Transqueerian Classical Pianist

Throwback to 2001 when I played Rach 2* with my uni orchestra to 400 (?) people in the Jack Lyons Hall at York uni.⁣

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Long post. ⁣

cn: homophobia, transphobia, uni.⁣

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Maybe it’s weird but one of the nicest things about this time was that it was one of the few relationships where I “felt adored”. My girlfriend (also a musician) loved the fact that I played the piano (tbh none of my boyfriends were into the fact that I was a musician the same way). ⁣

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She was so excited to meet my piano teacher. But the latter was so entrenched in cishet norms & also “British supremacy”. So when she said “I’m X’s girlfriend”, he kept ”correcting” her by saying “friend”, as she had an accent & he’d assumed she’d got the wrong word. He had the wrong word. ⁣

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Maybe it was my fault. I didn’t correct him. ⁣

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I was also in the closet to my parents. After my concert, my godparents & parents (all Catholic) sat in the bar on one side while I sat with my lesbian friends & other friends in another part of the bar!⁣

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Maybe this all got to me cos that new year, I opted to stay at uni by myself, alone except for a Japanese couple & my friend’s infested plant, shivering in a freezing brick shower & watching the geese in the snow. ⁣

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Can you believe it… I found out the other day from my mum THAT THEY KNEW!!! I’m so p*ssed that they didn’t just tell me so I didn’t have to pretend that my gf was my friend!!!⁣

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The other thing is that when I contacted my uni to change the name on my degree certificate & concert programme, I had excellent support from the diversity officer but I’m afraid the music dept. staff including my old teacher completely ignored my emails hoping to reconnect. ⁣

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Maybe they were busy. Or maybe they forgot me as I was actually an English student. Maybe they were just transphobic. ⁣

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This impacts (negatively) on how I relate to the classical music world, academia & also how I feel about myself as an artist & as a person.⁣

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I hope to do some writing courses & transform these experiences into stories/ performance..⁣

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*Aka Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto no. 2⁣

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#ClassicalPiano #QueerClassicalMusic #LGBTIQA #Queer #Trans #Nonbinary #ChinesePianist #tbt #rebelBis

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LGBTIQ, trans, higher education, mental health, performance, familyThe Mollusc Dimension