Jules Biber: LGBTQIA people have always existed
in classical music, but I think rarely has our
difference been welcomed, embraced, or even celebrated
until pretty recently.
Hi, my name is Jules Biber and I am a cellist and teacher.
I'm an adjunct assistant professor in the music
department at Hunter college.
CUNY has been a pretty steady part of my life for
the past number of years.
I got my DMA, my doctorate in musical arts, essentially
the equivalent of a PhD at the Grad Center.
I started to teach at various campuses.
I started at City College and ended up at Hunter
where I teach chamber music. I teach history.
I've taught theory. I did some private lessons.
Chamber music is essentially like a
conversation among friends.
The name chamber music implies that it's
played in a small space.
So it's essentially an ensemble that can
fit in a living room.
And it's existed in classical music from very
early on in it's history.
Growing up in the classical music world, I had a very
standard sort of education in classical music.
I grew up outside of Boston.
You know, my dad listened to music a lot when I was a kid
and he was very encouraging of me to start an instrument.
I had been rummaging through the attic as a kid and there
was this strange looking large instrument up there
that I was very fascinated by.
And I asked my dad what it was.
He said it was a cello.
And I said, oh, me and my cello, like we've
been buddies for a really, really long time.
It's taken me on adventures.
It's taken me around the world.
I was really very much conservatory trained.
It's very kind of old trajectory of
learning and playing.
You study with someone who's a master at what they do and you
emulate them and you follow in that same sort of path, right?
It can be quite limiting in some ways.
One of the things, as I sort of realized that I
was gay, I was Queer, I started to feel that sense
of otherness and difference even from the simplest kinds
of things as, you know, dress codes for concerts.
It's like women wear skirts, men wear pants.
It's this very gendered kind of world that still exists.
The general idea behind Chamber Queer is that
we want to program Queer artists and composers,
and we want to highlight historically underrepresented
Queer figures in classical music, and really create an
inclusive and intersectional space for everybody.
That means performers and audiences alike.
Chamber Queer doesn't have a physical location,
at least right now.
The Chamber Queer founders work mostly through email.
We have meetings.
That's how we sort of get things done.
We perform in a variety of spaces.
Like they run the gamut.
So we play in traditional concert halls. We play in bars.
We play on the sidewalk, especially during COVID.
We could play doing a lot of outdoor concerts.
We play in primarily in Brooklyn and Manhattan.
We did some shows through the Open Streets Project, which
was a city run program that paired artists with locations
around the city to perform.
I feel the happiest and the most fulfilled when I have
a happy balance between performing and teaching.
The most learning that I do as a performer and as a, you
know, learning as a person is through my teaching, right?
So I learn a lot from my students.
Hopefully my students learn a lot from me.
I think that the future is bright for classical
Queer musicians.
And, you know, we just want to carry on the
conversation that's sort of starting to happen all
over the arts right now.
And, embracing difference, embracing diversity.
Doing all these sort of projects, Chamber Queer,
and just sort of my own personal endeavors, it
makes me feel great.
I love helping people feel safe and comfortable,
because I think I've had my share of experience feeling
uncomfortable in certain spaces and environments.
This place and these people embrace me
for exactly who I am.
I don't need to change myself to engage with this
event or this performance. I can be exactly who I am.
So we have a number of upcoming events.
Our main sort of flagship event every year is our
Pride Festival in June.
This year, it's going to be taking place over three days,
June 10th through 12th, with a concert at National
Sawdust on the 10th and also the 12th in the evening.
And on that Saturday in between the 11th, we're going
to have a daytime show at Branded Saloon in Brooklyn.
We'll also be hosting a number of community
events, which we do throughout the year as well.
Some of them are online, some of them are in person.
My goal and Chamber Queer's goal is to just make everyone
feel welcome, you know?
And in our specific world, classical music,
there's a lot of work to be done.
We'll continue to create space and concerts and
programming that promote the work of Queer artists
and hopefully, you know, people other organizations
and we'll follow suit.