Hes gay but classical music
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Young, handsome, well dressed and devoid of excess ear hair (not to mention a good few decades of age), he’s the thoroughly modern face of classical music.
Zeffman’s pet project, Classical Pride, kicks off this week. And once they’re in the hall, they’re transfixed - these shows are some of TRIH’s best-performing episodes - and of course they are; there’s nothing quite like hearing the end of the 1812 Overture blasting out with 30 brass players, an organ, bells, percussion, cannons!; or sixty strings playing the most intimate quiet passages in Tristan and Isolde, drawing you in - it really is magic.
We see the same kind of audience development with Classical Pride too - people coming into a concert hall for the first time and discovering just how thrilling live classical music can be.
Pride has become something of a vector for corporate opportunism… How have you kept it pure?
Frankly, I think that if big corporations are willing to publicly support Pride events and put their name - and their money - to them, that’s a good thing.
“The first Classical Pride concert at the Barbican in 2023 was long overdue,” he says.
What does “gay” music mean in this context?
When people think of gay music, they often imagine pop icons like Kylie Minogue, Cher, or Elton John. Even his lesser-known works have tunes better than most composers’ best.”
How can fashion and classical music connect in the future?
Zeffman notes that classical music tends to be insular compared to pop, rock, or hip hop, which regularly intersect with fashion and other art forms.
Many attendees were new to classical music but became captivated by live performances.
Zeffman believes that visible corporate backing, LGBTQ+ networks, and out executives are important progress for the community.
Has Zeffman faced barriers as a gay man in classical music?
Surprisingly, Zeffman says no. If you look at other genres - pop, hip hop, rock - or other art forms - film, TV, art - they all intersect with fashion.
At Wilton’s Music Hall (1 July), we have a staged triple-bill: a work by Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179), the first female composer of what we think of as Western art music; Caroline Shaw’s Partita for 8 Voices - an extraordinary piece that won her the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2013, making her its youngest recipient; and Julius Eastman’s powerful The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc.
I have plenty of ideas.
Willem Dafoe "He's Gay, But He Has A Special Connection To Classical Music"
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Willem Dafoe "He's Gay, But He Has A Special Connection To Classical Music" is a catchphrase taken from a clip of actor Willem Dafoe discussing his character Paul Smecker in the movie The Boondock Saints during an interview in early 2019.
Ultimately, classical music is - and has been for a very long time - part of queer culture, and it's about time we celebrated this.
What are some of the highlights to look forward to this year?
2025 will be the third edition of Classical Pride. Even in his lesser-known pieces, the tunes in these are better than the best by pretty much any other composer.
How can fashion and classical music intersect in the future, do you think?
Classical music can be very insular.
The concerts start at London’s Barbican Centre and will later move to the iconic Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
Founded in 2023, Classical Pride aims to highlight the significant contributions of LGBTQ+ composers to classical music’s rich history. A standout performance titled “Voices from the Edge” at Wilton’s Music Hall on July 1 will feature a triple bill: a piece by medieval composer Hildegard von Bingen, Caroline Shaw’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Partita for 8 Voices, and Julius Eastman’s powerful The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc.
The six concerts showcase incredible soloists such as opera stars Jamie Barton, Cameron Shahbazi, Anthony Roth Costanzo, and Lucia Lucas.
While some criticize companies for ‘pinkwashing,’ others have recently reduced their support amid political pushbacks. If you have no context for classical music and no connection to it - you haven’t played an instrument or sung in a choir, it’s not something your parents or friends are into, what’s the incentive to come? Tchaikovsky, Britten, Barber, Szymanowski, Poulenc, Copland, Bernstein, (probably) Schubert, Chopin, Handel, or today Caroline Shaw, Judith Weir, Thomas Adès, George Benjamin, Nico Muhly, Meredith Monk and so on.
The event has grown from a single concert in 2023 to a five-day festival last year. “It seemed obvious to celebrate Pride through classical music,” he adds, “and I assumed such concerts were common.”
However, Zeffman discovered that outside the United States, no major orchestra, concert hall, or opera house had organized a Pride concert.
Life is not always an oratorio.
Meet the Man Making Classical Music Gay Again
Oliver Zeffman is everything you wouldn’t expect an orchestral conductor to be. He’s designed coquettish merchandise for the event, such as caps that say “DeBussy Boy,” “Are you a Callas B—h?” or a cap with three musical notes that translate to the word “fag.”
As a genre, classical music is in somewhat of a limbo — it’s partly attached to highbrow culture and therefore benefits reputationally, but at the same time it needs all the help it can get from appealing to the mass market because of governments slashing funds for arts and culture.
“Classical music isn’t good at audience development and there’s a bit of an attitude of ‘we do important art, if they don’t know about it, it’s their loss.’ But that’s not how you sell to an audience,” says Zeffman, who believes that nobody needs to have an encyclopedic knowledge of Frederick the Great or Igor Stravinsky to enjoy classical music.
The school is recognized for its illustrious alumni including Tchaikovsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Artur Kapp and Rudolf Tobias.
But Zeffman is not a disciple of the da-da-da-duuuum of classical music. A Pride concert seemed a really obvious thing, and I just assumed it had been done - and many times - already.
But, it turned out, that outside the US no major orchestra, concert hall, or opera house anywhere in the world had put on a concert to celebrate Pride.