The following are the Introduction and excerpts from Chapter 2 of the League’s “Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Artistic Planning” Catalyst Guide. Read or download the full guide for free on the League of American Orchestras website.
By Theodore Wiprud, with Karen Yair, Kerrien Suarez, and Patrick Castillo
Introduction
To survive and to thrive, orchestral music must continue to evolve as a vibrant and dynamic art form that is engaged with our times and meaningful to increasingly diverse audiences and communities.
Especially since the murder of George Floyd in Summer 2020 brought issues of racial equity to the forefront of national consciousness, many orchestras have highlighted the work of historically marginalized composers, including those identifying as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color), women, and non-binary. As a result, the 2021-2022 season saw more than a four-fold increase in the programming of works by historically marginalized composers over 2017 levels, across orchestras of all sizes and regions. Despite this progress, however, white, male European composers of the past continue to dominate the repertoire, still accounting for two thirds of the works programmed in the 2021-2022 season.
For inclusive artistic planning to be effective, it needs to be part of an orchestra’s long-term plan for EDI (equity, diversity, and inclusion) work, aligned with changes in internal culture, resourcing, governance, retention practices, and partnership building. Orchestras taking the kinds of actions outlined in the League’s Promising Practices report are building strong foundations for this work. As board, staff, and musicians all align around EDI, programming innovations can be set up for success, backed up by marketing and ticketing strategies and by a welcoming and inclusive patron experience. This Catalyst Guide examines programming philosophies, challenges, factors for success, and resources that have emerged so far in orchestras’ journeys towards programming equity. It is based on dozens of interviews with orchestras of all budget sizes, including grantees from the League’s Catalyst Fund Pilot and Incubator programs. Every orchestra faces unique factors in its community, its history, and its people, and will therefore experience a unique EDI journey. But learning from ongoing work across the field will help sustain progress for lasting change.
Promising Practices: Actions Orchestras Can Take to Make Progress Toward Equity
Read about 12 actions any orchestra can take to make progress towards equity by strengthening its own organizational practices in the “Promising Practices” Catalyst Guide from the League.
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The Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra takes the rich musical legacies of New Orleans as birthright, and collaborates with local musicians. In photo: Nicholas Hersh leads the Louisiana Philharmonic and Tank & The Bangas at the Orpheum Theater on January 15, 2022. Photo by Sean Gardner. -
As part of its ongoing collaborations with local musical artists, the Louisiana Philharmonic performed with Tank & The Bangas on January 15, 2022. Nicholas Hersh led the concert at the Orpheum Theater. Other local performers the orchestra performs with include gender-fluid bounce artist Big Freedia. Photo by Sean Gardner. -
In May of 2022 at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, the Minnesota Orchestra hosted “Everything is Somebody’s Offering: A Rememory Experience” organized by the George Floyd Global Memorial Exhibit. George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis. Photo by Courtney Perry. -
In October of 2022, the Minnesota Orchestra presented a Listening Project concert featuring six works by Black composers. In photo: the Minnesota Orchestra, conductor Kensho Watanabe, and baritone Christopher Humbert Jr., who performed works by Eleanor Alberga and Margaret Bonds. The Listening Project aims to highlight historically underrepresented composers and collaborate with a broader group of living composers. The works on the October concert were recorded to encourage programming of this music, with the recordings to be shared in partnership with the African Diaspora Music Project. Photo by Greg Helgeson. -
The Philadelphia Orchestra gave its first-ever Pride Concert in June 2022 at Verizon Hall. In photo: Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin and performer Martha Graham Cracker, who is considered Philadelphia drag royalty, at the concert. The orchestra worked with the city’s LGBT Office to get the word out and programmed local talent, and the event drew a packed audience, including many who had never been in Verizon Hall before. Photo by Margo Reed. -
At its first-ever Pride Concert, in June 2022 at Verizon Hall, the Philadelphia Orchestra invited local talent to participate, including the Philadelphia Gay Men’s Chorus, seen here in Verizon Hall with the orchestra and Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The concert attracted an enthusiastic audience and helped build awareness of the orchestra and change perceptions. Photo by Margo Reed. -
Vocalist esperanza spalding, one of the San Francisco Symphony’s Collaborative Partners, performs with the San Francisco Symphony and Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen at the orchestra’s “Reopening Night” Gala on October 1, 2022. The San Francisco Symphony’s eight Collaborative Partners curate performances and have a role in the artistic decision-making process, which expands the conversation and, in part, increases the presence of female and BIPOC composers in programming. Photo by Drew Altizer Photography. -
Composer Tyshawn Sorey conducts a performance at the San Francisco Symphony’s SoundBox on March 25, 2022. Sorey joined SF Symphony musicians for the program, which featured performances of works by Courtney Bryan, Tyson Davis, Tania León, George E. Lewis, Joseph C. Phillips, Jr., Alvin Singleton, and Sorey’s own compositions. SoundBox is the symphony’s experimental space with a club feel, where curators including Sorey create events that draw young, diverse audiences and demonstrate fresh, inclusive ideas. Photo by Kristen Loken. -
The Dakota String Quartet and Dakota Wind Quintet, comprising nine full-time musicians from the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, perform with Emmanuel Black Bear, Keeper of the Drum, at the Washington, D.C. National Cathedral in 2019. They also performed at the National Museum of the American Indian during that visit. Emmanuel Black Bear leads the Creekside Singers, a Lakota drumming group from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. With its Lakota Music Project, the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra has collaborated with Lakota and Dakota musicians and elders for over a decade. Photo by Tracy Salazar. -
Bryan Akipa, a member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Sioux Tribe and traditional Native American flute player, performs with the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra in Mary W. Sommervold Hall in Sioux Falls, South Dakota on October 23, 2022. The concert was part of the orchestra’s long-running Lakota Music Project, in which indigenous musicians perform alongside the orchestra and new works are commissioned from Native and non-Native composers for them to perform together. Photo credit: South Dakota Public Broadcasting. -
Composer Quinn Mason leads the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra in his own Toast of the Town on April 30, 2022. Supporting goals set by the symphony’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, Music Director Lawrence Loh featured works by underrepresented composers on programs in the 2021-22 season. Photo by Perry Bennett Photography. -
Flutist Annie Wu performs Kevin Puts’s Flute Concerto with the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra and guest conductor Mélisse Brunet on January 15, 2022, as part of the orchestra’s commitment to feature a guest artist or composer of color on every concert program. Photo by Perry Bennett Photography. -
Cellist Sterling Elliott speaks to the audience during a pre-concert lecture at the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra’s October 16, 2021, concert in Charleston, WV. Elliott then performed Haydn’s Concerto in D Major for Violincello with the orchestra, as part of the orchestra’s commitment to feature a guest artist or composer of color on every program. Photo by Perry Bennett Photography.
Chapter 2: Strategies to Achieve More Inclusive Programming
Set targets and be accountable.
One model for more inclusive programming is to set measurable targets for historically excluded composers and guest artists, and chart progress toward a more representative repertory. A target may for instance be at least one work by a BIPOC composer on every concert. This approach provides accountability and can show fast results. However, it signals tokenism if not backed up by organization-wide work to effectively engage audiences and by a commitment to center increasingly substantial works by historically excluded composers within mainstage programming.
In the summer of 2020, the Minnesota Orchestra found itself at the epicenter of the racial reckoning accelerated by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The orchestra felt a powerful imperative to demonstrate its commitment to all the people of its community. By the time the pandemic allowed the orchestra to begin to play publicly again in the fall of 2020, the musicians on its Artistic Advisory Committee had set a clear and ambitious goal: to include a Black composer on every program. Recognizing that it would take more than diverse programming, the musicians and staff nevertheless wanted to make an immediate response. Since then, the orchestra has programmed larger works by African, Middle Eastern, Latin, Indigenous, and Asian (AMELIA) and female composers.
“It’s part of our role as a community citizen, to foster more beneficial relationships with AMELIA communities and organizations.”
–Kari Marshall, Director of Artistic Planning, Minnesota Orchestra
For inclusive artistic planning to be effective, it needs to be part of an orchestra’s long-term plan for equity, diversity, and inclusion.
The West Virginia Symphony Orchestra (WVSO) is another ensemble that committed to a guest artist or composer of color on every concert program. But WVSO President Joe Tackett says they did not rush into the decision, wary of virtue-signaling in the summer of 2020. He began by expanding the conversation, recruiting Black board members knowledgeable about music who contributed programming ideas. Then, Music Director Lawrence Loh reached out to a young Black composer he’d worked with in Dallas: Quinn Mason, whose music has now had three appearances with the WVSO. Together, they have put established works together with new works by Black composers on virtually every WVSO program.
“I hear only positive response to the work we’ve done.”
–Joe Tackett, President, West Virginia Symphony Orchestra
Work with the most progressive artists and composers without setting specific goals for race or gender identity.
Another approach holds that engaging with the most interesting emerging voices will naturally lead to an increasingly diverse slate of composers and artists, especially if artistic partners have opportunities to curate. This approach shares power and aims to avoid tokenism. However, the selection of artist and composer partners can inadvertently reinforce systemic inequities, unless artistic planners actively work to expand and diversify their networks, always asking themselves who is still excluded.
The New York Philharmonic invited countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo to curate “The Beauty Within,” a series of programs in the winter of 2022 with music by composers of diverse racial and gender identities. This invitation did not so much reflect a decision to diversify, says Patrick Castillo, Vice President, Artistic Planning, but was instead a recognition of Costanzo as a catalyst for innovation.
“Our philosophy is that an organization like the New York Philharmonic has an obligation to act as an agent of meaningful social change.”
–Patrick Castillo, Vice President, Artistic Planning, New York Philharmonic
The San Francisco Symphony entrusts progress in part to a diverse group of eight Collaborative Partners, ranging from bassist/vocalist/composer Esperanza Spalding to artificial-intelligence entrepreneur Carol Reiley. The Partners curate in spaces such as the experimental SoundBox, subscription concerts, and newly imagined spaces. Expanding the conversation has the power to change decision-making in meaningful and exciting ways. Without setting targets, SFS exponentially increased its representation of female and BIPOC composers within a five-year period.
Collaborate to tell local stories.
Building deep, lasting relationships with local community organizations creates a strong backbone for more inclusive programming. When local people shape the telling of their own stories through orchestral music, the impact can be profound. And as noted above, the potential for new programming to engage latent audiences can be particularly powerful when collaborative storytelling involves local artists, community groups, and venues working together with the orchestra.
Building lasting relationships with community-based organizations is an ongoing investment of time, coupled with deep awareness of privilege and cultural difference. Organizational equity work can support orchestra staff in ensuring that these relationships remain respectful of a community’s practices, and do not inadvertently exploit or cause harm (for example through appropriation or tokenizing). With this solid foundation, these relationships can fuel the creative process, while broadening trust and engagement with the orchestra’s work.
Pursuing EDI Through Community Engagement
Repertoire by Underrepresented Composers
The League’s Catalyst EDI Resources Center includes a section with direct links to multiple databases.
The South Dakota Symphony Orchestra has built a new intercultural repertory by collaborating with Lakota and Dakota musicians and elders for a dozen years and counting. Indigenous musicians perform alongside the orchestra, and new works are commissioned, from Native and non-Native composers, for them to perform together.
“Focusing on the traditional music of a given culture is the best way to form a musical connection between our community and another. This is also the best way to ensure that the music itself is meaningful, rooted in the history of the people with whom you are engaging.”
–Delta David Gier, Music Director, South Dakota Symphony Orchestra
Building deep, lasting relationships with local community organizations creates a strong backbone for more inclusive programming.
The Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra takes the rich musical legacies of New Orleans as birthright. The orchestra collaborates with local musicians, including Tank & The Bangas and gender-fluid bounce artist Big Freedia, and plans to move such projects into the subscription season.
“We want to be a culture-bearer for the music of the region. Who better than us?”
–Anwar Nasir, Executive Director, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra
When the Philadelphia Orchestra presented its first-ever Pride Concert in June 2022, Verizon Hall was packed with such an enthusiastic, cheering crowd, including many who had never been in the hall before, that Doris Parent recalls thinking, “Look what we’ve started—we have to do this again!” The orchestra seized the opportunity of an unused musicians’ service to try something new. With the enthusiastic involvement of Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, they worked with the city’s LGBT Office to get the word out and they programmed local talent, including the Philadelphia Gay Men’s Chorus and the drag performer Martha Graham Cracker.
“Events like this build an awareness of the orchestra and change the perception of the orchestra.”
–Doris Parent, Chief IDEAS [Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access Strategies] Officer, The Philadelphia Orchestra
The Boise Philharmonic is building a multimedia project around Paul Chihara’s piece Minidoka (Reveries of…), which looks back to his childhood years in a Japanese American internment camp near Boise. The project has become an opportunity to build partnerships with the Idaho State Museum and Archives, Friends of Minidoka, and Minidoka National Historic Site. Amy Granger, VP of Audience Experience, says it’s on-brand for an orchestra striving to be “Boise’s Philharmonic.”
“I don’t have to be angry [about my family’s internment at Minidoka]. I just have to tell people what happened, and they get angry.”
–Paul Chihara, Composer
Your Values, Your Impact, Your Stories
Learn more about the value of storytelling for orchestras by watching a video of the “Your Values, Your Impact, Your Stories” session at the League’s 2021 National Conference.
Treat an equity mandate an as opportunity.
Research into historically excluded composers of the past and the present can re-energize musicians and staff alike. California Symphony Music Director Donato Cabrera describes feeling liberated by the orchestra’s 2017 commitment to diverse programming. He quickly exceeded the orchestra’s agreed minimum percentage of women and composers of color.
“The EDI movement has helped me home in on what I’ve always wanted to do.”
–Donato Cabrera, Music Director, California Symphony
