James Festa (1956 - November 5, 1992)

[reviews_and_ramblings]

James Festa was the company manager of the New York City Opera and member of New York City's Gay Men's Chorus.

He died on November 5, 1992, at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center. He was 36 years old and lived in Manhattan.

He died of AIDS, said Susan Woelzl, a spokeswoman for City Opera.

Mr. Festa began working at City Opera in 1983 as associate company manager and became the company manager four years later. He had been an assistant office manager at the New York law firm of Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett.

He was born in Harrisburg, Pa., and received a degree in musical theater from the University of Maryland. As a performer, he appeared in dinner theater in Washington and Philadelphia. He was also a member of the New York City Gay Men's Chorus, the St. Joseph's Church Choir in New York, the Collegiate Chorale and the Pan Am Chorus.

He is survived by his companion, Lawrence Flamholtz.


AIDS Quilt

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/11/obituaries/james-festa-36-dies-city-opera-manager.html

Further Readings:

Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology by Philip Brett, Elizabeth Wood & Gary C. Thomas
Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Routledge; 1st edition (January 27, 1994)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0415907535
ISBN-13: 978-0415907538
Amazon: Queering the Pitch: The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology

Is music the patriarchy's most powerful weapon in constructing and controlling sexual roles? If you scratch an opera queen, will you find a lesbian? Queering the Pitch will provoke many to question what it is that makes music pleasurable, and how it is shaped by notions of sexuality and sexual identity. The first collection of gay and lesbian work in music and musicology, this book contains a wealth of diverse approaches which signal an exciting and controversial advance in the field. Musicologists, scholars academics, critics, performers and composers examine the areas of musical education, voice and listening, history and biography, as seen through an interdisciplinary and political eye.