Just over a year ago, the Cleveland Orchestra announced its 100th season. The world-class orchestra kicked off its second century much the same way it operated during its first hundred years: with a bunch of dead white guys.
The marketing around the announcement was characteristically impeccable. The press release was chock full of high-minded rhetoric about music being an “incredible tool for good” and the orchestra’s duty “to harness the life-changing power of music.” Forget the snobbery of art for art’s sake. This was an orchestra on a mission.
That mission is breathlessly spelled out on the orchestra’s website. Among its lofty goals, the orchestra will remain committed to “community support” and “an unshakeable commitment to innovation.”
Much of what the orchestra does is, in fact, innovative. The orchestra is well on its way to having one of the youngest audiences in the U.S., if not the world. The orchestra’s adventurous opera productions consistently surpass those of full-time opera companies in terms of production and sheer music-making. Student subscriptions, generously subsidized by philanthropy, are more affordable than those for many other orchestras. And the orchestra maintains residencies at some of the world’s most revered halls, including the Musikverein in Vienna and Lincoln Center in New York.
Yet the orchestra’s commitment to innovation stops, frustratingly and inexplicably, with its choice of repertoire.
At the centennial announcement event last March, the artistic leadership unveiled a vision of the orchestra’s future that proved as myopic as its past and present. For his part, music director Franz Welser-Möst delivered a passionate and refreshingly honest address. Here was a conductor of remarkable candor, who made jabs at “snobby Middle-Europeans” to a crowd of mostly older white patrons dizzy on free wine. He even compared a lack of daring in artistic planning to a slow death.
“We should look forward and not be afraid of what the future holds for us,” Welser-Möst said. He went on, apparently roasting his own organization’s artistic planning: “People sort of say, ‘Yeah, we have to present it differently’ and whatnot. You don’t go to a museum and put … disco lighting on a great painting.”
Laughter and applause.
At last, orchestra and audience alike seemed poised to break with the past and leap headlong into the future. Hell, a leap into the present would be cause for fanfare. Welser-Möst certainly sounded ready for the jump. The final salvo appeared to come as Welser-Möst compared those ubiquitous performances of Beethoven’s complete symphonies — the pinnacle of symphonic achievement in the classical canon — to “a sort of sports event” among conductors. The New Yorker’s William Robin has called such composer cycle stunts a “fixation,” which is putting it modestly.
Well, it turns out to be a fixation shared by Welser-Möst after all. Contrary to his progressive rhetoric, the maestro remains planted firmly in the past. Welser-Möst did some soul-searching, and he now seems to think a musical pissing contest at Beethoven’s expense is just what Cleveland deserves for its hometown orchestra’s centennial. That’s a remarkable change of heart from a maestro who, just a few breaths earlier, had derisively compared a complete Beethoven cycle to a sporting event (in Cleveland, of all places). We’ve seen the future, and it’s a German who’s been dead for nearly 200 years.
The vaunted centennial season turns out to be a disappointing continuation of the status quo. Of the nearly 40 composers represented, every last one is a white man. Only four of those white men are still alive. Of those four, only one is American-born. Last season, all but one composer (composer-in-residence Anthony Cheung) were white, only four had a pulse, and a lone concerto by Augusta Read Thomas kept the Cleveland Orchestra off of the Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy’s list of top orchestras that didn’t include a single female composer in the 2016-17 season. The Cleveland Orchestra is far from alone in this regard. An analysis by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra found female composers accounted for just 1.3 percent of all music performed by 85 American orchestras. How much longer will “America’s best orchestra,” as Cleveland was recently dubbed by The New York Times, set a worse example than its peers?
(Scene contacted the orchestra archives for repertoire lists going back to Welser-Möst’s predecessor, Christoph von Dohnányi. Those records were not ready by press time, but an orchestra spokesman assures us they’re working on it.)
Why is it that season after season, the orchestra’s artistic leadership continues with the same backwards, systemically racist and sexist programming, and yet never faces even the slightest scrutiny? The incongruity between the orchestra’s stated commitment to innovation and the music it promotes couldn’t be more obvious. They are presumably committed to performing only the greatest repertoire. Yet it seems great music is only written by dead white men.
One has to wonder where Cleveland’s music critics have been while this goes on year after year. Have they spent the past decade cowering lest they go the way of Donald Rosenberg? In other cities, it’s ticket holders and musicians themselves who have taken orchestras to task for the industry-wide problem. A couple of months ago, 60 Boston-area musicians penned an open letter to the Boston Symphony Orchestra calling for it to include “musical talent that is too often marginalized.” BSO management met with the signatories, though musical director Andris Nelsons was reportedly absent.
Patrons and musicians in Chicago, Rochester, Philadelphia and elsewhere have piled shame on their orchestras for entirely white, male seasons, and some are taking note. The Los Angeles Philharmonic will celebrate its own centennial next season with a staggering 50 world premieres by the likes of Philip Glass, Julia Adolphe, Tyshawn Sorey and Unsuk Chin.
But in Cleveland, the silent apathy is deafening.
The Cleveland Orchestra does occasionally present newer works alongside the familiar classics, but even then it’s still almost exclusively a white man’s world. Last December, a brief piece by English composer Julian Anderson opened a fantastic concert that also included a Mozart piano concerto and Brahms’ First Symphony. Programs such as these are apparently proof that the orchestra and its audience value new or neglected music. But we all know that if a major work by a black composer — George Walker’s Pulitzer-winning “Lilacs,” for example — were placed after intermission, the hall would be virtually empty. Or at least that’s what the orchestra’s marketing department seems to think. Last weekend’s concert featuring the phenomenal harpsichordist Jory Vinikour in a lesser-known concerto by Poulenc was billed as “Romantic Rachmaninoff.” Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony is gorgeous and deservedly a staple of the orchestral repertoire, but why must the overplayed and familiar be more enticing than the adventurous and unknown? And after all, Poulenc is dead and white, too.
This disparity persists in part because so-called classical music lovers typically believe the myth that great music is that which has endured “the test of time.” In fact, time is passive and indifferent and tests nothing. We, the audience, test music through listening and critical thinking and constant reevaluation of our aesthetic assumptions. This is the true music lover, not the person who gripes at intermission about too many snare drums and unpleasant chords. Music cannot be discovered and tested if it is never performed in the first place. The old way of thinking ensures that music by non-white, non-male composers will never measure up to anything written by a dead white man who gets played thousands of times each year in concert halls the world over.
The Cleveland Orchestra’s leadership seems to get this point, at least in theory, paying lip-service to patrons who fill Severance Hall for progressive programming. The orchestra’s director of artistic planning, Mark Williams, ostensibly has an important role in what gets played. For what it’s worth, Williams is an African American with an enviable vitae, including degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music and New York University. Before coming to Cleveland, he worked with the San Francisco Symphony, one of the trendsetters in progressive programming.
“This is a place that’s ready, willing and eager to take on the challenges of the 21st century,” Williams told Cleveland.com in 2013. “If we’re not thinking about our audience, we’re losing them. The audience here is so educated, and so open. If you give people quality, and you believe in it, nine times out of 10 it will work.”
Five years later, his words ring as hollow as Welser-Möst’s.
As paying audience members with a vested interest in the future of great music, we must hear new and neglected music, and we must hear it as more than a reluctant toss-off at the beginning of a concert. We may chuckle knowingly at the way early critics rebuffed Bizet’s “Carmen” as too cerebral, or Beethoven’s Second Symphony as coarse and unwieldy. If first impressions were everything, we would never enjoy a Mahler symphony or a Bach cantata. Yet we are content to allow today’s masterpieces to languish without a second thought. After one poorly rehearsed performance, we make up our minds and get back to the same, comfortable drudgery. To make matters worse, the Cleveland Orchestra, when it performs new music at all, typically chooses the hair-raising pastiches of German expressionism that send audiences fleeing back to the comfortable classics. See how ugly new music is? Thank goodness we still have Mozart and Beethoven.
What about next season? It’s hardly better in terms of gender parity; Pulitzer laureate Jennifer Higdon will be the only female composer we’ll hear all year. Eight living composers, including assistant principal oboist Jeff Rathbun, will get stage time. Every last composer is white. Is this acceptable from an orchestra in a city where the majority of citizens are African-American, Latino, Asian or otherwise people of color? The orchestra’s leadership will profess its devotion to all Clevelanders, perhaps pointing to a few yearly photo ops in schools filled with minority children from low-income families. But the faces filling Severance Hall each weekend almost uniformly reflect the faces of the composers heard there.
That’s not surprising, because the fact remains: After 100 years, there is still no place for women or minorities on the musicians’ stands at Severance Hall.
This article appears in Mar 28 – Apr 3, 2018.
Your classical music is racist.
This is typical Marxism employed by the Scene writers. Do they think this will help their Socialist revolution? More likely, it’ll just get this Magazine shut down when readers figure out they can get local entertainment news in better places without the liberal political agenda being pushed every week.
Race baiting scums. Go find another scene to disrupt then promote some more luciferians.
Another opinionated piece from corporate owned lackeys. We can never accept the opinion of someone who is paid to have it.
As an emerging classical music enthusiast — I’m still working my way through the basic repertoire even after six years of pretty intense listening — I’m torn here. On one hand, I WANT to hear the work of the dead white guys, because I’m still not familiar with all of it, and it does form the basis of what we hear from contemporary composers. There’s a part of me that wants to be exceedingly familiar with the foundation before I start building on it. On the other hand, in saying that, I have to admit my own ignorance. I have little idea what most minority composers have to offer because I’ve heard so little of their work (and for that I blame myself far more than the people directing the programming at Severance Hall). There’s no doubt in my mind I would benefit from expanding my horizons, but dammit, I still haven’t even heard everything Beethoven, Mozart and Mendelssohn wrote. In any case, you made me think — even if it was in the typically bombastic style of Scene — and that was worth the time I spent reading this piece. I plan to renew my Cleveland Orchestra subscription next year, and I plan to ask my ticket rep what the Orchestra’s response to this musical disparity will be.
So, as someone who is a member of the chorus and is regularly on stage with TCO I find this funny. One, because it’s true. It’s how it’s always been. Just wait until you get the records, you’ll see. We’ve performed Daphnis et Chloe 3 times in the last 4 seasons. Guess what? We’re bringing Carmina Burana back again too. They aren’t risk takers, they know what sells. Secondly, if you think the music lacks diversity, look down at the stage. Look at the chorus. you can count, on any given night, the people of color ON ONE HAND. We have our tokens but, when you compare it to how many people of color show up to participate in the MLK concert, you’d think they used that concert to meet there “colored folks on stage” quota. Third, and this is something people are really quiet about, TCO employs two prominent musicians with a history of sexual misconduct. Google it.
While were at it, lets hollow out every art museum that features the work of dead white guys
Obnoxious writing. Way to insult some of the greatest geniuses in world history–Bach, Beethoven, Brahms–by dismissing them simply as “dead white guys.” Are you serious? You aren’t going to win over anyone with ridiculous and racist attacks like these. Of course, it is good to introduce new repertoire that is excellent, but that is the criterion, not anything else. Classical music originated in Europe, so it is natural that the art form is historically comprised of people who were from..Europe! Diversity for its own sake is NOT the goal of artists or arts organizations. A composer’s duty is to try and create the highest level of art that can stand the test of time–hundreds of years–against these “dead white guys”, and I hate to break it to you, but when we listen to a piece of music, we don’t think–wow, I really enjoyed how Asian/Latino/transgender/Black that was. We think–wow those brass were amazing–listen to that melody–that part made me want to cry, etc. These are the facts. Try and live in the reality-based world where quality is a real item, not just marketing and propaganda.
It is really quite a dilemma. How do we balance the grand old tradition with the brave new world? As a black, classical composer who attended CIM and then worked decades in orchestras, I can assure readers that the only practical answer is BOTH: we must continue standard program and performance practices WHILE we develop experimental new programs and even experimental services that refashion the old tools so they work for broader demographics. Not only is it possible and available nearby, but it would create jobs for many of the top conservatory grads. New ensembles that focus on presenting new music or underrepresented composers/musicians, such as Sphinx, CutTime or ICE, should be 3rd-party partners with TCO to relieve them from deviating from their purpose of preserving the established, inspiration, European tradition. With their blessing, we can build an American tradition that complements the European.
Classical music is a world language and a living language, a language spoken for centuries by women (against the odds), a language with rich traditions in every continent. Playing the greatest hits on loop diminishes its ability to surprise and diminishes our understanding of its possibilities. An orchestra with resources and cultural clout should be rewarding its patrons’ curiosity, not churning out the comfortable and the familiar.
“Every last composer is white. Is this acceptable from an orchestra in a city where the majority of citizens are African-American, Latino, Asian or otherwise people of color?”
Newsflash, pal: Most of the asses in the seats at Cleveland Orchestra concerts are not residents of the City of Cleveland. They come in from the suburbs…mostly from the eastern suburbs. They whiz right into an underground garage from the boonies and take an escalator up to the hall, never even setting foot on the sidewalks of Cleveland, let alone the streets. So they are almost automatically going to be affluent, white, middle-aged or elderly…and not from the city.. Deal with it. Get used to it.
I don’t know what your musical background and credentials are, but as far as reporting and observation are concerned, they suck. How long have you lived in this town, anyway? Do your homework before you spew your ridiculous demographic nonsense.
” The faces filling Severance Hall each weekend almost uniformly reflect the faces of the composers heard there.”
There you go…you just answered your own question…see above… as to why they play the magnificent works of all those brilliant, superbly-talented, dead white guys. It’s because that’s what their audience wants to hear. They don’t want rap, hip-hop, bossa-nova, or whatever is cool in Asia these days.
The motto of one of America’s most historic department stores, which used to be known as Marshall Field…was “Give the lady what she wants.” Well, all those rich old farts from Cleveland Heights and Shaker, and beyond, want the old, dead white guys, and that is what they get…and what they will continue to get, because it puts the wrinkled old asses in the Severance seats.
You want something else, go to the Grog Shop or the Beachland or the Odeon, and kwitcherbitchin.
The reason the Orchestra is the “greatest” is because they only employ the BEST available people based on ability. The article doesn’t seem to care about ability, only diversity. You can have either excellence or diversity but you cannot have both, they are diametrically posed.
Philip de Oliveira grow up. The Cleveland Orchestra is first a business and needs to meet financial obligations. Filling a program with pieces the audience rather not hear is not a strategy to success. Those old dead white men your were referring to represent the cream of the crop from thousands of composers. Why do you think each new composer will be able to stand the test of time? I have sat in concerts for more years than you have been alive and there have been very few pieces I would be willing to listen to a second time. Are you going to spend your $50-$150 to go to a performance to hear something you rather not hear, I doubt it. Try running a business and meeting your customers needs before mouthing off about how something should be.
In addition to the author’s clearly demonstrated ignorance, he has just done precisely what he doesn’t want the rest of the world to do; judge an event, product or service by race, sex and diversity alone. It’s not about skill anymore. Greatness means nothing if you fail to check the boxes the social media mob suddenly thinks they desire. Beethoven, what did he know? Let’s write a patronizing article that will get some views from melenial idiots and then pat ourselves on the backs for accomplishing… absolutely nothing.
If diversity and not excellence is the standard, then I would presume that the author would also advocate the need for more diversity on the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team, which is composed 69% of black men, 31% white men, and not a single Asian, Latino, or woman. Likewise the Cleveland Browns football team is 70% black men, 28% white men, and 2% Pacific islander men. Again not a single Asian, Latino or woman. Furthermore none of these players are transgender. Their sexual orientation is unknown, but I think it would be safe to presume that the vast majority, if not all are heterosexual. On the bright-side, all the players appear to be living (though with the way the Browns perform that may be questionable).
Right out of Atlas Shrugged. The dumbing down continues
the modern left only cares about quotas of ninorities and genders and sexual orientations. Merit and Achievment mean nothing to them
Has the Scene hired any black reporters yet?…..yeah that’s what I thought. Carry on….
This is the most racist, sexist article I’ve read all day.
It’s simple. In my humble opinion nobody since Aaron Copeland has written anything that compares well with the “dead white guys. ” Oops, Copeland is a dead, white guy too.
We see six to eight concerts a year and have no desire to hear anything modern because it’s just unworthy noise compared to the works of the DWGs.
And as far as skin color is concerned, 100 years from now I will still choose to see games in which Lebron, Michael Jordan and Wilt played on whatever the medium there is then.
Responses to SCENE stories have fallen off the cliff lately, and comments have been fewer and fewer. The usual solution to that problem is to…let’s put it politely here…rake a little muck.
Two dozen comments in a day! Success!
Been a LONG time since there’ve been numbers like THAT!
Congratulations! Your plan worked! Kudos and huzzahs all around!
TCO’s “residency” in NY is @ Carnegie Hall, not Lincoln Center
The Cleveland Orchestra will give the Cleveland premiere of Jennifer Higdon’s “blue cathedral” Apr 25/26/27 2019 — and last I knew, Jennifer Higdon was and still is a woman, and (like John Adams) is a living American composer. Therefore the sweeping generalization of the headline of this article is not absolutely correct. Facts matter, folks.
I wrote much the same a year ago in my blog, which I am not permitted to link to here. (If interested, google my name and look for my blog post from March 19, 2017.) With a few exceptions, the orchestra’s programming reads like a trip to Applebee’s. I don’t care whether the composers are white or not, male or not, cisgendered or not – there is plenty of newer classical music that deserves wider exposure. For those who feel that’s not the orchestra’s job, I remind them of the tenure of the great Artur Rodzinski.
Although I disagree with some of the author’s points, at least he’s writing an informed article about Classical music, rather than the gossipy drivel put forth by Norman Lebrecht.
Did it ever occur to this simple minded author that his own premise is racist? Music should be judged by its quality, not the composers skin color.
This polemic hints of Stalinism. It will only work if orchestras are not in competition for entertainment dollars, but instead are completely funded by the state, who will then dictate the direction of their art. The irony here is that my favorite composer (based on hours listen to on the record player) is Dmitri Shostakovich, who was suppressed at times by the USSR state. I became a fan at age 12 when Cleveland City Schools sent busses around to collect students interested in the Cleveland Orchestra Friday youth matinees. They played the fourth movement of Shostakovich’s 5th symphony. It roused me off of my seat. At the time I had no idea what the color of his skin was.
Programming based on “ethnicity” and gender is MADNESS, of course. And there just aren’t very many good contemporary composers, anyhow. Most are glib, deliberately derivative, self-indulgent, peculiar, and above all, “cool” (throwing up now.) Plus, as we know, orchestras are struggling to survive, and bank heavily on the old warhorse pieces (and plenty of Mahler) for $$$. The L.A. Phil is touting its big upcoming anniversary season as being massively “inclusive” (pardon the expression), but a close look at the season reveals the usual heavy dependence on the usual popular composers (an entire Brahms symphony cycle, for example, and five Mahler symphonies.) Any “writer” who refers to the greatest composers in the history of the world as “dead white guys” is not to be taken seriously, anyhow. And your generalized headline suggests the orchestra is ignoring women and minorities in its ranks—yet a quick glance at the photo of part of the orchestra reveals a couple of (apparent) Asians and eight women. Fire your copy editor.
” And your generalized headline suggests the orchestra is ignoring women and minorities in its ranks–fire your copy editor.”
Thanks, pal…and here I thought it was just me. I thought the same thing…that the story was going to be about how the Orchestra is mostly composed (excuse the pun) of white guys. Which is, of course, total bullroar and completely untrue.
And don’t blame (or fire) the copy editor (I used to be one)…blame whoever inserted that misleading and bogus headline into the makeup of the website…probably somebody else. Maybe the web editor? Just a wild-ass guess on my part.
HOWEVER…the cover of the print edition of this week’s Scene is completely different…and much better…it reads “Tone Deaf”…as in skin tone, get it? A great pun. Copy editors don’t get to include clever puns nearly enough. Nor do headline writers. Enjoy that one. It’s a killer!
I still think someone felt the need to make some noise, perhaps because this website was not getting enough hits or comments lately, so the topic (and the accompanying headline) were employed as click-bait. Somebody quite possibly said “We need to stir up some sh…er…muck…maybe something more about The Chief.”
And a writer moaned: “Hell, boss, that can of worms is dead.”
And his editor snapped: “Go find another one.”
And he looked over at Philip.
And the word went forth…and it was “Orchestra.”
And Philip turned to his keyboard.
And Philip began typing furiously.
And Philip saved the day.
I have been a subscriber to the Cleveland Orchestra for over twenty years. I have seen what happens when they dare to program a composer from the early 20th century, let alone later. The hall is not filled. I most recently went to a concert that featured pieces by Dvorak and Barber. Dvorak died in 1904 and Barber in 1981. The balcony where I sit was not full as it is for Beethoven or Mozart. The Barber piece was even performed by Alisa Weilerstein, one of the best cellists in the world right now. That was Thursday night, I hope it was better the rest of the weekend. The AUDIENCE is the problem. The Orchestra has to pay its bills in an era of great challenges for ensembles of its type. If people don’t attend, they will not survive. It’s that simple.
This piece is absolute drivel!
Uneducated, unfounded, entitled, progressive, socialist, keyboard diarrhea.
Isn’t this so-called article “hate speech” too?
THE Cleveland Orchestra is one of the greatest in the entire world and this whiney peon is bitching about the race of the people playing the music and the music it plays? The sheer gall of this nobody! As if he knows better than the vast community of supporters who made this ensemble what it is. The problem with trolling SJWs like this guy is that they build NOTHING and have no talents themselves. They just complain according to the well worn SJW template.
I look forward to his next article when he calls out the surgical staff of the Cleveland Clinic for structural racism in their hiring.
Good. Keep ignoring.
I imagine that some commenting here know little about the sausage making that takes place behind the scenes of an orchestra. The uninformed observations above about a classical never land, driven by a pure and robust meritocracy makes that clear.
Indeed, many musicians and soloists that preserve and advance the classical music art form are truly stellar. I have the privilege of seeing and hearing these phenomenal artists on a regular basis given my work. That said, I hate to break it to those who romanticize how artists find their pathways to fame. It should come as no surprise that, as with any other industry, artists dont always emerge because they demonstrate superior musical talent. The classical music world is not the not the meritocracy weve been trained to believe it is, where the cream always rises to the very top.
Sometimes, not always, solo artists benefit from a winning cocktail including a combination of demonstrated talent, mentoring from established artists, knowing the right people, nepotism, importantly conductor/agency/business driven cronyism, networking, label backing, and least surprising- appearance. Our seemingly pristine classical music world is not immune to being driven by factors that have little to do with talent.
Ill also push back on the notion that diversity is antithetical to quality. Again, a myopic observation at best. To make a deeper argument- the classical music business can be a difficult space for some diverse artists to manage and navigate. For example, female conductors with equal talent and career trajectory of their male counterparts see enormous fee disparities. Sadly, living female, African-American and/or Latino composers with comparable skill to their white counterparts are paid a fraction for commissioning fees. With very rare exception, and even more troubling, those African-American and Latino soloists who do make it to the Severance Halls of the world, with the same talent skill-set can be paid as little as 70% less than their white counterparts. The reality is that we have a LOT of work to do. Wage disparity is just one among many symptoms of the negative impacts on the overwhelming dominance of white males in positions of power and hiring in this field. In spite of these conditions, musicians and composers of color and female conductors continue to make great art and deliver exquisite interpretations of the classical cannon. Many sadly going underrepresented (literally) and unknown because they dont look the part. Orchestra leadership is growing more diverse each year so I am hoping that the trajectory tilts toward better representation across the racial and gender spectrum in the hiring of artists/programming.
Now, when we shift the conversation to orchestra musicians, the likelihood of obtaining a tenured position in one of the Big Five orchestras (or really any first or second tier orchestra for that matter) is fiendishly difficult; ones chances are slimmer than being drafted into the NBA. Blind auditions in preliminary rounds make it near impossible to discriminate on the basis of race or gender, etc. So for ensembles, who through union regulations or otherwise, employ this method of hiring, I would posit that the orchestra itself remains one of the last bastions of meritocracy in our industry. There is hope on the horizon to eliminate this disparity and increase the numbers of African American and Latino orchestral musicians. This effort is getting much needed attention by many orchestras, the Sphinx Organization, and scores of El Sistema fashioned programs, to name a few. The talented young people who benefit from these programs are winning tenured jobs with some of the countrys top orchestral ensembles.
As a professional working in this industry for over 20 years Ive purposely scouted and hired many African American, female and Latino soloists and conductors who are just as stellar as any of their white counterparts. Our subscriber base is shifting so many years from now, we can feel some sense of proactive stewardship knowing that we were programming both to preserve and to advance the art form and the institution itself.
Lastly, it is intellectually dishonest to claim that this article is racist. A history of systematic genocide and slavery has shaped the dynamics of racism in this nation, and what racism (in practice) looks like. Hundreds of years since the birth of our nation, white people are the overwhelming beneficiaries of racism in America. To this end, people of color who have been directly or indirectly impacted by the imbalance of power and opportunity in this country, by a historically just definition, cannot be racist. White people, or those who benefit from the centuries of systematic racism and white supremacy only undermine the pressing need for constructive conversation about race in this country when they claim they are victims of racism- our history is the final arbiter on who gets to claim victimhood from racism. Make no mistake- you can claim and can be right that some people of color are bigoted, and some can discriminate, some can have flawed judgment, either wittingly or unwittingly based on deeply held biases. But unless you turn back the hands of time and do a swap so that people of color dominated the trans-Atlantic slave trade and plotted, executed and benefited from the mass genocide of Native Americans- you lose me on the whole reverse racism claim.
And you lost me with your last paragraph.
Too bad…wading through that morass of keystrokes was actually becoming somewhat worthwhile.
Fair enough. That said, Id be lost in the last paragraph too if I didnt have different viewpoints in which to wade and openly consider. I have my own learning to do and welcome a reasoned rebuttal to my argument that black people do not and cannot wield the power in critical mass that white people do in our countrys current system of racism. The science and facts are compelling but if you have new unknown facts which bare a hearing let me know. You can also retain the right to remain silent. Or reply under another name.
Is this fascist attempt at destabilizing our cultural institutions masking as an article still up?
The marxist, propaganda generating media, including this outlet, is obnoxious and annoying. They will not win this fight. We will take our government, country, city, entertainment, sports, and culture back from these Nazi socialists.
Simply put, the responses that can best be characterized as “if the music by minority or women were good, we would have heard of it” are idiotic in charitable terms and just plain racist in terms more extreme. Such conclusions rest upon the assumptions that it is possible to know everything (and thereby exclude some) and that there can be no extenuating political, social, or cultural circumstances that could cause a composer or work to be forgotten, ignored, or consciously excised from exposure. Such paternalism is unacceptable and the author of the article understands this. It is not a right or left issue in orientation; it is addressing the acknowledged conscious exclusion of women and minorities from the orchestral repertoire.
Think about it: if women were only granted the right to vote in 1920 (and only white women at that), how could anyone possibly assume that such limited social largess would cross racial lines in any aspect of American culture. You would have to be ingenuous to the point of foolishness to believe that. A reckoning is long overdue.
A historical note: The Cleveland Orchestra has performed William Grant Stil a bunch of times, beginning in 1944 with his Poem conducted by Leinsdorf and in 1965 Szell performed his In Memoriam: The Colored Soldiers Who Died for Democracy. The CO must do better by black composers and black conductors.
You idiot trolls need a wake-up kick in the ass…is SCENE Marxist and socialist, or is it Fascist and Nazi? The two are polar opposites…either one or the other…you cannot be both simultaneously, just as you cannot be both a cat and a dog at the same time. Do your homework and stop sleeping in class.
Fer chrissakes, grow the f’k up and educate yourselves before you begin spewing your mindless rants. I don’t object to you being asswipes as much as I object to you being such ignorant ones.
And if it’s a political and a cultural war you seek, bring it on. Once again you and the rest of your peeps will find yourselves on the wrong side of history, and once again you will have your sorry asses handed to you on a plate.
The story will stand. It’s not going anywhere. Deal with it, or hit the road, Jack.
“After 100 years, there is still no place for women or minorities on the musicians’ stands at Severance Hall.”
The Left sees EVERYTHING through the warped prism of race, gender and class.
In America, what people actually value and want to listen to, not left-wing political correctness, still determines what the orchestra plays and whether it survives.
“The two are polar opposites…either one or the other…you cannot be both simultaneously”
Actually they are not. Nazi, Facism, Marxism, Commumism, all have one thing in common: the state is in control. The further Left you go, the more state control, until ultimately the state tries to control your thoughts – which was done in the Soviet Union.
Churchill said that “Nazism is the ugly child of Communism.” He was right. There is nothing right-wing or “conservative” about Nazism. They are all left-wing, big-state ideologies.
You really don’t know your left from your right, do you?
Sounds like you’re parroting something your teacher told you.
Cats and dogs both have heads, four feet, and a tail…are they anything alike?
You can claim the dog has five legs, not four. But calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it one..
Next up: Karamu House is too black!
Having formerly covered the classical music scene durng the 1990s in another medium-sized metropolis (Portland, Maine), including every concert by its symphony orchestra, for that state’s largest daily, and being myselfa classical composer of some 60 years’ experience, I am familiar with this complaint. It is valid as far as it goes. There are several caveats, however.
First, Jenny Holzeer’s rule about 95% iof everything being crudapplies toany art form. There is a certain amount of crud being created in any art form (I have created some of it myself). The trouble is that sorting out what is crud from what is truly innovative and good is a matter of the test of time. Even if we had a Schumann as our critic to tell us “hats off — a genius” when we manage to produce another Brahms, we wouldn’t necessarily agree with it on a first hearing. (A classic example is the heartrendingly elegiac opening to the second movement of Brahms’s German Requiem, which one critic dismissed at its premier as sounding altogether too much like a parlor waltz.) It seems to me disingenuous to savage a music director for reluctance to risk commiting the rehearsal and performance time, energy, and expense of some 60 musicians to a new piece that may well bomb at its premier and expect praise for it when we wiuld normally court-martial a captain who risks 60 soldiers on a tactical risk resulting in most of them becoming casualties. Alexander Pope’s advice from Handel’s time would still seem only prudent: “Be not the first by whom the new is tried,/Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.” The larger the ensemble, the less daring one can afford to be; a string quartet can afford to take chances on new repertory that would be reckless for a full orchestra.
But what of music written before 1945 (the ASCAP cutoff in my reviewiing years for its “adventuresome” program recoghition)? To dismiss as racist and sexist an orchestra that shies away from music by nonwhites and women ignores the fact that for the most part they did not control the means of symphonic production:Clara Schumann wrote good stuff and everybody today recognizes that, but Robert had access to an orchestra to play his work, and she didn’t. So what is really needed to remedy the problem of potentially canonical repertory may be to go back in time a century or two and remedy the inequity then — which in the absence of reliable time-travel technology is presentkly not an option.To be sure, we could take a chamber piece by Clara Schumann and score it up for full orchestra, much as Schoenberg did forone of the Brahms piano quartets. (Indeed, this would make a very useful exercise for someone studying orchestration at school.) What we cannot do is to create retroactively an orchestral canon whose composers simply did not work in that genre.
Norcan we expect to have much luck educating the present-day audience to get its head around music that departs significantky by what is aptly called “common practice” composition. The dead white guys fiound a musical language that resonated with the rational Enlightenment and the romantic movement that arose in reaction to it; we understand Bach and Handel with our ears, hearts, and minds and so did the composers who came after them until the end of the next century, even down to Wagner and (early at least) Stravinsky. If we are to jar our audiences loose from this comfort zone,we had better have something to play for them that doesn’t send them streaming to the exits. The obvious answer for music that “endeavor[s] not to entertain you, but to make you better,” as Handel was supposed to have said to King George I (but undoubtedly knew better than to utter such an impertinence) is to put it on the first half of teh oprogram and save the chestnut pieces for after intermission. Duh.
And yes, money talks; deal with it. Louis XIV was renowned for his “24 violins,” the biggest court orchestra of his day. Today’s orchestras are three times that size and the economics of the business have changed markedly. We no longer have court ensembles funded by only by virtue of the sovereign’s ability to exact crushing taxes out of a horde of peasants. We do have student-discounted tickets,in part because there are still a few angels here and there willing to help orchestras what would otherwise be a crippling cash shortfall. Ideally, such patrons would be altogether hands-off when it came to input about programming. In practice, anyone who made the money to give to an orchestra (or a museum, or a playhouse, or any other habitually capital-poor arts entity) earned it by running a successful enterprise with a constant eye to the bottom line, and if programming seems to such people to be a disincentive to the ordinary ticket-buying concertgoer, it would be irresponsible for them not to argue in favor of caution. Here the remedy is civic, state, and federal sponsorship, and unlike the time machine, this is an attainable goal: all you need do is go to the polls and vote out of office the culture-warrior know-nothings in your city, state, and federal government and replace them by people with a sense of commonwealth and at least a modicum of pride in the evergreen American potential for being a wellspring of the arts and not a backwater.
The problem Mr. de Oliveria identifies is real enough, and hardly confined to this city. And it won’t solve itself, and certainly not by blaming the messenger. As the ancient Spartan poet Archilochus might have said, “Before you pick up the spear, make sure you know where to aim it.”
I couldn’t agree more with Leslie Edwards!
1.) A lot of any new art will fall away as “unmemorable” and what becomes a treasured classic is chosen by time, luck and perhaps to a certain extent you and me spreading enough recordings around today. That’s why our favorite composers tend to be long gone. (Not all of us, of course.) Composing for our own small ensembles is the best way to proceed today.
2. ) Without a refresh of the “common practice period” of classical music, most Americans today have no idea HOW to use “sonatas,” or other music without singers. My CutTime compositions address this using familiar elements of blues, pop, hip-hop, gospel, rock, etc.. Plus they feature good melodies, counterpoint and common development techniques like key modulations. It’s possible to acculturate new listeners, even in bars and clubs.
3.) The value of diversity is that the marketable ideas are available to mix in, willingly or not. As an AA, I’ve appropriated classical music just as rock was appropriated from my roots. You have more advantage to exploit it better regardless, but that doesn’t mean I’m giving up.
If this is what passes for music criticism these days then God help us all.
Low hanging fruit, this. Not “enough” non-white works ergo the Cleveland Orchestra must be racist.
This kind of reductionist thinking is poisonous. And stupid.
Hank Drake: I really respect your stuff on Amazon (I write there under the handle “Huntley Haverstock”) – your reviews of Horowitz really opened my eyes to his greatness.
But I have to take strenuous objection to you here. New music isn’t inherently valuable. Now, if it passes muster and secures a place in the repertory, then it is all to the good. But if it doesn’t, it’s not going too far out on a limb to suggest that the reason why might be related to quality.
Take Thomas Ades, a composer that we are supposed to think is important in the year 2018. Outside of his “Concentric Paths” it has been one “Emperor’s New Clothes” situation after another with Ades. “Powder Her Face” being one of the worst attempts at contemporary opera I’ve seen since “Nixon in China”.
Dreck is dreck.
I find it shameful that Bach Mozart Brahms and Beethoven were white.I find it equally disturbing that Hector La Voe was Puerto Rican and James Brown and Charlie Parker are are black.Where is the justice in this world.
Scumbag author
I dont go to simpleton hip hop and rap concerts. Why dont you stay out of deference hall asshole.
Author got arrested for pursuing a minor during a sting operation. Well done, Scene!