This follows the rediscovery of Beverly Glenn-Copeland in his 70s – an electronic musician who radiates life and happiness
![Keyboard Fantasies review – glorious doc about pioneering trans composer](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/fcb5c574c3a32c5a13cb4d908f4ffe4e66eac0d9/298_76_3314_1989/master/3314.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctcmV2aWV3LTQucG5n&enable=upscale&s=85d7ff9c9bb0a1506c7b2a554635d8d5)
Here’s a spirit-lifting documentary about black transgender electronic
music pioneer Glenn Copeland. It begins with the story of how he was “discovered” a few years ago, aged 72. At home in
Canada, Copeland reads the email he got in 2015 from a record shop owner in Japan: the guy offered to buy any spare copies of Keyboard Fantasies, an album Copeland self-released in 1986 on cassette. At the time he was known as Beverly Glenn-Copeland, and the album is a trippy mix of electronica, folk and new age, overlaid with Copeland’s sumptuous contralto tenor; it’s now seen as his masterpiece. He had pressed 200 tapes and sold around 50.
I could watch Copeland talking for hours. With his smiling eyes he radiates life and happiness, basking in autumnal success – the world has finally caught up with him. He was born Beverly Glenn-Copeland into a middle-class family in Philadelphia. At 17 in the early 60s, he was one of the first black students at a prestigious Canadian university, studying classical music. Homosexuality was still illegal in Canada, but Copeland was open about his relationship with another woman. His parents carted him off to a psychiatric hospital for electroshock “therapy” but he escaped. After dropping out of college, Copeland recorded a couple of albums, both commercial disasters. Then in the early 80s he discovered computers – “and I was off to the races”.