Headfirst Editor's Pick
"Bristol’s ballroom community meets classical concert piano and tenor in a Pride celebration like no other. Kunal Lahiry’s celestial keys and Frederick Ballentine’s showstopping voice will lead interpretations of Schubert, traditional spirituals and runway voguing in a moving exhumation of black queer culture. "
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A gig held at St George's Bristol on Friday 30th June. The event starts at 19:30.
Tickets: https://www.stgeorgesbristol.co.uk/whats-on/our-people-kunal-lahiry-piano-frederick-ballentine-tenor/
In this very special collaboration, American concert pianist Kunal Lahiry teams up with Grammy-award winning tenor Frederick Ballentine and the ballroom community of Bristol to pay homage to and explore Black and LGBTQ experiences through song and dance.
The event – broadcast by BBC Radio 3 – is a highly original coming together of two distinct art forms not often witnessed together: classical art song stretching back to composers such as Schubert, and the stylized dance of voguing that developed out of the Black and Latino gay ballroom scene of 1960s Harlem, and that was propelled into mainstream consciousness through Madonna’s 1990s hit Vogue.
St George’s will clear its chairs to form a runway, the usual stage of a vogue ball, from which Lahiry and Ballentine will lead proceedings and invite the ballroom community to join them in an eclectic, deeply moving set of songs, from the aforementioned classical composers to traditional spirituals and more contemporary artists such as Nina Simone. Members of the Bristol voguing / ballroom community will interweave throughout, giving a snapshot of the dance styles, poses and rich, complexities of ball culture.
This is a concert unlike others, a bridging of two worlds and a moment to understand and remember the lost generation of black and LGBTQ people. It illustrates, as Ballentine puts it, “our separation from the whole, our constant oppression, our lost loves and souls – but most beautifully, our resilience.”
This concert is approximately 75 minutes straight through, without an interval.
Entry requirements:
In this very special collaboration, American concert pianist Kunal Lahiry teams up with Grammy-award winning tenor Frederick Ballentine and the ballroom community of Bristol to pay homage to and explore Black and LGBTQ experiences through song and dance.
The event – broadcast by BBC Radio 3 – is a highly original coming together of two distinct art forms not often witnessed together: classical art song stretching back to composers such as Schubert, and the stylized dance of voguing that developed out of the Black and Latino gay ballroom scene of 1960s Harlem, and that was propelled into mainstream consciousness through Madonna’s 1990s hit Vogue.
St George’s will clear its chairs to form a runway, the usual stage of a vogue ball, from which Lahiry and Ballentine will lead proceedings and invite the ballroom community to join them in an eclectic, deeply moving set of songs, from the aforementioned classical composers to traditional spirituals and more contemporary artists such as Nina Simone. Members of the Bristol voguing / ballroom community will interweave throughout, giving a snapshot of the dance styles, poses and rich, complexities of ball culture.
This is a concert unlike others, a bridging of two worlds and a moment to understand and remember the lost generation of black and LGBTQ people. It illustrates, as Ballentine puts it, “our separation from the whole, our constant oppression, our lost loves and souls – but most beautifully, our resilience.”
This concert is approximately 75 minutes straight through, without an interval.
Entry requirements:
Other classical gigs
