Helping transgender and nonbinary singers find the perfect notes
metroweekly.comAnthology of New Music: Trans & Nonbinary Voices, Vol. 1 addresses a need felt by many trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming singers and artists. “As a trans nonbinary singer, I often found opera and musical theater compositions to be aggressively gendered and binary,” says the anthology’s curator, Aiden Feltkamp. “I was at a loss for repertoire that spoke to me.”Searching to see who was out there “writing for trans voices, nonbinary voices,” Feltkamp expected to find some musical theater or classical music anthology to suit him. “I couldn’t find anything,” he recalls.“So when I was selected as a Turn the Spotlight fellow, back in January of 2020, as part of that fellowship, you choose a major project.
And so I knew this was the project they wanted to do. I had the support of the fellowship, and the mentors there and their connections.
It was just like a perfect storm of it being an idea that I’d had for a while, and then the right moment and opportunity to make it happen.”Published this year by NewMusicShelf, the collection represents a considered balance of classical art songs and opera arias, original songs for musical theater, a few singer-songwriter pieces, and even sacred music.“Since it was the first one, I wanted to run the gamut a little bit more than I would have if something had already existed,” explains Feltkamp. “Like if the musical theater one was out there, I think I would have done a lot more classical, but I wanted to mix it up.”A singer, educator, and creator, Feltkamp curated the anthology with three groups in mind.
