WQXR Celebrates Pride

On Wednesday, June 17 at 7 PM, WQXR welcomes you to another unforgettable Pride concert at the Jerome L. Greene Performance Space! Celebrate an evening of music, joy, and community featuring extraordinary artists from the LGBTQ+ classical world.

Hosted by acclaimed New York choral conductor Kent Tritle, the program features pianist Sara Davis Buechner, the dynamic violin-and-viola pairing Bandung Duo, and vocalist Eric Sorrels, whose artistry spans both concert and theater stages. The evening culminates with the lively QBAC Spectrum Saxophone Ensemble, guaranteed to have you dancing in the aisles.

Join us for a spirited celebration filled with music, pride, and plenty of merriment!

Host Kent Tritle

Kent Tritle is one of America’s leading choral conductors. Called “the brightest star in New York’s choral music world” by The New York Times, he is Director of Cathedral Music and Organist at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City; the Grammy-nominated Music Director of the Oratorio Society of New York, the esteemed volunteer chorus; and Music Director of Musica Sacra, New York’s elite professional chorus. Kent is a member of the graduate faculty of The Juilliard School, serving its Vocal Arts Department. An acclaimed organ virtuoso, Kent Tritle is the organist of the New York Philharmonic.

Kent led the Sacred Music in a Sacred Space concert series at New York’s Church of St. Ignatius Loyola from 1989 to 2011, and was Music Director of the Emmy-nominated Dessoff Choirs from 1996 to 2004. As Director of Choral Activities at the Manhattan School of Music from 2008 to 2022, Kent established the school’s first doctoral program in choral conducting. Kent hosted “The Choral Mix with Kent Tritle,” a weekly program devoted to the vibrant world of choral music, on New York’s WQXR from 2010 to 2014.

Pianist Sara Davis Buechner

Pianist Sara Davis Buechner is a musician of “intelligence, integrity and all-encompassing technical prowess” (New York Times), and renowned for her "thoughtful artistry in the full service of music” (Washington Post).

In her twenties Ms. Buechner earned several top prizes at the world’s premiere international piano competitions — Queen Elisabeth (Brussels), Leeds, Mozart (Salzburg), Beethoven (Vienna), and Sydney. She was a Bronze Medalist of the 1986 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and the Gold Medalist of the 1984 Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition.

The broad sweep of Ms. Buechner’s artistry is presented in her autobiographical stage show “Of Pigs and Pianos,” which she wrote, produced and starred in to acclaim from the New York Times and other media in 2022. She continues to appear in the show yearly, with its première at the International Gilmore Festival in 2026.

Ms. Buechner is Piano Chair of the Greenwich House Music School in New York City, Professor of Piano at Temple University in Philadelphia, and an Adjunct Professor at New York University.

As the most prominent transgender musician of our time, Sara Davis Buechner appears often as a spokesperson for the LGBTQ+ community. Her love of both baseball and Japanese culture is well known, and in addition to appearances at the New York Mets Pride Night festivities, she is an honorary team member of the Hanshin Tigers of Osaka, Japan. She has been a dedicated Yamaha Artist for nearly 40 years.

A dual citizen of the United States and Canada, Ms. Buechner makes her home in beautiful Newark, New Jersey.

QBAC Spectrum Saxophone Ensemble

The Queer Big Apple Corps (QBAC) is the nation’s largest and second-oldest LGBTQIA+ marching and symphonic band. Since 1979, QBAC has been an artistic home to thousands of musicians, color guard, dancers, and volunteers of all ages, genders, orientations, and backgrounds, entertaining tens of millions of people around the world. Spectrum Saxophone Ensemble—one of the many small groups formed by QBAC members—has been performing together since 2017.

Eric Sorrels - Singer

Eric Sorrels is a New York-based singer, songwriter, and librettist whose work spans the concert stage and musical theatre. A professional chorister and AGMA member, he performs regularly with sacred music ensembles in the New York area. He is also an alumnus of the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU, where he met collaborator and accompanist Henco Espag. Eric’s original musical The Gray Man: A Love Story in Three Hurricanes received its first reading at the Theatre Raleigh Arts Center last month and will premiere in Knoxville, Tennessee in January 2027.

Bandung Duo

Comprised of violinist Sarah Ying Ma (they/she) and violist Carlos Walker (they/he), Bandung Duo is a string duo building Afro-Asian and Third World solidarity through revolutionary art and collaborative projects.

Named after the historic 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia, which united 29 nations across Africa and Asia to foster political solidarity and action, Bandung Duo is founded on the core belief in art as an inherently community-based project. Bandung’s creative strategy includes interdisciplinary collaboration, educational outreach, commissions of new art, and mutual aid for the community.

Having first met through chamber music performances, Carlos and Sarah’s relationship arose from a mutually shared love for cross-disciplinary art and artist-activism. As educators, they have served as Teaching Fellows at Celia Cruz High School in Bronx, NYC as well as the Classical Music Institute’s El Sistema program in San Antonio, TX, and have both provided free music lessons for low-income youth through the organization Through The Staff. Carlos completed their studies at the McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University as well as The Juilliard School, and Sarah at Juilliard, Oberlin Conservatory, and the University of Cincinnati.