The Queer Urban Orchestra Has Created a Safe Space for Remarkable NYC Musicians

The group, which will perform on May 10, has drawn dedicated fans that seek them out for their potent interpretations of classic and contemporary works alike.

| 26 Apr 2025 | 06:14

If you’re looking for an evening of enriching musical entertainment, you couldn’t possibly do better than attending a performance by the Queer Urban Orchestra. On May 10, they’ll be putting on a performance they’ve entitled “Titans” at the St. Paul & St. Andrew Church on W. 86th Street, and it behooves anybody with even the slightest interest in the arts to be there.

The Queer Urban Orchestra, or QUO, was founded in 2009. Navida Stein, a violinist with the group, told Straus News that she “attended the second rehearsal” they ever had—and has been playing with them since. She said she’s watched it “grow and flourish.”

“We’ve been getting better and better as musicians. We used to meet at a gay and lesbian center that was under construction at W. 24th Street, and we would climb over all this construction with our instruments,” she explained. “We would end up in a cafeteria, and that’s where we’d rehearse. . . . When people have passion and courage, that’s a driving force.”

David Bloom, who serves as QUO’s artistic director, calls it a “musician-led orchestra,” meaning it was founded by the players, rather than its conductor. “That kernel is very much still in the culture and the identity of the group.”

Bloom has been with QUO for two years, and says that he is constantly animated by a mission of “uplifting queer artistry.” Outside of including queer performers and reaching queer audiences, he said, this means platforming works by queer composers and organizing concerts around queer themes. Last month, QUO put on a performance that honored the 10th anniversary of marriage equality in the United States.

The orchestra’s upcoming May 10 performance will include a rendering of Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony, which is known for what QUO calls its “wholehearted embrace of Austrian and Bohemian folk music.” It will also include a “world premiere” of work by Rajna Swaminathan, who plays a remarkable percussion instrument called the mridangam.

Perhaps most important, Bloom said, QUO provides a sort of “extended family” for queer musicians who are seeking a “safe space” to play in. After all, there’s a surprising lack of similar orchestras in America. Bloom pointed out that QUO is the the only queer orchestra in the Northeast, which he said is “strange.”

“The LBTQ+ orchestras that are geographically closest to QUO are in Atlanta and the Twin Cities. You know that people must be Googling this in Boston and Philadelphia,” he added.

Stein, the violinist, who identifies as a straight ally of the LBGTQ+ community, emphasized that QUO is “rooted in inclusion.” She plays in QUO because “she doesn’t have to be perfect, and I can learn, and I can grow. I play in honor of my older sister, who is a lesbian, and who suffered terribly throughout her life to live openly with her partner. I have also had two mentors, both extraordinary gay women, who lived openly with their partners in a time when you did not do that.”

More important, Stein said, QUO is a “pocket of people who I just adore. I love being with them, and I love making music with them. You’re vulnerable when you make music, and I don’t want to be in an orchestra where somebody yells at me because I played a wrong note . . . and I do play wrong notes!”

Tickets to “Titans” can be purchased at the website www.queerurbanorchestra.org/tickets, or via a call to (646) 233-4133. There will be a $5 discount until midnight on May 9.

“When people have passion and courage, that’s a driving force.” Violinist Navida Stein