Over the past several months in these radio talks, I've highlighted the ongoing contributions that composers and performers of color have added to the narrative of our shared musical history. And as well, I sought to bring into better focus the larger questions surrounding the diversity deficit that has long been a part of the classical music world.
Today’s IRIS ORCHESTRA MUSIC MINUTE was sparked by two articles in the New York Times. The first was written this past July by the music critic and author Anthony Tommasini, who titled his essay “To Make Orchestras More Diverse, End Blind Auditions”, in which he questioned whether the audition process should take into account race, gender and other factors. Then, the Times published a second piece by two other critics, Zachary Woolfe and Joshua Barone, who conducted a series of interviews titled “Musicians on How to Bring Racial Equity to Auditions.”
It's a complicated topic, impossible to settle in this one radio spot, so I won’t even try. We’ll frame the context of the essential questions raised by both articles, and attempt to tackle them in the weeks that follow.
Orchestras have been deficient both in bringing diversity among our ranks on stage as well as in the audience. Are those issues linked? Is it not right to address inequity by bringing a form of affirmative action to the audition process? Are the issues even more basic, linked to systemic racism and sexism and lack of access and opportunity which for decades have been an obstacle to aspiring young musicians of color? How do the musicians themselves feel?
Important topics all — perhaps too ambitious for these brief talks, but I like the challenge. We’ll probe them in the weeks to come. Let’s continue this overdue conversation. In the process, perhaps we’ll all hear — and find — the best of ourselves.
Michael Stern is the music director of IRIS Orchestra of Germantown, Tennessee and the Kansas City Symphony. Tickets and more information can be found at IRIS orchestra dot o-r-g.