Queer Voices in American Music

Maine Historical Society - Programs Podcast

Nadine Hubbs; Recorded May 29, 2024 - America ushered in twentieth-century modernity with new technologies, aesthetics, and national status as a global power. With the rise in economic and political standing came new cultural pressures: American concert music was deemed far behind its European counterparts and in urgent need of catching up. Years of searching failed to identify a representative compositional voice. Then in 1939 came the sensational New York premiere of Aaron Copland’s “cowboy ballet,” Billy the Kid, soon followed by Rodeo, Appalachian Spring, and other megahits. America found its national sound in the music of Copland, a gay Jewish Brooklynite and one of a close-knit group of gay composers who crucially influenced and collaborated with each other. How did a circle of gay composers become architects of American national identity during the most homophobic period in U.S. history? Nadine Hubbs's answer may surprise you.