The New Who’s Who of Philly’s Gay Community
THE MAESTROS
Hallman’s been playing music ever since he was 12. “I just dove in,” says Hallman, a Girard College grad. As a writer, performer and composer, he recently launched a ballet tour based on Alice in Wonderland in San Diego, penned a bassoon concerto in Pittsburgh, and remixed for Gemini Wolf. Hallman has also been in the studio recording his own album, which he describes as “experimental pop.” At the Rosenbach this year, he composed music based on the letters of Mercedes de Costa, a lesbian lover to both Greta Garbo and Isadora Duncan. “I want to create something that brings attention to the gay experience,” says Hallman. “Arts can be used as successful intervention programs for young people and reduce the risk of violence.”
“I started playing music when I was nine,” says Hines, a native of Jackson, Mississippi. Her mother worked as a biscuit baker to buy a $90 violin for the gifted child. Today, Hines also plays organ, piano and harpsichord. “The quest has been bittersweet,” she admits, “including two periods of homelessness during my adult life, and discrimination because of my being a transsexual woman.” She’s leaving her post as organist and choirmaster at Holy Innocents St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Tacony for a scholarship to the Conservatory of Music at the University of Missouri-Kansas City this fall. “I am the only openly transsexual African-American woman in this field,” says Hines, who began transitioning when she was 22.
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