From PBS NewsHour: ‘John and Jim’ at the Cathedral

A few weeks ago, we told you about the tear-jerker piece of music written to honor the love story between John Arthur and Jim Obergefell. Now there's more.

When Jim was at the Cathedral to hear the symphonic premiere of “John and Jim” by composer Viet Cuong, he was followed by a crew from PBS NewsHour.

From the piece:

Viet: “When I was young, I would  play the bass line of the “Pachelbel’s Canon” on the piano, and I started to  improvise melodies with the right hand  on top of it. And that was how I  started to compose music. And so it was around that time when I was a kid that I started to grow up, and I realized I was gay. And I remember seeing on TV the “Pachelbel Canon” for wedding music. And it made me sad that this music that I loved was so emblamatic of something that I felt was wrong with me and soemthing that I cold never have. Like, I could never be married in that way. And so in this piece I call it interpolating the music.”

PBS: Interpolating? 

Viet: Yes, kind of like rewriting it, in a way. I felt like I was kind of reframing that music and kind of reclaiming it.