How Inclusive Are Expectations for Audience Behavior in Early Music?

“In addition to being a professional early-music ensemble director, performer, and educator, I am also a mom; juggling these jobs during a pandemic was a surreal learning experience,” writes Marylin Winkle in the January issue of Early Music America magazine. “My daughter was born in July 2020 … Naturally, she also tagged along with me to last summer’s early-music events. All went swimmingly—until we were kicked out of an early-music concert…. My daughter nursed in my lap for the first half hour and then decided she wanted to roam the aisles silently…. The ensemble director—a professional colleague—said to me, ‘Remove the child from the hall.’ Here’s how this all pertains to diversity, equity, and inclusion: when children are not welcome in our concert halls, we also ostracize their caretakers, who are often women. If an arts organization genuinely cares about DEI, they need to show it in more ways than just programming…. We say we want our concert halls to be community spaces that welcome everyone. Then we need to commit to doing the hard work of making those spaces inclusive. We need to reframe our expectations around ‘audience etiquette,’ ”