a&e features
Well-Strung and far-flung
Gay classical outfit has expanded touring schedule, crossover appeal
Well-Strung is, from left, Chris Marchant (second violin), Daniel Shevlin (cello), Edmund Bagnell (first violin) and Trevor Wadleigh (viola). (Photo courtesy of Well-Strung)
Well-Strung
Sunday, Aug. 6
6 and 9 p.m.
Clear Space Theatre Company
20 Baltimore Ave., Rehoboth Beach, Del.
$35-100
Well-Strung, an all-gay singing-string quartet, has a musical library that might raise some eyebrows.
Chris Marchant, Daniel Shevlin, Edmund Bagnell and Trevor Wadleigh are known for mixing Lady Gaga and Rihanna hits with the likes of Bach and Vivaldi. It’s a combination not often found in a music performance but Well-Strung wants to introduce classical music to the masses through a more familiar genre — pop. Not only are they known for their cross-genre performances but their youthful presence and good looks have also been a big crowd draw.
The foursome are bandmates and roommates; they all live together in New York City, which makes for easy practice sessions. When not practicing at home, they are on tour sometimes in a different city every day of the week. The hard work has paid off as they have performed for big names such as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and were invited to perform at the Vatican. They’ve also shared stages with Kristin Chenoweth, Neil Patrick Harris and Audra McDonald.
The Washington Blade was able to speak with second violinist and group co-founder Marchant as they prep for their Rehoboth Beach, Del., show this weekend. Marchant revealed why he thinks classical and pop music are the perfect match, why Britney Spears tweeted their performance and the pressures of being a sex symbol.
WASHINGTON BLADE: Why did you first start playing music?
CHRIS MARCHANT: My mom made me. I was playing T-ball at the time and I was really bad at it so I wanted to quit. She said I could do that if I played a musical instrument for awhile. So I said OK and I picked violin.
BLADE: How did you get involved with Well-Strung?
MARCHANT: I co-created the group with our manager Mark (Cortale). In 2010 I was up in Provincetown and Cape Cod doing another show because I used to do musical theater prior to this. I would play my violin on the street just to make extra money in the summer time. Mark was a producer in town at a theater and he saw me playing. So we started collaborating on what making a show together might look like. And we started looking for other people who would be interested.
BLADE: Is Well-Strung everyone’s only job or do you have side projects?
MARCHANT: It’s our only job. We kind of transitioned into that at different times. A couple of the guys used to cater or teach music or take freelance gigs. I used to bartend. But nobody really has time anymore.
BLADE: What do you think classical styles bring to pop songs?
MARCHANT: One of my favorite things that we do is explore the crossover between pop and classical music. Classical music is kind of intimidating for the average music listener because the library is just so wide. There’s just so much material. So it can be a little bit daunting to try and get into it. So what we try to do is highlight some of the crossovers in our covers between classical pieces and the pop songs. It’s always amazing to me when a chord progression used in a Bach partita lines up with something that is a mega hit by Taylor Swift today. People don’t realize that the underlying bed of music can be quite similar at times. That’s not always the case. But it’s surprising how often that is true. Also, I think the different textures that classical music creates is a little more different and intricate than pop music today. But we try to show what the past has offered musically and that is not irrelevant by any means.
BLADE: Has anyone told you that after listening to your performance you got them more into classical music?
MARCHANT: Absolutely. That’s one of my favorite things to hear after a concert. That’s one of our goals in a concert is to show people that there’s room on both sides of the aisle. There’s room for people to like both. We can show someone that classical music isn’t this lost, old art but it can still be relevant today. But, also I think it’s really cool when sometimes we play student concerts or do student workshops and they realize that, “Oh my gosh, I don’t have to play this one variety of music to play the violin.” It can be whatever you want it to be. That’s also really cool to me.
BLADE: Do you find yourself frowned upon in the classical music community for doing pop covers?
MARCHANT: If that’s the case, I’m unaware of it. I would say some non-fans have written in response to some of the stuff we’ve done and say that we’re destroying the classical piece with something that was written today. But that just seems close-minded. It doesn’t have to be either/or. It should be both as often as it makes sense too.
BLADE: What’s your favorite song to cover?
MARCHANT: My favorite song that we do is Radiohead’s “Creep.” Our violist arranged that one with “Ave Maria” and (a prelude from) “The Well-Tempered Clavier.” So, it’s actually like Bach wrote “The Well-Tempered Clavier” then a hundred years later Gounod wrote “Ave Maria” over top of that and then we took both and we put Radiohead over it. So it’s like multi-century.
BLADE: Any musicians that have reached out to you about songs you’ve covered from them?
MARCHANT: Britney Spears tweeted a clip of us playing “Toxic” in the hotel lobby of Planet Hollywood where she was doing her Las Vegas residency. And then the Charlie Daniels Band posted our cover of “Devil Went Down to Georgia.”
BLADE: Are your fans mostly gay, straight or a mix?
MARCHANT: It’s a good mix. It started out as more heavily gay because we got our start in Provincetown which is a mostly gay community. From there, the people who saw us there would bring us to their hometowns for concerts. So that’s how we started touring. It did start as a stronger gay demographic and I think that is still very present and we’re grateful for that. But we find our demographic just gets wider the more we tour. We tend to have the most engaged audiences when we’re with suburban families. That’s when we find the most successful concerts.
BLADE: You’re known for your music but you’re known for your looks as well. Is it weird being seen as a sex symbol?
MARCHANT: It is weird. We have always said music comes before anything or any of us looking the way we want to look. We always put the music as a priority and everything else comes second to that. But it is very important, for me anyway, to be consistent while we’re on the road. I always try to get up and find a gym before sound check so I can focus my day a little bit. When we’re in different cities all the time, it can be draining in a certain way. Having a routine at the gym is really good for my sanity.
BLADE: What can people expect from your show in Rehoboth?
MARCHANT: We’re so excited for Rehoboth. That community has been so supportive to us from the beginning. There are really sweet people down there. We have a lot of new music that Rehoboth hasn’t heard yet so we’re excited to debut that there and hopefully see a bunch of our old friends. It’s definitely going to be a fun show. They’ve always been a very supportive community. A lot of energy from the audience. Some audiences I think they feel like, “Oh, we’re seeing a string quartet so we should be quiet and respectful of the classical music.” But we would rather people be loud and engaged just having a good time.
Well-Strung (Photo courtesy of the ensemble)
a&e features
Memorial for groundbreaking bisexual activist set for May 2
Loraine Hutchins remembered as a ‘force of nature’
The Montgomery County Pride Center will host a celebration honoring the life and legacy of Loraine Hutchins, Ph.D., on May 2. People are invited to attend the onsite memorial or a livestream event. The on-site event will begin at 10 a.m. with a meet-and-greet mixer before moving into a memorial service around the theme “Loraine a Force of Nature!” at 11 a.m., a panel talk at 12 p.m., break out sessions for artists, academics, and activists to build on her legacy at 1 p.m. and a closing reception at 2 p.m.
Attendees are encouraged to register for the on-site memorial gathering or the livestreamed memorial. The goal of this event is also to collect stories and memories of Loraine. Attendees and others can share their stories at padlet.com.
An obituary for Hutchins was published in the Bladelast Nov. 24, where people can learn more about her activism in the bisexual community. A private service for friends and family was held in December but this memorial service is open to all.
Alongside her groundbreaking work organizing for U.S. bisexual rights and liberation including co-editing “Bi Any Other Name: BIsexual People Speak Out” (1991), she also integrated faith into her sexual education and advocacy work. Her 2001 doctoral dissertation, “Erotic Rites: A Cultural Analysis of Contemporary U.S. Sacred Sexuality Traditions and Trends,” offered a pointed queer and feminist analysis to sex-neutral and sex-positive spiritual traditions in the United States. Her thesis was also groundbreaking in exploring the intersections between sex workers and those in caregiving professionals, including spiritual ones.
In an oral history interview conducted by Michelle Mueller back in August 2023, Hutchins described herself as a “priestess without a congregation.” While she has occasionally had a sense of community and feels part of a group of loving people, she admitted that “I don’t feel like we have the shape or the purpose that we need.”
“I’ve often experienced being the Cassandra in the room, the Cassandra in the community. Somebody who’s kind of way out there ahead, thinking through the strategic action points that my community hasn’t gotten to yet, and getting a lot of resistance and hostile responses from people who are frightened by dissent and conflict and not ready for the changes we have to make to survive,” she said.
“For somebody who’s bisexual in an out political way and who’s been a spokesperson for the polyamory movement in an out political way, it’s very exposing. And it’s very important to me to be able to try to explain and help other people understand the connection between spirituality and sexuality,” she explained citing how even as a graduate student she was “exploring how to feel erotic and spiritual, and not feel them in conflict with each other in my own spiritual contemplative life and my own sensual body awareness of being alive in the world.”
“Every religion has a sense of sacred sexuality. It’s just they put a lot of boundaries and regulations on it, and if we have a spiritual practice that is totally affirming of women’s priesthood and of gay people, queer people’s ability to minister to everyone and to be ministered to be everyone, what does that do to the gender of God, or our understanding of how we practice our spirituality and our sexuality in community and privately?”
“There’s no easy answer,” she concludes, and she continued to grapple with these questions throughout her life, co-editing another seminal text, “Sexuality, Religion and the Sacred: Bisexual, Pansexual, and Polysexual Perspectives,” published in 2012. Her work blending spiritual and queer liberation remains groundbreaking to this day.
Rev. Eric Eldritch, a local community organizer and ordained Pagan minister with Circle Sanctuary who has worked for decades with the DC Center’s Center Faith to organize the Pride Interfaith Service, is eager to highlight this element of her legacy at the memorial service next month.
a&e features
Queery: Meet artist, performer John Levengood
Modern creative talks nightlife, coming out, and his personal queer heroes
John Levengood (he/him) describes himself as a modern creative with a wide‑ranging toolkit. He blends music, technology, civic duty, and a sharp sense of wit into a cohesive artistic identity. Known primarily as a recording artist and performer, he’s also a self‑taught music producer and software engineer who embodies a generation of creators who build their own lanes rather than wait for one to appear.
Levengood, 32, who is single and identifies as gay and queer, is best known as a recording artist who has performed at Pride festivals across the country, including the main stages of World Pride DC, Central Arkansas Pride, and Charlotte Pride.
“Locally in the DMV, I’m known for turning heads at nightlife venues with my eye-catching sense of style. When I go out, I don’t try to blend in. I hope I inspire people to be themselves and have the courage to stand out,” he says.
He’s also known for hosting karaoke at Freddie’s Beach Bar in Arlington, Va., on Thursday nights. “I like to create a space where people feel comfortable expressing themselves, building community, and showcasing their talents.”
He also creates social media content from my performances and do interviews at LGBTQ+ bars and theatres in the DMV. Follow the Arlington resident @johnlevengood.
How long have you been out and who was the hardest person to tell?
I have been fully out of the closet since 2019. My parents were the hardest people to tell because my family has always been my rock and at the time I couldn’t imagine a world without them. Their reactions were extremely positive and supportive so I had nothing to fear all along.
I remember sitting on the couch with my mom, dad, and sister in our hotel room in New Orleans during our winter vacation and being so nervous to tell them. After I finally mustered up the nerve and made the proclamation, I realized my dad had already fallen asleep on the couch. My mom promised to tell him when he woke up.
Who’s your LGBTQ hero?
My LGBTQ heroes are Harvey Milk for paving the way for gays in politics and Elton John for being a pioneer for the fabulous and authentic. My local heroes in the DMV are Howard Hicks, manager of Green Lantern, and Tony Rivenbark, manager of Freddie’s Beach Bar. Both of them are essential to creating spaces where I’ve felt welcome and safe since moving to the DMV.
What’s Washington’s best nightspot, past or present?
Trade tops the list for me because of the dance floor and outdoor space. It’s so nice to get a break from the music every once and a while to be able to have a conversation.
We live in challenging times. How do you cope?
I’m still figuring this out. What is working right now is writing music and spending time with family and friends. I’ve also been spending less time on social media going to the gym at least three times a week.
What streaming show are you binging?
After “Traitors” Season 4 ended, I was in a bit of a show hole, but “Stumble” has me in a laughing loop right now. The writing is so witty.
What do you wish you’d known at 18?
At 18, I wish I would have known how liberating it is to come out of the closet. It would have been nice to know some winning lottery numbers as well.
What are your friends messaging about in your most recent group chat?
We are planning our next trip to New York City. If you can believe it, I visited NYC for the first time in 2025 for Pride and I’ve been back every quarter since. Growing up in the country, I was subconsciously primed to be scared of the city. But my mind has been blown. I can’t wait to go back.
Why Washington?
It’s the closest metropolitan area to my family, but not too close. I love the museums, the diversity, the history, and the proximity to the beach and mountains. It’s also nice to live in a city with public transportation.
Aging RFK Stadium has come down, but the RFK grounds are still getting lit up. Welcome back to the stage Project GLOW, D.C.’s homegrown electronic festival, on May 30-31. Back for its fifth year on these musically inclined acres, Project GLOW returns with an even more diverse lineup, and one that continues to celebrate LGBTQ antecedents, attendees, and acts.
Project GLOW 2026 headliners include house and techno star Mau P, progressive house legend Eric Prydz, hard-techno favorite Sara Landry, and bass acts Excision b2b Sullivan King, among the lineup of trance, bass, house, techno, dubstep, and others for the fifth anniversary year.
President & CEO Pete Kalamoutsos — born and raised in D.C. — founded Club GLOW in 1999. In 2020, GLOW entered into a partnership with global entertainment company Insomniac Events to produce live events like Project GLOW, which kicked off in 2022.
As in past years, Project GLOW not only makes space, but is intentionally inclusive of the LGBTQ community, one of its most dedicated fan bases. The festival’s LGBTQ-focused Secret Garden stage blooms again — a more intimate dance area that stands on the strength of DJs and musicians who draw from the LGBTQ community. D.C.’s LGBTQ nightlife mastermind Ed Bailey is the creative mind behind Secret Garden again. He joined Project GLOW in 2023.
“Kalamoustos says that “he’s proud of his partnership with Ed Bailey, along with Capital Pride and [nightlife producer] Jake Resnikow. It’s amazing to collaborate with Bailey at the Secret Garden stage, especially after the curated lineup we worked on at Pride last year.”
The Secret Garden will be a bit different from other stages: Eternal (“At the Eternal stage, time stands still. Lose yourself in the dance of past, present, and future, surrendering to the eternal rhythm of the universe”) and Pulse (“Feel the rhythm of the beat pulse through your veins as the heartbeat of the crowd synchronizes into one. Here, every moment vibrates with life as it guides you through a new dimension of euphoria”). The Secret Garden stage is in the round, surrounded by 16 shipping containers. The containers play canvas to muralists from around the world, who are coming in to paint them in a vibrant garden-style vibe. “We gave this stage some extra love with this layout,” K says, “ we finally cracked the code.”
K says that this will be the biggest lineup yet for the Secret Garden, featuring Nicole Moudaber b2b Chasewest, Riordan b2b Bullet Tooth, Ranger Trucco, Cassian, Eli & Fur, Cosmic Gate and Hayla. The stage is also the largest yet, featuring an expanded dance floor and 360-degree viewing.
Across all stages, K says that his goal for the fifth anniversary is “More art and fan interactive experience, more like a festival, strive to be like a Tomorrowland, as budget grows to add more experience.” Last year’s Project GLOW alone drew 40,000 attendees over two days.
K, however, was not satisfied with one festival this spring. GLOW recently announced a “pop-up” one-day event. Teaming up with Black Book Records, GLOW is set to throw a first-of-its-kind dance-music takeover of Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., headlined by electronic music star Chris Lake. Set for April 18, this euphoric block party will feature bass and vibes blocks from the White House. Organizers expect as many as 10,000 fans to attend. Beyond music, there will be food, activations, and plenty of other activities taking place around 6th St and Pennsylvania Ave NW – a location familiar to many in the LGBTQ community, as this sits squarely inside the blocks of the Capital Pride party that takes place in DC every June.
Over the past two decades, Club GLOW has produced thousands of events, from club nights to large-scale festivals including Project GLOW, Moonrise Festival, and more. Club GLOW also operates Echostage.
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