Yet, there were silver linings and sunshine in the dark clouds
Notable moments
– 1975-76 witnessed the launch of the iconic Columbia Records Black Composers Series championed by Conductor Paul Freeman and The Detroit Symphony. This Series showcased critical music by Black Composers from 1650 to 1976
– 1986 witnessed the emergence of Anthony Davis and his landmark opera: X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X premiered at the recently closed New York City Opera.
– 1989 witnessed the emergence and critical recording of Alvin Singleton’s brilliant orchestral music by The Atlanta Symphony including the iconic After Fallen Crumbs.
– 1995 witnessed Olly Wilson’s Shango Memory for Orchestra, commissioned for the 150th Anniversary of The New York Philharmonic and The African American Composers Project cd showcase of Billy Childs’ The Distant Land, Bill Banfield’s Symphony #6 and David Baker’s Jazz Suite for Clarinet and Symphony Orchestra
– 1997, Amistad, The Story of The Slave Ship Rebellion, a new critical opera by Anthony Davis was premiered at Lyric Opera of Chicago.
– Importantly, there has been a flowering and a critical emergence of an important younger generation of composers including Trevor Weston, Jonathan Bailey Holland, Shawn Okpebholo, Joel Thompson,John Wineglass, Gary Powell Nash and Jessie Montgomery
The challenge in 2014-2015 for Black Composers is one that was on full view at the Sphinx Con 2014 think tank conference in Detroit sponsored by Sphinx Music www.sphinxmusic.org
Artistic administrators and the core of musicians at the major symphony orchestras consist of predominantly upper to upper middle class white male and female musicians who are slow to embrace a deep commitment to diversity in the classical performing arts.
Black musicians only make up at maximum 2% of the composition of America’s orchestras.
Institutionally, American orchestras and their administrations are comfortable in this ivory tower status. The entrenched practice of holding auditions with screens actually makes it nearly impossible to advance the goal of making Symphony Orchestras more ethnically diverse.
Such reality begs the question, are orchestras and other classical performing arts organizations located in urban centers with demographically morphing populations…..interested in or concerned about building 21st century audiences that are reflective of the communities in which they exist…
Rhetorically, by inference, do orchestra halls and opera houses prefer to nurture and build relationships with the sons, daughters and grandchildren of their aging endowment demographic that enshrines the status quo vs embrace the multi cultural demographic that is but 10-15 minutes walking/driving distance from their performance space
This challenge applies even more so to the world of The Black Composer.
At Sphinx Con, one white male presenter quite openly and declaratively…. made the case with an exceptional showcase of statistical analysis that because white men are in charge of most of the leading artistic organizations, that white male privilege…..reigns …..and Black and Latinos seeking more rapid diversity….need to get over it The Reality of ‘the numbers’ reflect a core difference in what is considered ‘essential’ in defining who can play and who has clout to suggest what ‘Change’ is valued and….what kind of Change is ….manageable .
Further, the suggestion followed that such artistic organizations [theater in particular] which have a predominantly white attendance and white donor/endowment demographic should be quite proud of and satisfied with their “incremental change” of 1% or 2% re: audience and community engagement
In other words, incrementalism is truly the best approach, but too much diversity becomes a kin to the gentrification code word “nimby”..Not In My Backyard….
In this light,Change or diversity for diversity’s sake can not outpace what is consistent with the core values and mission of an organization’s board, donor and endowment demographic.
In 1960s terminology, Desegregration must be evaluated slowly, deliberately and on a case by case basis.
During The Civil Rights Movement, this refrain….“go slow…take a gradual approach” was famously repeated over and over to Martin Luther King.
This “go slow” paradigm emanating from both civic and interfaith leaders motivated his passion to write his iconic, A Letter From A Birmingham Jail in 1963
Rhetorically, the state of affairs in 2014-2021 begs this question:
Despite the symbolic and measurable advances in both the concert halls and the opera stages of the 1960s-90s and the impact of the careers of Andre Watts, Leontyne Price, Grace Bumbry, Martina Arroyo, Jessye Norman, Kathleen Battle, Denyce Graves …and William Warfield, George Shirley, Simon Estes… alongside… “The New Generation” is the world of The Classical Performing Arts in The United States the last bastion of Segregation?
If the growing pool of exceptionally talented African American classically trained instrumentalists, singers, composers and conductors in 2014-2020 are kept out like an Invisible Man out of Ralph Ellison’s landmark work of the same name, where are we headed?
This rhetorical question is answered ….in a problematic reality which The Black Composer is confronted in 2014 and 2015, 50 years after The 1964 and 1965 Civil Rights Acts.
– Black Composers have been passed over for Commissions to write music commemorating the critical anniversaries of The Civil Rights Movement. i.e. March o Washington, Birmingham Church Bombing, 1964 Mississippi Murders,1965 March on Selma and 1968 Assassination of Martin Luther King
– How is this possible… that non Black composers are viewed as more instinctively capable of composing music that is critically more relevant and drawn from an experience of being Black…. than Black Composers, many of whom are children of The Civil Rights Movement? It begs the critical question…. how is this possible and why?
– Is it defensible…..to suggest that accomplished Black composers like Adolphus Hailstork, Anthony Davis, Bill Banfield, Billy Childs, Terrance Blanchard lack the requisite skills to compose music that honors the Civil Rights legacy of their parents
In this light, I give unending applause for the progressive vision and work of Conductor, Leonard Slatkin and The Detroit Symphony for inviting a conversation about nurturing and developing Diversity in Classical Music.
In March of every year since the mid 2000s, Slatkin and The Detroit Symphony presented a feature showcase of music by contemporary African American composers and a related Symposium in their Earshot Classical Roots Reading in association with The American Composers Forum/Orchestra.
Other American Composers Orchestra Diversity in Composition events showcasing the new works of Black Composers have followed since 2014 through 2019.