classical music for artists and audience.

ChamberQUEER 2022 opens their two-show engagement at National Sawdust on June 10 by drawing centuries of music into conversation - juxtaposing boundary-breaking Renaissance nuns with the voices of three fantastic emerging composers drawn from our 2020 Call for Scores: Connor D'Netto, Alexis Lamb, and Rosśa Crean.

The concert weaves these musical worlds together through reflective improvisations that converse with multifaceted experiences of queerness across the centuries. Confirmed performers for June 10 include violinist Mazz Swift and baritone vocalist Lucas Bouk alongside the core ChamberQUEER ensemble of Jules Biber, Danielle Buonaiuto, Brian Mummert and Andrew Yee.

The June 12 performance highlights Gay Guerrilla by iconoclastic queer composer Julius Eastman, in a new arrangement for string septet by Jessie Montgomery, and featuring the arranger on violin. Curated in partnership with Eastman scholar Isaac Jean-François, the event paints an image of Eastman's New York City, both with a new film by Ashanti Soldier and Kham Owens, and through works of Eastman's colleagues and contemporaries, including Tania León and Talib Rasul Hakim. The program traces lines to queer modernism of the earlier 20th century, including Benjamin Britten's Les Illuminations, to the poetry of the visionary Arthur Rimbaud. Confirmed performers for June 12 include Montgomery and soprano vocalist Melissa Wimbish alongside the core ChamberQUEER ensemble of Biber, Buonaiuto, Mummert and Yee. These performances will also be available as free livestreams.

For more information visit NationalSawdust.org

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