Cracking the classical closet.

FEAR STILL KEEPS GAY INSTRUMENTALISTS FROM COMING OUT, EVEN AS ONE LESBIAN STAR URGES OTHERS TO JOIN HER

Within the music industry there is a genre that accounts for less than 5% of recording sales, considers it a success to sell 5,000 copies of a new release, and has been marginalized by popular culture to the point of invisibility. It's called classical music.

In such an insular, increasingly specialized field, one might assume it would be safe for gay and lesbian performers to reveal their sexuality. After all, American culture at large is barely aware of classical music's existence, so no massive public outcry is likely to ensue. But it turns out that for most of classical music's virtuosos, the closet door is still tightly shut.

Of course, there are openly gay stars in the classical-music world. Venerated composers such as David Diamond, Ned Rorem, Lou Harrison, and John Corigliano are out, as is the dynamic conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. A few rungs down the ladder you'll find young gay artists like countertenor Brian Asawa and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet. But for some reason, a flamboyant world-renowned 30-something violinist still feels she must remain silent to protect her livelihood.

Her fears may well be unfounded. Internationally acclaimed classical guitarist Sharon Isbin, who came out; in print in 1995, calls her disclosure "a revelation": "I can experience the freedom and openness of being out and have the benefits of a new audience." With a trace of sadness, she adds, "To my knowledge, I am the only female classical instrumentalist who is out."

Within the classical music ghetto, everybody's sexuality is an open secret. So why the fear of speaking out? The reason most commonly cited is the supposed reaction of a notoriously conservative classical-music public, which still clings to 19th-century repertoire and has been known to criticize performers' haircuts and attire. But it's hard to imagine anyone boycotting a performance of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto just because the soloist is a lesbian.

Yet for many listeners, instrumental music remains a special case. Opera and ballet are as much about visual imagery as music, the thinking goes, while instrumental music--traditionally revered as the purest form of expression-does not have text or narrative, just abstract notation possessing no inherent meaning. These precious notes, it is said, must remain elevated on the heights of Parnassus, unsullied by mundane, everyday concerns. By this logic the sexuality of composer and performer is not only irrelevant to the art but also downright destructive.

So prevalent is this attitude that it has been applied retroactively, as generations of music historians have deliberately obscured the sexuality of the masters. Schubert, it has recently been revealed, was not a retiring wallflower too shy to approach the ladies but a homosexual who was part of a thriving Viennese subculture. The outrage provoked by this revelation showed that many still feel they must protect the Germanic canon from such posthumous slander.

For living artists, the same reasons are frequently given to explain why coming out is impossible: It is irrelevant to the music, it distracts the audience, it may alienate conservative concertgoers, it complicates lesbian access to a male-dominated field--and it may even incite stage-door violence. Isbin speculates that such fears are rooted "in the tenuous condition of the classical-music world in general. People are concerned that if they do anything unconventional, they could lose hold of what they have."

Isbin's overwhelmingly positive experience provides a much-needed corrective. "I was the only one who had a problem with it," she tells The Advocate. "Everybody else was completely welcoming. My own internalized homophobia feared something negative from being open. This was a lingering issue I had not even been aware of. Once I put my finger on it, it disappeared." Since her 1995 coming-out, she has signed a multidisc contract with Teldec Classics, been booked for more concerts than ever, and received a Grammy nomination for her CD Journey to the Amazon.

Coming out remains easier outside the realm of instrumental performance. By the 1970s, even Leonard Bernstein was out of the closet. (When Bernstein encouraged his elderly colleague Aaron Copland to join him, he got the icy response "I think I'll leave that to you, young man.") Composer Corigliano and librettist William Hoffman collaborated on a commission from the New York Metropolitan Opera, The Ghosts of Versailles (1991), which exuded a decidedly gay sensibility, and the duo even posed for the cover of The Advocate. Tilson Thomas--the San Francisco Symphony's superstar conductor, a pianist who rarely appears or records as an instrumentalist--acknowledges his sexuality but declines to elaborate or to speak to the national gay press.

While there's hardly a stampede of classical performers emerging from the closet, the record-buying public is clearly hungry for identifiable gay and lesbian personalities. In 1995, BMG Classics released Out Classics, the first CD devoted entirely to gay composers, and it proved to be one of the label's biggest sellers of the season. Beginning in 1996 a small independent company, Composers Recordings, issued two volumes titled Gay American Composers and one, a landmark, of Lesbian American Composers. The predictable charges of ghettoization and irrelevancy were tossed at each of these projects. But the recording company has been laughing all the way to the bank.

Still, Isbin is acutely aware of her isolation in the spotlight, and she has a message for her lesbian colleagues: "It's lonely out here, girls. My advice is, Go for it!"

Schwarz is a New York City-based classical music writer who contributes frequently to The New York Times and is the author of Minimalists.