Queer-Focused Music History Class Takes Field Trip to Edwin Outwater's Annual Holiday Drag Show at SFS
Outwater co-emcees the annual event—which features not just music but aerial displays and stand-up comedy—with drag icon Peaches Christ, now in its fifth year at Davies Symphony Hall.
SFCM Music History Class with Edwin Outwater and Peaches Christ.
by Alex Heigl
Professor Alexander Stalarow's Music and Queer Identity's semester-ending field trip was a drag—in the best way.
The end-of-semester "field trip" organized by Stalarow for his Music and Queer Identity class took in SFCM Music Director Edwin Outwater's annual "Holiday Gaiety" concert at the San Francisco Symphony on December 15, a multi-media event that included Outwater co-emceeing with drag queen Peaches Christ, dancers, the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, aerialist displays, and stand-up comedy.
"My Master's music history seminar this term, Music and Queer Identity, explores connections between queer identity and musical culture in a variety of ways—composition, historical reception, interpretations, contemporary audience reception and engagement—and in lots of different genres," Stalarow said.
Stalarow explained that Outwater and Peaches visited his class earlier in the semester for a discussion about their productions "in the context of a growing number of performers interested in merging drag with classical music performance."
"Edwin and Peaches," he continued, "helped us consider the ways that drag performance can, in shows like Holiday Gaiety, both bring in and engage new audiences to spaces like Davies Symphony Hall, as well as disrupt traditional concert culture." (Last year, there was even a surprise marriage proposal onstage.)
Student Isaac Champa, enrolled in the class, agreed: "Although I come from a very liberal part of Kansas, I would never have been able to see a show like this back home. As someone who identifies as part of both the queer and classical communities, being able to see a show where these two worlds were given the space to collide was incredibly comforting."
"Getting to witness queer performers and artists share the stage with members of the SFS reassured me that I was experiencing progress happening in real-time," he continued. "Seeing Monet X Change, one of my favorite queens, performing opera on the stage of Davies Hall after we had talked about her in class a couple weeks prior was so breathtaking to experience.”
For Champa, the experience at SFS showed him that a concert hall, does not have to be such a serious space, but one that can be for all communities, if given the chance: "I never thought I’d see an operatic trapeze act, drag, and Santa at Davies Hall, I’m very glad I did!" Champa added.
While the concert was primarily for fun and entertainment, Stalarow hopes for students, it was also a learning experience, “Edwin and Peaches inspired my class to consider bringing their musical practice and expertise to projects that feature other kinds of art and performance (like drag)," Stalarow concluded, adding "especially those that align with the queer community that so many of them wish to engage and support."
Learn more about studying music history and literature at SFCM.