Perpetual Change

This month, Perpetual Change features two different aspects of the transgender music community.

Philadelphia will hosting the first of its kind GLBT Arts Festival in May; and in Chicago, trans musician Jami Bantry has turned open-mic nights into a great opportunity for up-and-coming artists of all kinds.

The festival in Philly is presented by the organization known as the Traverse Arts Project, or TAP. TAP was founded in the fall of 2008 by Mark A. Dehl, an independent dramatic and film artist. The festival itself was started by T. Desiree Hines who is an member of TAP and is originally from Jackson, Mississippi.

Ms. Hines is an incredibly accomplished African-American who is a classical pipe organists — and an MtF. Hines was inspired to create the festival due to the discrimination she experienced during attempts to obtain her degree in organ performance, and further efforts to find employment as a church organist in a field dominated by white males.

According to a recent press release, the overall purpose of the festival is “…to get communities involved in the arts to address the issues that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered artists face. The general public usually perceives arts-related fields as being very inclusive. The organizations’s festival also hopes to create a supportive network of audiences, arts administrators, and philanthropists that would assist the artists with obtaining what is needed to develop and maintain a sustainable career in the performing and creative arts.”

The festival is scheduled for May 28-31, 2009 in Philadelphia. For more information, contact Traverse Arts Project via email, or visit them on the Web.

Chicago Open Mic

Jami Bantry, from Chicago, is using a well known format to give trans musicians just starting out a public forum. Jami volunteers at a community center known as The Center On Halsted. This is a Chicago area community center which is open to all, but heavily oriented towards the GLBT community.

“I volunteer there in what is called The Cyber Center,” Jami said. “(This is) a facility where people can take advantage of PCs connected to the Internet and work with various types of software to search for jobs, email, develop resumes, entertainment, etc.”

One of Jamie’s other activities connected with The Center is hosting a transgender Open-mic night. Along with another Center volunteer, June LaTrobe, they felt the time was right for the Chicago area trans community to have its own open-mic events.

“Prior to establishing t-open-mic, there were three other open-mics … mainly for the gay and lesbian communities,” Jami said. “There were no such events for the trans community. June and I felt it was a great idea to get transgender musicians and spoken word performers to participate at a very friendly, supportive venue.

“The t-open-mic is oriented mainly to transgender performers, but is open to anyone who wants to participate,” Jami continued. “The Center on Halsted is a diverse community center and there are no ‘rules’ relative to who visits and participates in the programs and events.”

Besides her hosting and activist duties, Jami is also a musician, versatile in both keyboards and guitar. She has been involved in a Chicago area band called Transit since 2004, which has had its share of personnel changes. The band is sort of on hiatus right now when it comes to live performances, but has been working on original material. They hope to record in the near future and debut the new material. Jami is also a semi-retired architect and probably most importantly of all, she is a cancer survivor.

For more information on The Center and it’s open-mic events, please visit their website.

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