Hartford Gunn, Public Radio & Television Pioneer

Hartford Gunn was the founding president of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), but he was most proud of his success in putting into place the system that connected the PBS network by domestic satellite.

A pioneer in educational television, Gunn (1927-1986) was responsible for getting WGBH radio on the air in Boston in 1951, followed by WGBH-TV in 1955. The station flourished during the 1960s, and Gunn was chosen to head the new Public Broadcasting Service in 1970. Gunn had come to WGBH fresh out of Harvard Business School, at the age of 25, following military service. It was his first civilian full-time job.

Gunn (photo at right) as a new hire at WGBH Boston.

In the dozen years he led the Boston station, Gunn moved it into the front ranks of public broadcasting, positioning it to be one of the nation’s top two public stations. In the course of those years, Gunn created the first interconnected regional network (Eastern Educational Television Network, 1960) while working to assist communities in activating their public broadcasting licenses. He goaded National Educational Television (1954-1970) into adopting higher technical standards, including a major shift into color television.

While at PBS he led the planning for the satellite distribution system that is in place today. While others concentrated on programming, Gunn pushed for more sophisticated technical expertise to bring public television into the living rooms of every American.

Gunn  laboriously testified before state legislatures and the U.S. congress to get a public television network off the ground. During his presidency of PBS, he survived some acrimonious confrontations with the Nixon administration. The hiring of Sander Vanocur and Robert MacNeil* as principal correspondents for NPACT (National Public Affairs Center for Television) greatly disturbed President Nixon, who saw it as "the last straw" and demanded that all funds for public television be cut immediately. It was Gunn and the folks at PBS who prevailed. Note: The influential “MacNeil/Lehrer Report” aired until MacNeil retired in 1995; it lives on as the PBS NewsHour, and MacNeil is still one of the primary producers.

Gunn was a true “techie” and a serious audiophile, indulging his lifelong interest in classical music. While serving as senior vice-president and general manager of KCET in Los Angeles, he kept a 42-ft. Westsail (the twin of a sail boat owned by his colleague Walter Cronkite) at Marina Del Ray, CA. It was my great fortune to spend extended time on this boat, listening to Gunn as he regaled me with stories of the early days of public broadcasting. Note: the sound system on that boat could have filled a movie palace! A lifelong bachelor, Hartford lived a quiet, discrete homosexual private life.

Gunn went on to serve as vice-president of program development for COMSAT, based in Washington, DC. During that time he moved to nearby Annapolis, MD, where he built a waterfront home with a dock for his sailboat. The equipment to supply the media for his home in Annapolis occupied an entire room, an extravagant indulgence in the early 1980s. At COMSAT, he was largely responsible for setting up the first national satellite-to-home television network in the United States.

Unfortunately, it was discovered that he suffered from a rare form of thyroid cancer, which was treated by radiation, chemotherapy and unsuccessful surgery. He died in Boston at the age of 59, on January 2, 1986. His legacy was carried on by the Hartford Gunn Institute, first based in Illinois, which assisted in developing fundamental plans for building the second generation of public telecommunications.
   
The 21" Classroom goes on the air at WGBH-TV:

From left – Hartford Gunn, Michael Ambrosino, Bill Kiernan (the Massachusetts Commissioner of Education), Gene Gray (everybody's favorite science teacher on TV), and Norman Harris (Science Director, Boston Museum of  Science). The 21-inch Classroom (the name referenced the measurement of a TV screen) first aired in 1958, with programs on the French language, music, literature, social studies and science.

*Robert MacNeil, who has a gay son, famously took part in a panel discussion of news anchors for the 1993 convention of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. MacNeil, who was once an aspiring actor and playwright, enjoys following the career of his son Ian (born 1960), a set designer who recently won a 2009 Tony Award for Best Scenic Design of a Musical for Billy Elliot: The Musical. In a 1994 episode of The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, father and son openly discussed their relationship.

Stephen Hough

Openly gay poet and pianist

Paderewski: Nocturne (encore at Carnegie Hall recital)



Openly gay classical pianist Stephen Hough was born in England in 1961, although he has held dual citizenship with Australia since 2005 (his father was born in Australia). Hough holds a particular interest in unusual works by pianist-composers of the late nineteenth century, of which this video clip is an example. He plays with wit, charm, sophistication, humor, lyricism and generous doses of style.

Hough also composes and arranges transcriptions for piano solo, and often features his own works in recitals. Of late he has branched out into chamber and choral music. As well, he is a noted writer and researcher, publishing essays and writing album liner notes. He is something of a renaissance man, fully indulging his interests in painting, photography and blogging.

Hough has recorded over fifty CDs, and in 2008 he won the sixth International Poetry Competition*. Hough has spoken, written and blogged about his homosexuality and its relationship to his music-making.

Instead of limiting what we know about him, as is the custom of most classical musicians, Hough is quite open about his weaknesses, about moments when he’s deeply questioned his career choice as a touring musician, about battling ego issues, fighting nerves, and overcoming moments when he says he fails to reach his own high standards. Hearing him talk so openly and honestly about his vulnerabilities opens many to his art. I am a pianist myself, and I regard Hough as one of the top pianists of our time.

*Excerpt from "Early Rose", a prize-winning poem by Stephen Hough

...To the garden, awake,
Tiptoe, quick, go
Slick-stairs down the
Steps to the pre-dew
Night morn before the
Dawn's birth is born.
Follow to the foliage where,
Hidden as the future's
Fall or rise, the rose –
Petals closed – will bud-burst
A billion atoms of beauty...

Composer Manuel de Falla (1876-1946)

Manuel María de Falla y Matheu was born into a prosperous family in Cádiz, Spain. His father was Valencian, his mother from Catalonia. Falla studied piano and composition with private tutors before entering the Real Conservatorio de Música in Madrid. His early compositions, written for small ensembles, were heavily influenced by Spanish folk music. He even wrote six zarzuelas (Spanish folk operettas).

In 1907 Falla moved to France, where he was influenced by the impressionists, especially Debussy and Ravel. During this time, he composed the well-received Trois mélodies, based on texts by the homosexual poet Théophile Gautier. His first work of importance, the one-act opera La vida breve (The Brief Life, first  performed in 1913) was followed by the gypsy gitanería (ballet) El amor brujo (Love, the Magician, 1915) and the folk ballet El sombrero de tres picos (The Three-cornered Hat, 1919). The latter was written for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and premiered in London with sets and costumes by Pablo Picasso and choreography by Diaghilev’s gay lover at the time, Léonid Massine. Falla’s most ambitious symphonic concert work, Noches en los jardines de España (Nights in the Gardens of Spain), a nocturne for piano and orchestra, dates from 1916. This work, which became enormously popular, celebrates the bygone sensual and erotic atmosphere of Islamic Spain.

Manuel de Falla was homosexual, and it was widely rumored that he was involved in a menage à trois with French composer Maurice Ravel and Spanish pianist Ricardo Vines. Falla and Ravel were both closely guarded, private and extremely closeted homosexuals, leaving behind no written trace of their liaisons. Only their contemporaries related the relationship to future generations. However, the elegance, sensuality, and erotic suggestiveness of Falla’s music are interpreted by many as overt expressions of de Falla’s homosexuality, better than any written word.

The cultural center of Cádiz, the port city where Falla was born, is today called Gran Teatro Falla, in his honor. It is a magnificent Moorish-revival concert hall (1910) facing Plaza Manuel de Falla.

Significantly, the start of World War I forced his return to Spain. Soon after settling in Madrid, Falla met Federico García Lorca, the gay poet and a future collaborator, who was to become a close friend (see sidebar). In 1919 Falla moved to Granada for more peace and quiet to compose. During this time his home was a celebrated meeting place for Spanish gay intellectuals and artists. He and García Lorca worked on several collaborations, although only a few minor works resulted from their efforts.

Falla’s deep ascetic religiosity led him to be courted by Franco’s Nationalists, whom he saw as a check to the anti-religious sentiment of the Left. Falla was living with his sister when he was appointed President of the Institute of Spain by Franco in 1935. However, despite the high esteem he enjoyed in the eyes of Franco’s Nationalists, the composer was unable to prevent the 1936 execution of his friend and collaborator García Lorca, by then a successful homosexual poet with an international reputation. Falla, disillusioned by the homophobia of the Franco regime, dove even deeper into the closet and resigned his post in 1938. A year later he emigrated to Argentina, where he had been invited to conduct concerts at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. Falla remained in Argentina, settling in Alta Gracia in the Sierra Córdoba region, where he was looked after by his sister until his death there in 1946. Franco's government offered him a large pension if he would return to Spain, but he refused. However, his image appeared on Spanish currency notes for many years.


By far the most recognizable Falla composition is Ritual Fire Dance, from El amor brujo (1915). First composed as a chamber piece, it is here played as a piano solo by Sebastien Koch.

By contrast Jota (from Siete Canciones Populares Españolas), written the same year as Ritual Fire Dance, is based on a popular Andalucian song to which Falla added an original harmonic accompaniment, to great effect. Acclaimed Israeli mandolinist Alon Sariel performs this piece with young pianist Nadav Herzka.




An excerpt from Nights in the Gardens of Spain, for piano and orchestra, here performed by legendary pianist Alicia de Larrocha (Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal with Charles Dutoit, conductor). Filmed at the Alhambra in the late 1980s (Larrocha died in 2009). En los jardines de la Sierra de Córdoba (3rd movement): Click this link (embedding disabled).
http://youtu.be/TY8o6_7G_Uk