In case the link doesn't work... this article is from the Wisconsin Gazette "the voice of the LGBT community in Wisconsin.
Written by Jay Rath, Contributing writer
Apr 5, 2012
Justin Stolarik
This month Dr. Justin Stolarik will conduct what may be the best-known musical group in the state. When he does, he’ll be wearing a white tuxedo with red sequins on his vest, tie and sneakers.
“What I’m wearing is definitely, stereotypically gay,” he laughs. “Except that my colleague wears sequins from head to toe! I just have accents.”
Stolarik is assistant director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison marching band, and the upcoming event is the Varsity Band Concert, led by the flamboyant (and straight) Mike Leckrone, director of bands. The Madison concert, an annual spectacle with pyrotechnics and multimedia displays, is subsequently broadcast statewide by Wisconsin Public Television.
Stolarik is openly gay. Besides the marching band (called the Varsity Band when not at football games), UW-Madison has five concert wind ensembles. He conducts one of the three university bands and takes over at the Varsity Band Concert when Leckrone is off the stage – or over it; Stolarik’s boss, who’s led the marching band since 1969, loves to be suspended on wires to perform aerial stunts.
Stolarik grew up in Long Island and Orlando. He didn’t realize he was gay until college. “When I came out to my sister, she said, ‘Well, when did you know?’ And I said, ‘Kind of recently.’ And she said, ‘Well, your brother and I should have told you when you were in high school.’ ”
In 2008, Stolarik received a doctorate in musical arts from the University of Texas at Austin. He spent a year as assistant director of bands at Henderson State University in Arizona before joining UW-Madison in the fall of 2009.
In Madison, his sexual orientation never comes up with colleagues. “Living in different parts of the country, for instance Texas or Arkansas, people would ask, ‘Oh, do you have a wife?’ Whereas people on this campus are more inclined to ask, “Are you married or do you have a partner?’ That was a big surprise.”
“I do feel like they know,” he says of his students. “I don’t discuss it with them because, straight or gay, my personal life is not their business.”
While it’s statistically certain that some of his students are not straight, they never ask him about it.
“I did get that at Henderson State, at the smaller school,” he recalls. “I kind of chalk that up to its being in a more rural area, where students don’t have a lot of outlets, so they would approach me with questions about themselves.”
Whether working with the 300-strong marching band or his university band, “I think the rewards in the end are the same,” he says: “Seeing the students getting excited about something they’ve accomplished after going through the whole rehearsal process.”
Another reward for Stolarik is in programming dissonant, “ear-stretching” music by composers that undergraduates might not be familiar with, such as Philip Glass.
“I always tell them, ‘I’m not asking you to like it, and I’d prefer you not to make a judgment on any of the music today, but make a judgment after we perform it,” he says. “And if you still don’t like it, that’s totally cool. But don’t judge it until then, because your opinions may change and may evolve.”
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