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TEDx Talks
Published: 2017-09-13
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUmnVSil_S8
so when you talk about classical music I thought what better way to start than with a little bit listening summer play two pieces for you both written in the classical period now listen very closely here's the first all right now the second great so both of these beautiful violin concerto de were composed in the eighteenth century by classical music composers one was written by Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart who is one of the most iconic classical composers in the history of the world the other was written by this man Joseph Wulong chevalier the Saint George now Joseph who loan was born about ten years before Mozart in Guadalupe to a black slave and her white master he was a conductor composer and violence during his lifetime he was appointed by the king of France to
be the conductor of the prestigious Paris Opera however he was unfortunately never able to take that post because the members of the orchestra refused to be conducted by mulatto man today approximately two thirds of his works are lost and his work is seldom performed as many young people I spent a lot of my life trying to find a sense of belonging in the world and in
my field as a musician myself I spent a lot of time performing in a practicing in meeting with conduct conductors and professors that don't look like me about the music of composers that don't look like me either in my everyday endeavors %HESITATION performing and having class and my other things outside of school I'm often the only black person in the room many times I find myself
being the only person of color at all as you can see in this picture spot me on the third row this was taken last quarter now I don't say these things to complain that's simply a state of things as they are now on the other hand I spent a lot of time in high school and college asking myself questions like in my black enough does anyone
that looks like me care about the same things that I do should I be spending my life pursuing something that's more historically associated with black culture how can I not ask myself these things when people and in my high schools and and because of called me an oreo because they thought that I was black on the outside yet somehow my interests maybe white on the inside
I don't get it either I felt that I was spending my life pursuing in art that simply wasn't meant for me however since this time I've come a long way to realize that the contributions of minorities and and women in the arts have been going on since the eighteenth century and and before now this brought me to a very common place where minorities often %HESITATION occupy
seeing that people of their background have been doing amazing things in the field and contributing to our society yet they ask themselves questions like why didn't I know about this why didn't I learn about this in school the work of people of color has been marginalized as a side note if smidgen that'll in my fourteen years of classical music study I have played three pieces by
black composers one of which was by myself this is a real problem and I think that needs to be addressed when I first started getting interested in diversity inclusion in classical music I did what anyone else would do and start doing a lot of research I talked to my mentors colleagues professors %HESITATION went online to Google searches and because I was looking for what work was
already being done in the field and to my surprise I actually found that there are a lot of initiatives that are trying to address this issue of diversity in classical music upon finding all of these different organizations that are out there I thought to myself how is it that I can't name five black composers after going to some of the finest classical music institutions in the
country in the universe in North Carolina school of the arts Indiana University take of school of music and Northwestern University something clearly was not working it's very interesting when in moving forward with this I thought to myself not only are the are the problems within the schools the problems are in the professional scene as well if you look at the orchestras around the country four percent
of performers in the top twenty five orchestras are black or Latino combine zero percent statistically speaking of pieces performed were by any composer of color at all zero percent now I'm not saying that there were zero pieces performed by these major orchestras however the fact that the number is less than point five percent of all the pieces is startling within itself and if you look at
the conservatories around the world in the country you'll see that the faculty students and administration simply do not represent the diverse world in which we live now I can give you single digit statistics all day to explain how much this is an issue some of them might be two digits because there's a decimal place but I think from here we need to move forward I had
a conversation with Aaron Dworkin who's the dean of the university of Michigan school of music theatre and dance and one of the most amazing advocates for %HESITATION diversity inclusion in the performing arts and he told me something very interesting that has stuck with me ever since he said that in dealing with these issues of diversity many times it's not difficult to address to address them they
simply require that you think about them at all for example at the university of Michigan they started recently and international chamber music competition called the M. prize now the M. prizes amazing in a lot of different ways it has some of the largest cash prizes I've ever seen %HESITATION there are there is phenomenal thing media coverage for all the ensembles that participate in the US homes
get to collaborate with each other and it's simply amazing however the most important thing to me about the end prize competition is that if you look at the panel of judges and the board members you'll find an extreme amount of diversity their female musicians represented black musicians Asian musicians Latino musicians now in doing this he did not have to sacrifice artistic excellence for the St for
the sake of diversity in fact the in price competition is now one of the most prestigious in the entire world I simply had to think about it at all here at northwestern we are also making a few changes in speaking with a lot of my friends in the business school of music and colleagues I started a petition among students to show our administration that this is
a serious issue that is a concern of the students now we're not asking that anyone reinvent the wheel not asking that anyone throw away what we already have we're simply asking that the contributions of all people are considered in our music theory music history an oral skills curriculums no these are not difficult issues to address as Dorgan said some concrete things that we can do are
simply adding sample materials bye diverse composes by female composers into our everyday class classroom activities another thing that we could do is simply by when we are introducing a major work play a piece of that has been recorded by a diverse musician this will allow the students to have a much more wide ranging education and I think that this is a model that's that's conservators all
around the world can follow very easily now I know that there is definitely no quick fix for this issue however there are a few succinct things that I think are very important when we're %HESITATION starting initiatives to combat diversity and inclusion firstly I think that all of these initiatives need to be thought of as top down what I mean by that is that the nation's best
music schools the nation's best orchestras wind ensembles chamber ensembles and soloists need to take it upon themselves and realize that they are the trend setters in this field what they do other people follow who they commission for new works other people will commission second we need to ensure that our initiatives are inherently inclusive and not more divisive many times there will be a a black or
Latino only orchestra that only plays the music of black or Latino musician so of composers and there are also lots of initiatives where there are musicians that go into inner city schools and they perform classical music for the students there and this is great however what they don't realize is that these children are seeing people that don't look like them coming into their school playing music
of people that they can't relate to they need to be hearing about people like Joseph who own because I can tell you from personal experience that learning about the contributions of people like you at such a high level is so empowering in gives you the confidence to know that your former expression can also be appreciated third with an R. each of our minority groups we must
value the people that come before us and teach our children that they can truly do whatever they put their mind to when I was a boy I learned about people like Jackie Robinson Harriet Tubman George Washington carver because they were people that I could look up to that have made major contributions to the world and are also black however I hope the next generation can also
learn about people like Sanford Allen who was the first black mutation to ever enter the New York Philharmonic or people like Florence price who was the first black woman to have a piece performed by a major orchestra and the Chicago symphony finding out about people like this is what's truly going to create diversity in the field that we love so much now I realize that today
have focused a lot on black musicians and that's simply because that's my experience however in dealing with the petition I realize that so many other of my colleagues feel the exact same way there are so many people that feel like the work of people of their background has been marginalized and pushed to the side it's time that we realized that the oppression of one of us
is truly the oppression of us all we must fight for ourselves but we must also fight for our neighbors it's time that we truly bring the contributions of minorities and women into the canon of classical music now I'd like to close today just by performing a short little excerpt of a piece by William grant still with one of my good friends in the school of music
