Editing Virgil Thomson (section)

===Later years===
In 1969, Thomson composed ''Metropolitan Museum Fanfare: Portrait Of An American Artist'' to accompany the [[The Metropolitan Museum of Art Centennial|Museum's Centennial]] exhibition "New York Painting And Sculpture: 1940–1970".<ref>[http://libmma.org/digital_files/archives/Trescher_Centennial_records_b18234550.pdf Finding aid for the George Trescher records related to The Metropolitan Museum of Art Centennial, 1949, 1960–1971 (bulk 1967–1970)]. [[The Metropolitan Museum of Art]]; retrieved August 6, 2014.</ref><ref>[[Tommasini, Anthony]], ''Virgil Thomson's Musical Portraits'' (New York: Pendragon Press, 1986), p. 19. {{ISBN|0918728517}}.</ref>

Thomson became a sort of mentor and father figure to a new generation of American tonal composers such as [[Ned Rorem]], [[Paul Bowles]] and [[Leonard Bernstein]], a circle united as much by their shared homosexuality as by their similar compositional sensibilities.<ref>Hubbs, Nadine. ''The Queer Composition of America's Sound; Gay Modernists, American Music, and National Identity'' (Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2004).</ref> Women composers were not part of that circle, and one writer has suggested that, as a critic, he selectively omitted mention of their works, or adopted a more passive tone when praising them.<ref>Karen L. Carter-Schwendler. [https://web.archive.org/web/20061003174207/http://www.iawm.org/articles_html/carter_thomson.html "Virgil Thomson's ''Herald Tribune'' Writings: Fulfilling the 'Cultural Obligation' Selectively"], in ''[[International Alliance for Women in Music|IAWM]] Journal'', June 1995, pp. 12–15.</ref>