Hundreds of gay composers–and a few straight composers who write gay music–gathered for a “kiss-in” at the headquarters of New World Records in New York City this past weekend.  Their purpose was to persuade the classical music record label to produce additional installments of Composers Recordings International’s (CRI’s) series of albums celebrating gay and lesbian composers.

In the 1990s, CRI released the compilation albums Gay American Composers and Lesbian American Composers.  CRI went out of business in 2003, and the rights to its recordings were transferred to New World Records.

But some protestors have no faith that New World Records will carry the LGBT torch.  In fact, one group is starting its own grassroots record label, Agenda Recordings, headed by gay composer icon Robert Moran.  According to Moran, Agenda Recordings will “secretly recruit employees of New World and other mainstream labels to pose for semi-nude photographs on the album covers.”