Sweet, a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, interspersed playing six different pieces with narrating anecdotes from his life. He said the music would be the “setting, the thread of [the story].”
“Each movement reflects some kind of emotion or flavor of what I’m talking about,” he explained.
Sweet was raised by a minister father in a Christian family, but came out as a homosexual in high school. “I was raised to believe in a God that loved me unconditionally. I was just so, so confused,” he said of his decision to come out.
His years at Eastman, in what his mother had warned him was a “hotbed of homosexuality” compared to the Christian music schools she would have preferred he attend, provided an opportunity to start a different life for Sweet.
Constructing this “new life” proved to be more difficult than expected, he said.
“I had no control. I acted on impulse,” Sweet explained, adding that his frequent sexual encounters “led [him] down a very, very dark road.”
This emotional trouble also shook Sweet’s religious faith. “I remember feeling so abandoned, empty, like I wasn’t worthy of God’s presence. And that was one of the worst moments of my life. I felt really, really lost,” he said.
Afraid that his Christian parents would turn out to be correct in predicting that this life would lead to “pain and sorrow,” Sweet said he decided to commit to a life of celibacy. After making this decision, Sweet immediately began noticing positive changes in his lifestyle, he added.
“Good things started happening including graduating with my master’s with a 3.8 GPA,” he said.
After he was not offered a position with an orchestra following his graduation, Sweet said he began to question his life and God’s actions.
Sweet then began to teach children music through the Suzuki method, and he soon “began to notice a kind of peace” in his life, he said. “All of a sudden the presence of a little kid had an overwhelming effect,” he explained. “It made me step outside myself and focus on this little soul, and I was in peace.”
Feeling more connected with God, Sweet said he no longer felt the need to be abstinent.
“Being abstinent no longer made sense, because I learned to love myself and I met someone incredible and I felt like I was capable of sharing that love,” Sweet explained.
“Abstinence allowed me to get rid of the garbage internally and externally. The love I was looking for was inside me this whole time,” he said.
Students present said they were moved by the performance and the way the musical element enhanced the presentation.
“I thought it was inspirational,” LGBT Center undergraduate intern Fiona Miller ’09 said.
Manuela Raunig ’10 said she thought the unusual combination of song and speech was particularly interesting.
“I thought interspersing the musical element was original,” she added.
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