The Queer Composition of America's Sound: Gay Modernists American Music and National Identity

About this book

In this vibrant and pioneering book Nadine Hubbs shows how a gifted group of Manhattan-based gay composers were pivotal in creating a distinctive "American sound" and in the process served as architects of modern American identity. Focusing on a talented circle that included Aaron Copland Virgil Thomson Leonard Bernstein Marc Blitzstein Paul Bowles David Diamond and Ned Rorem The Queer Composition of Americas Sound homes in on the role of these artists self-identificationespecially with tonal music French culture and homosexualityin the creation of a musical idiom that even today signifies "America" in commercials movies radio and television and the concert hall.