The League of American Orchestras has published Making the Case for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Orchestras, a guide with concrete answers and practical resources that orchestras can use to advance anti-racism and equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) at all levels of their organizations. Developed in collaboration with a team of orchestra musicians, music directors, board members, and staff, the guide is intended to help the orchestra field take action to become more inclusive and welcoming of all people and all differences. The guide provides practical advice, content, and support, and is designed to help those in orchestras to make the case for this vital work and navigate some of the key questions as they take action for change. Orchestras have a long history of discrimination, and Making the Case is offered amid America’s current reckoning with 400 years of oppression against Black people, underscored by the recent police killings and the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Black and Brown Americans. It follows the League’s Statement on Racial Discrimination issued in August 2020. Read Making the Case for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Orchestras here.
Author: Mike Rush
Dallas Symphony musicians give intimate concert for residents near cleaned-up former toxic waste site
Dallas Symphony Orchestra violinist Bruce Wittrig and violist Dan Wang perform outside Marsha Jackson’s home in Dallas, February 26, 2021. Photo: Juan Figueroa.
“It took nearly two months and 12-hour days for a convoy of bulldozers and trucks to remove an enormous pile of toxic roofing debris [in Dallas] called Shingle Mountain from the side of Marsha Jackson’s house,” writes Darryl Fears in Friday’s (2/26) Washington Post. “On Friday … the only thing rising outside her front door will be the sound of music. About 2 p.m., a concert truck with a piano on the flatbed will arrive near where the 100,000-ton pile of waste once stood in south Dallas. Quincy Roberts, whose bid won a city contract to clear away the shingles, will team with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to present a tiny concert for Jackson and her neighbors. Roberts also happens to be a trained operatic tenor who sits on the orchestra’s board of directors. His friend and Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity brother, [tenor] Lawrence Brownlee … plans to sing ‘All Day, All Night (Angels Watching Over Me).’ … The intent, Roberts said, is to do what the city of Dallas did not—apologize to the community that was forced to endure toxic pollution for years, and to say to Jackson, in particular, that she’s appreciated.”
Cleveland Institute receives $1M gift to support full-tuition scholarship
The Cleveland Institute of Music has received a $1 million gift that will go toward providing a full-tuition conservatory scholarship for one incoming student. The gift comes from longtime Trustee A. Chace Anderson and his wife, Josie. In announcing the A. Chace and Josephine Anderson Dean’s Scholarship, CIM stated that the gift is “the latest in a period of significant growth in endowment giving, marking $16.3 million in new gifts and pledges since 2017 that are dedicated to CIM’s vision for the future of classical music.” In 2017, the Cleveland Institute of Music announced a 15 percent reduction in tuition as part of a commitment to lowering the cost of education. The institution says its goal is to add $40 million to the scholarship endowment over the next decade to support the affordability initiative; the latest gift brings the total raised to $16.3 million.
With theaters closed, Lincoln Center to present performances outdoors, forge new community partnerships
“Lincoln Center is known for the grandeur of its theaters and concert halls,” writes Matt Stevens in Thursday’s (2/25) New York Times. “But with those spaces closed to public performances for nearly a year because of the coronavirus pandemic … Lincoln Center announced Thursday that it planned to create 10 outdoor performance and rehearsal spaces [on its 16-acre campus], becoming the latest entrant in the effort to move small-scale performances outside to try to bolster the performing arts in New York and get artists back to work.… The broad initiative, known as ‘Restart Stages,’ will begin April 7 with a concert for health care workers. There are plans for a cabaret-style stage, a dedicated area for families that will feature arts activities for children, rehearsal venues that will be open to the public, an outdoor reading room … and an outdoor space for … public school graduations.… Programming will include not only Lincoln Center organizations … but also arts institutions from across the city…. Lincoln Center said it would partner with the New York Blood Center and the Food Bank for New York City to offer services like blood drives and food distribution alongside its arts programming.”
Montreal Symphony honors Kent Nagano with emeritus title
“After 14 years at the helm of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, he may be passing the baton to Venezuelan conductor Rafael Payare, but Kent Nagano will still maintain a vital presence here,” writes Bill Brownstein in Thursday’s (2/25) Gazette (Montreal, Canada). “Nagano has been bestowed with the honorary title of conductor emeritus of the OSM, becoming only the third to get this recognition, after Wilfrid Pelletier and Zubin Mehta. ‘I’m very honored, and it’s really symbolic of the fact everyone feels it’s appropriate for the relationship to continue,’ Nagano, 69, said…. Back in Montreal after a long absence due to the pandemic, Nagano will also be conducting the OSM in three virtual concerts, March 9, 16 and 23 … During his tenure here, he reached out to and performed for the young and disenfranchised, often for free, outside Place des Arts…. He also made a deep impact on Quebec’s Cree, Innu and Inuit communities, after first touring the North with the OSM a decade back and then returning in 2018 to perform the chamber opera Chaakapesh, the Trickster’s Quest, based on the work of Indigenous playwright Tomson Highway and for which Nagano had been the catalyst.”
New online platform for Pacific Symphony, offering streamed chamber music
“Pacific Symphony is delivering on its promise. Last month … the orchestra’s musicians had agreed to a four-year contract, with an eye on getting back in the concert hall to record new performances that would stream online,” writes Peter Feher in Tuesday’s (2/23) San Francisco Classical Voice. “This week, the Orange County orchestra is inaugurating a new platform … PacificSymphony+. The first program under the ‘plus’ banner premieres for free … Feb. 25…. [features] music of chamber-orchestra proportions—Richard Strauss’s Serenade for 13 Winds and the finale of Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings…. On March 4, the Pacific Symphony brass play Morten Lauridsen’s O magnum mysterium and Michael Daugherty’s Asclepius, joined in that second work by the percussion section….’The musicians and I are gratified to be creating and making music again after such a long period of being unable to play together,’ said Music Director Carl St.Clair. These first offerings are the start of a series, Symphony Thursdays @ 7, the equivalent of the orchestra’s regular season classics programming…. This Saturday, Feb. 27 … the orchestra streams a free family event, its annual Lantern Festival, marking the end of the Lunar New Year celebrations.”
Ann Arbor Symphony returns to perform full-orchestra concerts, minus live audience
“The COVID-19 pandemic halted in-person production of Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra (A2SO) concerts for almost a year, but the orchestra finally returned on Feb. 20—with a pandemic-safe makeover,” writes Maria Patton in Wednesday’s (2/24) Concentrate (Washtenaw County, MI). The February 20 program featured Jacob Joyce conducting music by Mozart, Montgomery, and Stravinsky. “Performances for the remainder of A2SO’s season, running through May 1, will be pre-recorded at the Michigan Theater a week before scheduled release dates. Ticket holders will then receive a link to access them online through June 30…. The first three concerts of this year will be the first full-orchestra performances A2SO has held since the beginning of the pandemic. … There is no live audience, and the only people allowed in the theater during rehearsals and performances are the musicians, stagehands, and the Michigan Theater staff…. In the fall, A2SO hosted virtual dinner concerts, for which ticket holders purchased curbside meals from Ann Arbor restaurants… A2SO is planning to continue virtual dinner concerts through the new season…. ‘We constantly receive comments back from our subscribers thanking us for giving them something to enjoy at home, something to look forward to,’ [Executive Director Tyler] Rand says.”
Tulsa Symphony’s Feb. 27-28 concerts to spotlight Hailstork, Day, Still, Dvořák
Adolphus Hailstork’s Two Romances for Viola and Orchestra “will be part of the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra’s … concert … broadcast … Feb. 27-28, on KWTU,” writes James D. Watts Jr. in Thursday’s (2/25) Tulsa World (OK). “The orchestra’s principal violist, Jeffery Cowen, will be the soloist for the work. The concert, led by resident guest conductor Daniel Hege, highlights music by African-American composers [including] ‘Lightspeed (Fanfare for Orchestra),’ a 2019 composition by 24-year-old composer Kevin Day, as well as the ‘Serenade for Orchestra’ by William Grant Still…. The concert will also feature Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, ‘From the New World.’ … Hailstork has written … four symphonies, three operas and … works for chorus and orchestra, the most recent being ‘A Knee on the Neck (Tribute to George Floyd),’ … tentatively set to premiere in 2022. His Fanfare on ‘Amazing Grace’ was performed as part of President Joe Biden’s inauguration ceremony Jan. 20…. ‘I consider myself your basic, blue-collar composer,’ says Hailstork, ‘but in recent years, I have seen where I might be able to make contributions … that reference the experience of African-Americans in this country—the triumphs, as well as the problems of living in a hostile territory.’ ”
Hartford Symphony, looking ahead to return of Talcott Mountain and “Summer Splash” concerts
In a pre-pandemic photo. the Hartford Symphony Orchestra performs at its Talcott Mountain Music Festival.
“Hartford Symphony Orchestra is preparing—as best it can, without knowing what COVID realities await—to return to its traditional series of summer concerts, including the popular Talcott Mountain music series, just a few months from now,” writes Christopher Arnott in Thursday’s (2/25) Hartford Courant (CT). Last summer’s Talcott Mountain concerts were cancelled due to the pandemic. “The symphony hopes to hold four weeks of ‘Summer Splash’ concerts in various Hartford communities and some suburbs as soon as the third week in May, says HSO Executive Director Steve Collins. The concerts will be free in Hartford and may be ticketed elsewhere. Then in early July, starting with the traditional ‘Celebrate America’ concert … the symphony hopes to resume its weekly Talcott Mountain music series in Simsbury…. Official announcements won’t likely be made until May. Whatever is arranged ‘must be scaled to whatever state regulations are in place at the time,’ Collins says…. Outdoor concerts have been easier to hold during COVID than indoor ones, but the symphony is also starting to think about moving inside [to The Bushnell] again [in fall of 2021]…. Since last spring the symphony has created many hours of online programming.”
League Webinar to focus on mental health and wellness in the orchestra field
Mental health and wellness are extremely important—yet frequently overlooked and often stigmatized. On Wednesday, February 24, the League of American Orchestras will present Mental Health and Wellness: A Conversation, a virtual session moderated by Stephanie Wagner, a trainer and program specialist at Healthy Minds Innovations (affiliated with the University of Wisconsin-Madison). The 90-minute discussion will offer first steps in normalizing conversations about mental health for those in the orchestra field, and a musician, a composer, an orchestra administrator, and a licensed therapist will discuss destigmatizing mental health issues, therapy, and medication. The panelists are: Julia Adolphe, composer; Lauren Aycock Anderson, therapist/owner, Counseling for Creatives, LLC; Aiden Feltkamp, emerging composers and diversity director, American Composers Orchestra; and Sidney Hopson, musician and arts strategist. The session will feature tips backed by science to support and nurture mental and emotional well-being during this challenging time, as well as time for Q&A with the panel.
Mental Health and Wellness: A Conversation takes place on Wednesday, February 24 at 3:00pm Eastern/12:00pm Pacific; a recording will be available after the live event for those who register. Learn more and register here. Contact League Member Services at member@americanorchestras.org with questions.