Concert section: Metro Weekly

Marriage Singer

Accomplished singer and actress Audra McDonald is also one of the loudest voices for marriage equality

Published on September 29, 2011, 3:28am

''I want my child to be able to marry whoever she wants to marry when she grows up, and have the same rights as everyone else,'' says Audra McDonald. Her daughter Zoe Madeline (named for actors Zoe Caldwell and Madeline Kahn) is 10. ''I'm not saying my child's gay -- she may be someday, I don't know. Who knows now? But she deserves all those rights as every other [person] in the United States.'' An award-winning singer and actress, McDonald ...[more]

Pioneering Pop

Openly gay from the start of his career, Andy Bell helped usher in the sound of electronica with Erasure

Published on September 1, 2011, 2:22am

Andy Bell is feeling his age. ''I love Beyoncé and Rihanna and stuff, but it's so hyper, everything,'' says the 47-year-old. ''You kind of feel like you can't possibly be as hyper as those young people, you know? It's impossible.'' At the very least, Bell was once as hyper as that. As the flamboyant lead singer of Erasure, Bell is responsible for some of pop music's most energetic, if not always hyper, hits, including ''A Little Respect,'' ''Chains of Love,'' ...[more]

Lyrically LuPone

Next weekend, Patti LuPone will share Broadway, celebrate the arts and make sure everyone leaves her show happy

Published on September 1, 2011, 2:15am

''I've had an affinity with gay people since I was like, 6 years old,'' Patti LuPone says. ''The person I've known the longest, I knew at when we were 6 years old that he was gay. Go figure, since I was growing up in the '50s. I knew he was gay, and he's been my friend all of these years. How many years is that now? That's over 50 years that we've been friends.'' And she's had an affinity for ...[more]

Wedding Singer

Steven Blier offers a recital with newfound same-sex appeal

Published on July 7, 2011, 6:48am

''I put together this program before [New York passed marriage equality],'' says Steven Blier, ''but now that it has, the program has a different meaning to me.'' This Sunday, the New York-based Blier offers ''Couples: From Getting Hitched to Getting Ditched'' at the Barns at Wolf Trap. The founder of the New York Festival of Song and a member of the faculty at Juilliard, Blier will accompany five singers from the Wolf Trap Opera Company's Filene Young Artists program. The ...[more]

Drumming Decades

D.C.'s Different Drummers celebrates 30 years of making music

Published on November 4, 2010, 4:26am

''My passion for the group grows every time I'm with them,'' says Joe Bello of D.C.'s Different Drummers. Bello is not the only one. This Saturday, Nov. 6, Bello, in just his third year as the group's director, heads up a gala concert celebrating the organization's three decades of making music. That's 30 years of passion. Bello notes that like many other early gay social groups, DCDD started ''as a place for people to come to feel comfortable with their ...[more]

Musical Wizardry

Emil de Cou will conduct the orchestra while The Wizard of Oz screens at Wolf Trap

Published on July 16, 2009, 12:00am

There's this amazing detail in sounds and colors and orchestrations that you just really don't hear in the movie theater anymore,'' says the National Symphony Orchestra's Emil de Cou of the 1939 classic, The Wizard of Oz. But beyond Harold Arlen's famous tunes, especially ''Over The Rainbow,'' chances are you don't remember much of the Oz score. ''It's very easy to not even notice it that much,'' says de Cou, who serves as the NSO at Wolf Trap Festival Conductor. ...[more]

Dark Victory

The Gay Men's Chorus of Washington present a gripping, vital new work

Published on June 4, 2009, 12:00am

''I didn't know what was happening -- I thought he was having a mid-life crisis or something,'' says composer Michael Shaieb of a close friend and writing partner who was never available to work. Turns out his friend was dealing with meth addiction. The experience informed Through A Glass, Darkly, a composition Shaieb had been commissioned to write a month before his friend's admission, when Shaieb knew little about the issue. ''It blew my mind,'' says Shaieb. ''All this time ...[more]

Nice Piaf

Edith Piaf's sound-a-like comes to Lisner

Published on March 26, 2009, 12:00am

Jil Aigrot Jil Aigrot has become known for singing as Edith Piaf. So perfect is her Piaf, she was tapped to voice the singing portions of the 2007 biopic, La Vie en Rose. But Aigrot says her life is little like that of the late French legend, known for hits including ''Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien'' and ''La Foule.'' ''Piaf was troubled, and I'm not troubled,'' says Aigrot, quickly adding, ''Well, when I'm on stage and I have to speak ...[more]

Alphabet Soup

The Gay Men's Chorus presents their spring show

Published on March 19, 2009, 12:00am

Jeff Buhrman knows his gay ABCs -- knows them well. And he'll help the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington recite them at everything gAy to Z, this weekend's annual spring concert. ''The idea came about because GLBT people of all generations don't know all there is about what's happened in the last 40 years of the GLBT movement,'' says Buhrman, a 23-year veteran with the chorus and its current artistic director. ''[We want] to educate in an entertaining way.'' The ...[more]

Choral Milestone

LGCW celebrates 25 years with a new commission

Published on January 22, 2009, 12:00am

What comes to mind when you think of human warmth? That's the question Robert Convery asked members of the Lesbian and Gay Chorus of Washington to answer. Convery then used the responses to weave together inspirations from nine different poets, including Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman, ending up with a song titled ''Under the Greenwood Tree.'' It's a piece commissioned by LGCW and the centerpiece of the group's upcoming 25th Anniversary Concert this weekend. ''We're doing new pieces, old pieces, ...[more]

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