The Bilerico Project | Daily experiments in LGBTQ

Dimitri Mitropoulos was a Greek-born composer, pianist, and conductor who led the New York Philharmonic in the 1950's. He was known not just for his rigorous interpretations of classical music, but also for conducting without a baton or a score. While he never married and was said to have lived a celibate, monkish life, his homosexuality was an open secret.

Here's a performance, which seems to be for Greek TV, of Liszt's Faust, third movement:

Here's some video footage of the NY Philharmonic's South American tour, credited to a percussionist at the time:

Here's some video of an exhibition on Dmitri Mitropolous that discusses some of the visual effects Mitropolous employed when putting on Mendelssohn's Elijah with the New York Philharmonic: