“Six Southern states either prohibit sex educators from discussing (or even answering questions about) LGBTQ+ identities and relationships, or actually require sex educators to frame LGBTQ+ identities and relationships negatively.” (Planned Parenthood Action Fund, 2023). 

In a time where America regresses on the fronts of sexual freedom and education, discussions by the Mosaic Composers Collective are instrumental to shaping the future. The Mosaic Composers Collective is a creative network of neoclassical musicians who unite LGBTQ+ composers across the country within an art form lacking insight from voices like theirs. Classical music has a historic connotation catering towards the European aristocracy and imperialism. Their collective’s existence is vital to progressing from this destructive exclusivity and ensuring the growth and development of neoclassical music.

The Mosaic Collective came to National Sawdust on November 16 to share their music and foster an open discussion around sexuality, liberation, reproductive justice, and sexual health. They partnered with community organizations Equality New York and Brooklyn Harm Reduction Outreach Cooperative to curate an informative and inspiring experience. I spoke with their quorum—Murphy Severtson, Aidan Arbona, Alexa Letourneau, and Athos Maelstrom—to discuss the collective’s roots and the creative process behind designing events that fuse important music with important discussions.   

What was the initial inspiration behind starting the collective—what memories from your individual upbringings as musicians come to mind that might have led you down the path of advocacy?

ATHOS MAELSTROM: We're working together in an industry that is really competitive, but having this community serves as both a place of advocacy, for our music, and a refuge from some of the harsher aspects of trying to create art in this city. I think we're all kind of affected by the usually “male European genius” that the composer as a concept is cast. As we evolve, we feel spoken or unspoken pressures to live up to that impossible expectation. Being in this space together can really help us mediate our relationship with that concept and heal from that in some ways, and also, hopefully, change the way that composers of our age and younger begin to compose as a whole.

ALEXA LETOURNEAU:  I was largely homeschooled so I was always hopping from one set of friends to another versus having one school set that you do most of your things with. The relationship between independence and community is hugely mirrored in having this collective where we are all still very much individuals artistically and as people, but we have this community that we can rely on and be allies to one another.

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Does addressing social topics like sexual health inform your compositions? Do you find yourselves channeling those thoughts and ideas into your music?

ATHOS: I think we'd be remiss not to acknowledge that music has always been political. It's always been full of social statements. We look at so many of our predecessors, so much of their work has always been informed by what was going on in the world around them. It's really just their response to it in the form of music. In terms of my music, technically speaking, I'm interested in bridging the gap that has come to exist between performers and composers. I want to create a space where the performers are playing things out of their own imagination that I don't specify on my paper- indeterminacy. Taking some of the control of writing away from myself is something that I'm really interested in currently. And, I think the technicality of my writing is very much informed by the freedom and access to knowledge and to creation that I think everyone should have.

ALEXA: One of the things that we all value in our artistic practice is writing about things that are important to us and from a place that feels authentic to ourselves. In my experience, I've been a little miffed by being labeled a politically charged composer for writing pieces that are about me. I don't love that writing pieces about identity and sexual health are politicized. When we were settling on a theme for the National Sawdust concert, it seemed that one thing that we all had on our minds as young queer people is sexual health, and how much we see it demonized and attacked in the world around us. Coming at it from that shared space, and shared value, I think it was really what drew us to the project. From that central focus, we were all able to then take that theme, interpret it personally, and create work that felt very genuine and true to ourselves. 

MURPHY SEVERTSON: The piece that I wrote for this concert is a more pure expression of excitement and euphoria. If it's political, it's only because it's made political. I've never been more happy than when I'm expressing my queerness. What Alexa said really resonated with me. I'm interested in writing pieces about things that make me happy, and things that make me sad, and things that make me feel something—and, right now, those things are super political…which I hope isn’t the case for the rest of our lives. I'm from Florida, this is something that's really personal to me because, Lord knows, I did not have what I needed when I was in high school. I’m thinking about if I was in high school right now—I don't think I would be in the same place I am. Things are not getting better.

Why do you think it's important for musicians, especially in neoclassical spheres, to be speaking on LGBTQ+ awareness and the attack on sex education?

MURPH: One thing that has driven me is acknowledging that classical music is a weight-bearing pillar of white supremacy. It's a fact. What are we doing if not actively trying to express something contrary to that? We're all classically trained musicians—we were classically trained in a specific tradition that continues to be held up as a sort of bastion of white, European progress. And what are we doing as students of that tradition, if not being directly outspoken against it? I really wish that I could give this opportunity to myself, six or seven years ago, or let myself see this and know that I can express excitement and the idea of sexuality. Having a space to just be open about sexuality is something that I think is really important, regardless. To have a platform like National Sawdust, and not make use of it in that way, would have been a little irresponsible of us. 

AIDAN ARBONA: Books are being banned left and right across the United States. We're disallowing people to be themselves. Some kids who grow up in these environments will never even know what they feel is natural because they'll never see it in a book. They'll never be exposed to it, they'll never be told that this is something that is human. It's heartbreaking. At the same time, it's adversity I feel that we can overcome gradually, but our voices need to be heard. 

ALEXA: I think this is true for all of us—we're coming from a space of wanting to create a concert that we wish we had been able to see. And, having been given this platform, I think it’s important to create concerts that we know would be beneficial because it was something that our younger selves craved and were denied because of this white supremacist, Eurocentric field that we've found ourselves in. We’re creating music that we want to hear, not just from an aesthetic standpoint, but from a topic and representation. If you make the music you think you need to hear, other people need to hear it, too. 

AIDAN: We are the current generation, we are those whose voices are yet to be heard. And, in composing, we're expressing thoughts and ideas that are entirely relevant to our time period now and are creating a place for our voices to be heard in the future. And it is something that needs to be heard. I remember our first concert at the DiMenna Center, when someone who came up to me afterwards was like, “What you were talking about with vulnerability is something that has been weighing on me and something that I needed to hear…and hearing it from someone else made me feel seen.” As a composer, I'm writing it because I want that to be seen within myself as well. When the audience can reciprocate that, and when they understand what I'm going through, it makes everything so much more valuable. 

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What motivated the choice to make National Sawdust the setting for the evening’s discussion and performance?

MURPH: National Sawdust is a dream performance space for new classical music right now. We're super excited to have this platform. I feel like there is a lot that happens at National Sawdust that's really aligned with our mission and what we're trying to do. So, the openness and willingness of the organization itself has been really exciting to have. As people who are trying to do something a little bit different, National Sawdust met us with “Yes, do that.” That's not something that we can say about a lot of other organizations.

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About Nikolas Yilmaz

Nikolas Yilmaz is a Bulgarian writer and musician based in Brooklyn. He is currently the editorial intern at National Sawdust, an editor for Rambler Magazine, and plays guitar in several recording projects. Yilmaz has been organizing and documenting NYC cultural events since 2019.