A gently beautiful and beguilingly uplifting film infused with warmth and generosity of spirit, Keyboard Fantasies shines a belated spotlight on the talents of Beverly Glenn-Copeland, a transgender, septuagenarian musical genius as he is re-discovered, courtesy of a Japanese record collector, and heads off on his first international tour at the ripe age of 74.
Though the film first hit festivals at the tail-end of 2019, its release was hampered (as were so many others) by the pandemic, but it has gained momentum through LGBTQ+ film festivals, and – like Glenn-Copeland himself – has won over audiences and critics alike thanks to its warm and sensitive central character. The slow-burn aspect perhaps reflects Glenn-Copeland’s career and long-delayed acclaim.
Part biopic, part tour documentary, Keyboard Fantasies sees the singer/songwriter emerging from years in isolation to an appreciative and welcoming audience, and seeing him finally finding his place in the world. The film captures five decades of musical output and shifting gender and sexual identity, all set against a backdrop of social and political change.
Raised in Philadelphia to musical parents, Beverly Glenn-Copeland moved to Montreal aged 17 to study classical music at the McGill Music Academy and soon set about becoming who he was meant to be at a time when there were few openly gay folk (this was the early 1960s), initially living as a lesbian woman until he realised some hears later he was transgender.
Glenn-Copeland recorded jazz albums in the early 1970s that went largely unnoticed. In the mid 1980s he embraced new computer technologies and made Keyboard Fantasies, an album of electronic new age music issued on cassette in 1986 that met with an equal degree of major interest. Three decades later, he was contacted by a Japanese record collector Ryota Masuko.
“I had an email to my website from a Japanese record collector in 2015,” Glenn-Copeland recalls, with the collector asking him if he had any copies of the cassette. “I sent 30 and they sold in three days, so I sent over the last of what I had.” These sold equally quickly and soon he had 10 offers to re-release Keyboard Fantasies as well as older recordings.
Re-discovered in later life, the film follows Glenn-Copeland, aged 74, as he heads out on the road with a young support band, playing gigs in the UK and the Netherlands, engaging with enthusiastic audiences and also taking time out to talk with transgender groups. Gentle, funny, compassionate and talented, there is no whiff of bitterness as he talks about his career – instead there is warm appreciation for the audiences and an honesty about how his life has changed so much and how he has found true happiness.
Posy Dixon’s generous and uplifting film is a genuine tonic and a beautiful – if belated – introduction to a musical talent, and in Beverly Glenn-Copeland the documentary has a wonderful subject to follow and celebrate, offering a platform for views and opinions that are based on compassion, love and understanding. And great music.
UK, 2019, 71mins
Dir Posy Dixon
Production Luca Productions
Producer Liv Proctor
Cinematography Lee Burnett, Kevin A Fraser, Morgan Spencer
Editor Tim Beeston
Music Beverly Glenn-Copeland
With Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Bianca Palmer, Carlie Howell, Kurt Inder, Jeremy Costello, Nick Dourado
