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LOU HARRISON HONORED AT GAY & LESBIAN AMERICAN MUSIC AWARDS
Joseph Dalton's Presentation of the Award
"Lou Harrison, this year's recipient of the Michael Callen Award is one of our nation's finest composers -- and to anyone who has spent much time with him or with his music -- it is also clear that he is one of the most joyous and compassionate of human beings you could ever hope to know. Lou couldn't be here tonight but they did let me carry out the award itself. It is a beautiful heart within a triangle -- a wonderful symbol for Lou!
"At age 81, Lou Harrison is among the last surviving members of the generation of composers that established the school of American music. While many important composers of this era were gay, none have been more open or matter of fact about it than Lou Harrison.
"In addition to composition, Lou has excelled as an instrument builder, a poet, a painter, a calligrapher, and a writer and critic. But Lou is being honored for more than his accomplishments as an artist, for he is also a humanitarian and pacifist in thought and deed. In his own words he is a 'philosophical pessimist but a glandular optimist.'
"It is by looking at Lou's primary field -- classical music -- that we can best judge his gumption to be an out gay man. Consider that Lou's mentor, Henry Cowell, was imprisoned at San Quinten from 1936 to 1940 on a 'morals charge' (as it was then described). Then there is Charles Ives, America's first great and original composer who Cowell and Harrison did so much to champion. Well, Ives frequently wrote in essays and published journals of the 'pansies, lily-pads and old ladies' that dominated the music world.
"But through the support of close friends, and the regular loving companionship of a good man, Lou Harrison was never forced nor did he ever chose to lead a closeted life. He was an early member of the Society for Individual Rights and many of his works explore the themes of peace, liberation and mutual understanding. He is an enthusiastic member in the gay-lesbian-bisexual and transgender community. (And I think he'd put it just like that.)
"In 1996 Lou wrote the following as his notes to the CRI disc Gay American Composers:
'Since childhood I've known that I liked other males. My two main mentors, Henry Cowell and Virgil Thomson, were gay and I early learned that Tchaikovsky and the divine Mr. Handel also were. My friend John Cage was gay and William Colvig and I have, for twenty-nine years, maintained a loving and working life together. Learning anything from a man of congenial disposition is always easier for me, and in foreign lands I used to find a lover and/or helper within a few days. I have not populated, and I omit religion and abjure government. Living and working outside the mainstream is, I believe, a help to those inside the mainstream.'
"And finally, I would like to add that while the video focuses on certain aspects of Lou's music, his large body of compositions include 4 symphonies and dozens of other works for traditional forces. Lou is also an un-apologetic tinkerer and fixer who frequently revisits his older works to get them just right. He is now working on revisions for the third and final version of his opera Young Ceasar. This is a gay themed work which he first created in 1971, reworked in 1988, and is now adding some new arias and such -- all for a commission from the Lincoln Center Festival (the same organization that presented Patience & Sarah which is being honored tonight) for production in the year 2001 with Dennis Russell Davies as conductor and Mark Morris as stage director.
"For this and for all that Lou has done and continues to do, it is my pleasure to present, on behalf of the Gay & Lesbian American Music Awards and all of us present here tonite the 1999 Michael Callen Medal of Achievement to the great gay American composer Lou Harrison."
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Gay & Lesbian American Music Awards
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