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Queen of the Night with Thorgy Thor

WQXR LIVE

Originally Aired: Friday, March 17, 2023

Overview

WQXR presents drag performance artist and violinist Thorgy Thor! Come enjoy an evening of laughter, music, and campy fun as we celebrate Women’s History Month by highlighting female identified musicians and composers. 

If you’re a fan of Thorgy Thor, we may entice you to fall in love with classical music.  And if you’re a fan of WQXR and classical music, come see a show that will break all of the standard concert protocols!

Joining Thorgy is soprano Kara Dugan, The Pilobolus Dance Ensemble, New York City Youth Poet Laureate Stephanie Pacheco, the GRAMMY Award-winning Catalyst Quartet, and luthier Paris Andrew. We’ll also be treated to samples from Harlem Brewery—the first Black woman owned brewery in the United States! Founder Celeste Beatty is discussing hops, barley and making it in a man’s world.

Thorgy Thor

Credit: Photo provided by Artist

Guest host Thorgy Thor is an NYC based drag performance artist, professional musician and TV host. She was a contestant on the Emmy Award-winning show RuPaul’s Drag Race and has appeared in Amazon’s Mozart in the Jungle, VICE, WWHL with Andy Cohen, and is a cast member of Dragnificent! on TLC/Hulu. She is a multi instrumentalist, playing violin, viola and cello in Thorgy and the Thorchestra! She’s done shows with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Nova Scotia, Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, Charlotte Symphony Orchestra.

Kara Dugan

Credit: Photo provided by Artist

Mezzo soprano Kara Dugan has been praised by the New York Times for her “vocal warmth and rich character.” Her diverse career ranges from world premieres, to baroque concert work, to cross-genre performances and art song recitals. Her work with living composers has included the world premiere of Michael Tilson Thomas’ Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind, a production of John Musto’s opera Bastianello at Festival Napa Valley with the composer at the piano, and a workshop performance of Ricky Ian Gordon’s Intimate Apparel as part of the Metropolitan Opera and Lincoln Center Theater’s New New Works Program. This season she made her debut with the Albany Symphony performing Michael Daugherty’s multi-genre tribute to Woody Guthrie, This Land Sings.

As a passionate recitalist she performs often with her husband Peter Dugan, pianist and host of NPR’s From the Top. The husband and wife duo were recently featured on PBS Great Performances’ “Now Hear This” and have performed across the United States, including at the Joye in Aiken Festival, Charles Ives Concert Series, Moab Music Festival, and Portland Chamber Music Festival. The duo’s eclectic repertoire has brought them to a wide range of venues including  Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater, where they joined crossover string group Time for Three. Ms. Dugan received her Bachelor and Master of Music Degrees from The Juilliard School.

Stephanie Pacheco

Credit: Photo provided by Artist

Stephanie Pacheco is the 2023 NYC Youth Poet Laureate, a student, and an organizer from The Bronx. From her early high school years to now, Stephanie has been a fierce advocate for educational equity and social justice across New York City. She has performed her poetry at multiple cultural landmarks such as The Apollo Theater and The Schomburg Center, where she was also a Junior Scholar. She has been a leading organizer and strategist with several activist organizations, including the Healing Centered Schools Task Force, Alliance for Quality Education, and Teens Take Charge, working to mobilize youth across the city against educational injustice. Her poetry and advocacy has been highlighted by The Today’s Show. Stephanie’s goal is to continue uplifting and to connect with her community using her words as tools for liberation, championing the belief that a better world is possible.

The Pilobolus Dance Ensemble

Credit: Photo provided by Artist

Over the past 50 years, Pilobolus has performed around the globe in events ranging from the Oscars to the Olympics and collaborated with some of the world’s greatest influencers and creators.  Pilobolus is a rebellious dance company. Since 1971, Pilobolus has tested the limits of human physicality to explore the beauty and the power of connected bodies. They continue to bring this tradition to global audiences through our post-disciplinary collaborations with some of the greatest influencers, thinkers, and creators in the world.  Pilobolus brings their decades of expertise telling stories with the human form to show diverse communities, brands, and organizations how to maximize group creativity, solve problems, create surprise, and generate joy through the power of nonverbal communication. 

Catalyst Quartet

Credit: Photo provided by Artist

Hailed by The New York Times at its Carnegie Hall debut as “invariably energetic and finely burnished… playing with earthy vigor,” the GRAMMY Award-winning Catalyst Quartet was founded by the internationally acclaimed Sphinx Organization in 2010. The ensemble (Karla Donehew Perez, violin; Abi Fayette, violin; Paul Laraia, viola; and Karlos Rodriguez, cello) believes in the unity that can be achieved through music and imagine their programs and projects with this in mind, redefining and reimagining the classical music experience.

Luthier Paris Andrew

Credit: Photo provided by Artist

Luthier Paris Andrew was born in Yorkshire and apprenticed in England. Eventually she moved to Florence to learn the construction of baroque instruments. She now runs her own workshop in Florence, and made Thorgy’s special “pink violin!”

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