I’m back in New York City, if only briefly, in order to see Kazem conduct a concert here at Lincoln Center. The concert includes Brahms, Stravinsky, and a piece by 20th-century Native American composer Louis W. Ballard titled Incident at Wounded Knee. It was composed in the 1970s, inspired by the Wounded Knee Occupation, also known as Second Wounded Knee—as well as of course, the more well-known 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre.
In the program notes they quoted the conductor on his program choice: “It’s important to compare Stravinsky and Brahms or Brahms and Ballard and to see where their similarities lie and see where the differences lie. All of those later composers would have known Brahms’s music and would have, of course, had their own style and voice. But in the same way that Brahms was heavily influenced by Beethoven and Beethoven was influenced by Mozart, and Mozart was influenced by Haydn... it’s part of this long arc of music.”
My companion for the evening was my friend Lola, whom I have known for almost 30 years. On a September evening in 1997 in Santa Rosa, California, I sat down with my parents and told them that I was gay. The conversation was rough. Afterward I went tearfully to my friend Lola’s, about a 20-minute walk from my parents’ house, and paced outside chain-smoking because she wasn’t home yet. Meanwhile her neighbors called her cell phone to warn her that a suspicious character was loitering in front of her house. She told them not to worry, he’s just a sad gay. Recently we got back in touch and discovered that we both live in Harlem, once again about a 20-minute walk from one another.
Eli in 1997, sad gay
We saw the concert from seating behind the orchestra, looking out at the hall. We could see the conductor the way the musicians see him and see the interactions between them. It felt much more intimate, as if we were part of the show. And there is something inspiring about see the audience filled with people, sitting down to spend their evening listening to classical music. Sometimes I fear civilization is collapsing in favor of the raucous noise of clips and bites, but this puts that fear, at least somewhat, to rest.
Lola and Eli, 2024