Symphony Summer 2021

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S Y M P H O N Y

THE MAGAZINE OF

THE LEAGUE OF AMERICAN ORCHESTRAS

Sounds of Change As orchestras have grappled with the pandemic and sought to confront racial injustice, they are adopting new approaches to the coming season. Will it be business as usual? Don’t count on it.

SUMMER 2021

Catalyst Fund: Making An EDI Impact

To Stream or Not To Stream?

Music and Wellness

“These are the stars of the next generation.”

Photo: Chris Lee

- T H E WA S H I N G TO N P O S T

Steven Banks

PIANO

Martin James Bartlett Albert Cano Smit Do-Hyun Kim Maxim Lando Nathan Lee Aristo Sham Zhu Wang

VIOLIN

Benjamin Baker Risa Hokamura SooBeen Lee

MEZZO-SOPR ANO

Megan Moore BASS-BARITONE

William Socolof

CELLO

F LU T E

Jonathan Swensen

Anthony Trionfo

DOUBLE BASS

Xavier Foley

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S A XO P H O N E

Steven Banks AC C O R D I O N

Hanzhi Wang

COMPOSER

Saad Haddad Chris Rogerson Nina Shekhar

YO U N G C O N C E RT A RTI ST S

yca.org/roster 212.307.6657 management@yca.org Daniel Kellogg president Monica J. Felkel director of artist management Christina Baker artist manager

Parker

ARTISTS

Managers & Consultants Thomas F. Parker 2022-2023 SEASON Pianists

Conductors

CHRISTOPHER ATZINGER

DAVID BERNARD

FACULTY, ST. OLAF COLLEGE

HANNA BACHMANN MARIKA BOURNAKI MISHA DICHTER RICHARD DOWLING ROBERT HENRY

DIRECTOR OF PIANO STUDIES, KENNESAW STATE UNIVERSITY

TAKA KIGAWA SPENCER MYER

FACULTY, LONGY SCHOOL OF MUSIC OF BARD COLLEGE

JOHN NOVACEK ANNA SHELEST DIANE WALSH

Violinists ROBERT DAVIDOVICI JUDITH INGOLFSSON

FACULTY, PEABODY INSTITUTE OF THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

RACHEL LEE PRIDAY

FACULTY, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON SCHOOL OF MUSIC

MUSIC DIRECTOR, MASSAPEQUA PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA MUSIC DIRECTOR, PARK AVENUE CHAMBER SYMPHONY

TERESA CHEUNG

MUSIC DIRECTOR, ALTOONA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

ANTHONY BLAKE CLARK

MUSIC DIRECTOR, BALTIMORE CHORAL ARTS SOCIETY DIRECTOR OF CHORAL ACTIVITIES, THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

KENNETH FREED NEAL GITTLEMAN

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, DAYTON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

ELLIOT MOORE

MUSIC DIRECTOR, BLUE PERIOD ENSEMBLE MUSIC DIRECTOR, LONGMONT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

KEVIN RHODES

MUSIC DIRECTOR, TRAVERSE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PRINCIPAL CONDUCTOR, PRO ARTE CHAMBER ORCHESTRA OF BOSTON

BRIAN VILIUNAS

ORCHESTRA DIRECTOR, SAMFORD UNIVERSITY

PETER STAFFORD WILSON

MUSIC DIRECTOR, SPRINGFIELD SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA (OH) MUSIC DIRECTOR, WESTERVILLE SYMPHONY PRINCIPAL CONDUCTOR, TULSA BALLET

Cellist

Ensembles

ADRIAN DAUROV

DAUROV/MYER DUO MISHA & CIPA DICHTER DUO INGOLFSSON-STOUPEL IRRERA BROTHERS DUO SCHWARZ & BOURNAKI DUO STEPHANIE & SAAR SUMMIT PIANO TRIO EUCLID QUARTET

Clarinetist BRIAN VILIUNAS

FACULTY, SAMFORD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF THE ARTS

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rchestras have innovated like mad over the past year, pivoting from business as usual to inspired improvisations, themes, and variations that were unthinkable just 18 months ago. The pandemic crisis and the fierce urgency of calls for racial justice have led orchestras to make enormous changes at the last minute and move into the here and now.

Orchestra musicians are making music in new and unexpected venues: parks, nursing homes, hospitals, at vaccination sites, on front porches. Fundraisers can be virtual.

Music directors are no longer—or not only—magisterial figures glimpsed from behind, but individuals who chat in casual online videos, sometimes from their living rooms.

Orchestras worked with what they had, and what they had was plenty: music.

Orchestras, like museums and other arts organizations, are asking profound existential questions about what they are for—their purpose, their roles in an evolving society.

How should they address pressing social concerns? How to adopt new ideas about making auditions more equitable? If a front porch can be a stage, what does that mean for concert halls? If a concert takes place online, what does that mean for actual live, inperson concerts?

Equally central for the longer term, orchestras nationwide are accelerating efforts to engage more diverse communities, commission works from artists too long ignored, and offer artistic responses to racial violence. And they are responding with alacrity: several orchestras presented concerts reflecting on the importance of Juneteenth as this issue of to press. It’s been a year 5:43 of unprecedented Akustiks Symphony Symphonywent Ad 4C-2021_Layout 1 5/5/21 PM Page 1 change and adjustment, but the work isn’t done. It’s just beginning.

THE MAGAZINE OF THE LEAGUE OF AMERICAN ORCHESTRAS

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magazine of the League of American Orchestras, discusses issues critical to the orchestra community and commun­icates to the American public the value and importance of orchestras and the music they perform.

EDITOR IN CHIEF Robert Sandla

MANAGING EDITOR Jennifer Melick

PRODUCTION AND DESIGN Ginger Dolden

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SUMMER 2021

THE WORLD IS LISTENING

SIXTEENTH VA N C L I B U R N I N T E R N AT I O N A L PIANO COMPE TITION JUNE 2–18, 2022 FORT WORTH, TEXAS USA

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ATTEND IN PERSON The Cliburn is the place to be to hear top, exciting new talent, enjoy unrivaled hospitality, and network with friends from across the industry. VIP tickets available.

BRING A GROUP Organize an unforgettable trip to Fort Worth for donors and patrons, to

enjoy the unrivaled musical atmosphere, as well as museums, restaurants, and perhaps a rodeo!

BOOK A 2022 WINNER Contact us today to engage a new medalist for their debut season!

We’re now making in-principle agreements for orchestra, chamber, and recital appearances.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT SANDRA DOAN SDOAN@CLIBURN.ORG OR VISIT CLIBURN.ORG

symphony SU MMER 2 02 1

THE MAGAZINE OF THE LEAGUE OF AMERICAN ORCHESTRAS

2 Prelude

by Robert Sandla

6 The Score

Orchestra news, moves, and events

14 Forward Thinking

6

League President and CEO Simon Woods asks: as we begin to transition to a post-pandemic time, what approaches can we take to restart our musical lives, continue to innovate and experiment, and embrace our brave new worlds?

16 Board Room

20

Excerpts from How Orchestra Boards Can Advance Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, a new League of American Orchestras guide written by Carmen Corrales and Douglas Hagerman

20 At the League

It’s been a year of constant adaptation in the face of dramatic change, but the focus at the League of American Orchestras remains constant: finding ways to help orchestras not just survive but thrive. by Rebecca Winzenried

26 Currents

Orchestras raced to put music online in the pandemic as a matter of necessity.

Now orchestras must weigh the costs and benefits of streaming, audience expectations, and how to balance in-person and virtual presentations. by Michael Bronson and Joe Kluger

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32 Orchestrating a Better Future

52 64 about the cover Xian Zhang, music director of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, conducts a filmed New Jersey Symphony performance at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center’s ​Prudential Hall during the pandemic. Read Xian Zhang’s Coda article on page 64. Credit: Meredith Whitefield for DreamPlay Films.

The NJSO was one of many ensembles that streamed concerts this season; see article on page 26 about in-person and virtual performances for the coming season.

New Audition and Tenure Guidelines from the National Alliance for Audition Support, a collaboration of the League of American Orchestras, the Sphinx Organization, and the New World Symphony, suggest new ways to create more diverse, equitable, and inclusive American orchestras.

36 Restorative Notes

The psychological and financial stresses of the pandemic have underscored the importance of health and wellness for musicians and orchestra staff.

Instrumentalists, composers, orchestras, and therapists are stepping up to help their colleagues. by Michele C. Hollow

44 Seasons of Change

Orchestras have grappled with the pandemic and sought to confront racial injustice while adopting notably different approaches to the new season. What will the fall orchestra season look like? by Steven Brown

52 Catalyzing Change

The League’s Catalyst Fund is helping dozens of orchestras build understanding of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) and implement effective EDI strategies.

And it’s having an impact in communities across the country. by Heidi Waleson

61 Advertiser Index 62 League of American Orchestras Annual Fund 64 Coda

Xian Zhang, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra’s music director, on staying connected, diversifying programming, and what the past year revealed about not taking music for granted.

Text marked like this indicates a link to websites and online resources.

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SCORE News, moves, and events in the orchestra industry

Tom Gilbert

THE

“All Rise” in Tulsa This spring, the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma commemorated the somber occasion of the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre with a week’s worth of events, capped by a June 6 performance by the Tulsa Symphony at the BOK Center arena. In remembrance of the massacre, the Tulsa Symphony and conductor David Robertson performed Wynton Marsalis’s Symphony No. 1 (“All Rise”) with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Marsalis—who is also managing and artistic director of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra— joined the onstage forces on trumpet, along with the Tulsa Community Commemoration Choir, comprising singers from local churches, schools, and arts groups, led by Damien L. Sneed. “All Rise,” which incorporates influences from classical, jazz, gospel, blues, and Latin-based music, was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and first performed at Lincoln Center in 1999. In his Tulsa World review of Marsalis’s work, James D. Watts Jr. wrote, “One would be hard-pressed to think of a more appropriate way officially to conclude the city of Tulsa’s commemoration of this tragedy than with a perfor-

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Tom Gilbert

The Tulsa Symphony, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Tulsa Community Commemoration Choir, and conductor David Robertson perform Wynton Marsalis’s Symphony No. 1 (“All Rise”) at the BOK Center, June 6, 2021.

Composer and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis (center) performs with the Tulsa Symphony, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and Tulsa Community Commemoration Choir in his own Symphony No. 1 (“All Rise”).

mance of this epic work…. As ‘All Rise’ unfolded over the course of the two hours it takes to perform it, the three sections evoked a state of grace and innocence, a horrific fall from that state, and the realization that to rise up again, you’re going to need help.” The concert was presented in collaboration with the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission; approximately 100 descendants of massacre survivors received free tickets. symphony

SUMMER 2021

As new, worrisome variants of COVID-19 spread earlier this year, many Canadian provinces imposed strict stay-at-home orders, after having previously eased restrictions. Given that backdrop—plus Canada’s colder climate, which makes outdoor performances impossible for much of the year—it seems remarkable that during the 2020-21 season the Montreal Symphony Orchestra recorded 39 new concerts, offered via webcasts. Most concerts were recorded at the Maison symphonique de Montréal without an audience, but in March the Québec government began allowing performing arts venues to open to limited audiences. Conductors during the season included Music Director Designate Rafael Payare; Vancouver Symphony Orchestra Music Director Otto Tausk; and National Arts Centre Orchestra Music Director Alexander Shelley. Canadian conductor Dina Gilbert led June’s season-ending concerts of music by women composers Ana Sokolović, Alexina Louie, Barbara Croall, Lili Boulanger, and Elizabeth Maconchy.

Antoine Saito

Northern Sounds

Rafael Payare, who becomes music director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in 2022, leads Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 2, with Alisa Weilerstein as soloist, at Maison symphonique de Montréal. The free webcast attracted an audience of 125,000 people from 80 countries.

Taylor Meyer

Anwar Nasir Tapped as Louisiana Philharmonic’s Next Leader

The Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra has named Anwar Nasir as its next executive director, effective July 19. He goes to Louisiana from the Omaha Symphony, where he is chief revenue and advancement officer; previously he held administrative positions at the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Hollywood Bowl, the Atlanta Ballet, and the Philadelphia Workforce Development Corporation. The Philadelphia native and former professional dancer is a frequent presenter at arts conferences and was one of 12 executives to participate in the Anwar Nasir League of American Orchestras’ 2018 Emerging Leaders Program. He is also co-chairperson of the League’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion working group, and the co-founder of the Black Arts Leadership Alliance. In announcing the appointment, Louisville Philharmonic Music Director Carlos Miguel Prieto said, “From the first time we spoke, Anwar impressed me as a fearless leader who possesses both of those qualities, and I am looking forward to partnering with him as we continue to reimagine the LPO’s connections to the community for an exciting new era.” Nasir succeeds James Boyd, who stepped down as executive director in December 2019.

Live from Des Moines

Like many orchestras, the Des Moines Symphony pivoted online during the 2020-21 season, transforming its “Live from the Temple” series into eight live-streamed concerts. Broadcast live on the orchestra’s website from Des Moines’ Temple for Performing Arts, the concerts featured a reduced-size, socially distanced orchestra; each broadcast included interviews and behind-the-scenes content.

Ticketholders could watch concerts on a smart TV, laptop, Joseph Giunta, music or phone, and replay them for 30 days after the livestream. director of the Des Moines Teachers and healthcare workers could reserve free passes Symphony, leads one the orchestra’s live-streamed to livestreamed concerts. In May, Music Director Joseph concerts from Des Moines’ Giunta and musicians from the orchestra presented the Temple for the Performing series’ season finale, featuring Marianna Martines’s Sinfonia Arts. in C Major, “Tamborito” and “Cumbia y Congo” from William Grant Still’s Danzas de Panama, Grieg’s Holberg Suite, and the Allegro from Mozart’s Symphony No. 31 (“Paris”). Principal Flute James Blanchard was the soloist in Gluck’s Dance of the Blessed Spirits and Fauré’s Fantaisie. The concert was preceded by a week of online programming, including classes, virtual social events, and prelude talks. americanorchestras.org

MUSICAL CHAIRS DANIELLE ALLEN, the Philadelphia Orchestra’s manager of global affairs, has been named the organization’s director of education and community.

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra has appointed MARTY BATES executive vice president and chief operating officer.

Canada’s Winnipeg Symphony has selected ANGELA BIRDSELL as executive director, effective July 5. She succeeds Trudy Schroeder, who is stepping down after 13 seasons with the organization.

The Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra has hired SUZ BREWER as chief marketing officer.

MÉLISSE BRUNET, music director of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, has been chosen as director of orchestral activities at the University of Iowa School of Music.

Pennsylvania’s Three Rivers Young Peoples Orchestras has appointed PIERCE COOK as conductor of its Symphonette string ensemble.

The Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestra has chosen TODD CRAVEN as music director, effective with the 2021-22 season.

The Asheville Symphony Orchestra in North Carolina has appointed DANIEL CRUPI as executive director, effective in July.

CAMILLE DELANEY-McNEIL has been named director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s new YOLA Center at Inglewood, set to open in August and welcome its first students in the fall.

Los Angeles Philharmonic Music Director GUSTAVO DUDAMEL has been named to the additional post of music director of the Paris Opera, beginning in August.

KEMPER EDWARDS has joined Michigan’s Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra as director of marketing and communications.

The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s Carolina Performing Arts has named ALISON FRIEDMAN as executive and artistic director, effective in October.

Friedman succeeds program founder Emil Kang, who departed in 2019 to become program director for arts and cultural heritage at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

American conductor KELLEN GRAY has been appointed assistant conductor at the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

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Remembering Lives Lost

May 25, 2021 marked a year since George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer as fellow police officers looked on, sparking mass protests and a national reckoning about policing and racial equity. In Poster announcing the Pacific Symphony’s world addition to adopting statements premiere of John Wineglass’s Alone Together, written and plans of action to address in tribute to George Floyd. equity, diversity, and inclusion, orchestras have responded by commissioning music dedicated to remembering Floyd and other Black Americans killed in recent acts of violence. In March, the Chicago Sinfonietta performed the world premiere of a new cello concerto by Joel Thompson written in memory of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman who was slain by police officers in her Louisville, Kentucky home in March 2020. Subtitled breathe/burn, the concerto featured cellist Ifetayo Ali-Landing as soloist and Antoine T. Clark as conductor. On the same concert, Sinfonietta Music Director Mei-Ann Chen led Dances in the Canebrakes, William Grant Still’s arrangement of a Florence Price suite; Jeff Scott’s 2018 Sinfonietta of Dreams; and Roy Ringwald’s arrangement of “We Shall Overcome.”

Brass Speaks

Gabby Giffords’ YouTube page.

The month of May featured several world premieres on related themes. Four California orchestras co-commissioned John Wineglass to write Alone Together for strings and percussion, honoring George Floyd. The Pacific Symphony gave the world premiere, with performances by the Fresno Philharmonic, Monterey Symphony, and San Jose Chamber Orchestra to follow. The Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Principal Second Violin Angela Fuller Heyde premiered Kareem Roustom’s Second Violin Concerto, which the composer wrote “in memory of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and far too many others.” The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra streamed a concert entitled “Songs of Sorrow, Songs of Hope” dedicated to George Floyd. The program featured the world premiere of Brent Michael Davids’s Taptonahana for solo flute, with SPCO Principal Flute Julia Bogorad-Kogan, Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross for String Quartet, and the adagio from George Walker’s String Quartet No. 1. The Minnesota Orchestra premiered Carlos Simon’s string quartet “An Elegy: A Cry from the Grave,” in memory of Floyd and other victims of racial violence.

Next March, Piotr Gajewski will lead the National Philharmonic in the world premiere of Adolphus Hailstork’s requiem cantata in tribute to George Floyd, A Knee on the Neck, at the Strathmore Center in Bethesda, Maryland with the National Philharmonic Chorale and vocal soloists.

This winter marked a decade since Gabby Giffords, the former U.S. Congress member from Arizona, was shot. She survived, but the gunshot wound to her left temporal lobe left her with aphasia, an inability to express written and spoken language.

Giffords has received neurologic music therapy, which can help brain-injured individuals regain language by creating alternate pathways in the brain. And this spring, Giffords spoke publicly about how she has taken up playing the French horn again after Screenshot of Gabby Giffords playing French many years as part of her regimen. Singing and playing a musical horn during an August 2020 instrument have been widely cited by neuroscientists and music speech at the Democratic National Convention. therapists who work with brain injury and disease as tools for regaining language for people suffering brain trauma, stroke, or other brain difficulties. A recent PBS Newshour segment described how Giffords’ preparation for a speech she delivered in August 2020 at the Democratic National Convention included sketching musical notation alongside the text of a speech, to help with her delivery. For Giffords, recovery is ongoing—and she says practices the horn five days a week.

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MUSICAL CHAIRS The Curtis Institute of Music has added woodwind quintet IMANI WINDS to its faculty. Curtis instructor ED GAZOULEAS, a former longtime violist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, is Curtis’s new artistic director.

ERIC JACOBSEN has been appointed music director of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, effective July 1.

Jacobsen succeeds JoAnn Falletta, who stepped down in 2020 after 29 years as. music director.

TERELL M. JOHNSON has been named executive director of the Chicago Philharmonic, effective July 1.

The Cleveland Institute of Music has appointed CARLOS KALMAR as principal conductor and director of orchestral and conducting programs.

Kalmar will retain his position as artistic director and principal conductor of Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival.

Composer DAVID SERKIN LUDWIG has been chosen as dean and director of the Juilliard School’s music division.

FABIO LUISI, music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and principal conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, has been named to the additional post of chief conductor of Japan’s NHK Symphony Orchestra, effective in September.

ENRIQUE MÁRQUEZ has been named director of music at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan Australia’s Melbourne Symphony Orchestra has named JAIME MARTÍN principal conductor, effective January 2022.

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra has named KATIE McGUINNESS as vice president of artistic operations, succeeding Peter Czornyj.

Violinist and conductor PINCHAS ZUKERMAN has been appointed as artistic and principal education partner at the DSO, starting in September.

PAUL MEECHAM has been selected as CEO of Arizona’s Tucson Symphony.

JESSIE MONTGOMERY has been tapped as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s next composer in residence, a three-year appointment effective July 1.

Missouri’s Springfield Symphony Orchestra has named TERY O’SHELL as development manager.

TAYLOR RAMBO has been appointed executive director of the Georgia Symphony Orchestra, effective July 1.

Rambo will succeed Susan Stensland, who is retiring.

DANIEL BERNARD ROUMAIN has been appointed to the new position of artistic catalyst at the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.

Germany’s Berlin Symphony has named HANSJÖRG SCHELLENBERGER, former longtime principal oboe of the Berlin Philharmonic, as its next chief conductor, effective with the 2021-22 season.

Bass-baritone DAVÓNE TINES has been appointed to a one-year position as creative partner at California’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra.

Indiana’s La Porte County Symphony Orchestra has hired CAROLYN WATSON as music director, effective August 1.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic has appointed RENAE WILLIAMS NILES as chief content and engagement officer, a newly created position.

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SUMMER 2021

Scott Paulus Scott Paulus

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s new home, the Bradley Symphony Center.

A Space of Their Own The Bradley Symphony Center—formerly the Warner Grand Theater, a lavish 1931 movie palace—is now home to the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra had previously performed at the Marcus Performing Arts Center’s Uihlein Hall, which it shared with other arts groups. The center’s original opening in fall of 2020 was delayed due to the pandemic. Restoration and renovation began in 2017, when the MSO acquired the theater, which had gone unused since the 1990s.

Renovation required the changes you would expect—improved acoustics, lighting, electrical americanorchestras.org

wiring, new seats—and then some: a newly installed HVAC system got an upgrade during the pandemic with advanced air purification features. The theater’s 625-ton wall had to be moved back 35 feet for the larger stage the orchestra needed. And repairs had to be made after a flood in May 2020.

In February, the orchestra presented its first chamber concerts in the new space, socially distanced and streamed, with a fuller schedule planned for the fall. The MSO’s season-opening concert in October will feature Music Director Ken-David Masur, pianist and artistic partner Aaron Diehl, and the world premiere of Eric Nathan’s Opening plus works

by Gershwin, James B. Wilson, Ellington, and Stravinsky.

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Music for Meditation

Meditation and music intersected this spring at three Ohio orchestras, which together commissioned a piece by Brian Raphael Nabors to be premiered in classrooms. The initiative was a partnership with Mindful Music Moments, a program by the Well, an organization that uses classical music in schools to promote calm and focus through mindfulness. The Cleveland Orchestra, Columbus Symphony Orchestra, and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra recorded movements of Nabors’ new work. The 12-minute piece was influenced by feedback from K-12 students who participate in Mindful Music Moments and told Nabors what they thought the piece should sound and feel like. The four-movement work for string quartet— one movement for each city, plus a fourth movement incorporating ideas from all three—premiered in schools in May and on the orchestras’ Facebook pages on June 10. The Facebook premiere also featured a short film by Cincinnati filmmaker Asa Featherstone documenting the process. Joan Katz Napoli, the Cleveland Orchestra’s senior director of education and community programs, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer, “This is exactly the time when we need something like this. My hope is that this creates a daily habit that kids will carry into adulthood.”

At Severance Hall, Cleveland Orchestra musicians record the Cleveland portion of a new piece by Brian Raphael Nabors for Mindful Music Moments.

Students in Cincinnati participate in a Mindful Music Moments session.

The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, and Columbus Symphony commissioned a Mindful Music Moments score from Brian Raphael Nabors.

Oregon Symphony, In the Studio

It’s been a tough year to introduce a new music director—and to give a proper farewell to a departing one. In April, the Oregon Symphony rolled out “Studio125,” a comprehensive digital hub that includes “Classical Sessions: Carlos@18,” a biweekly series honoring the eighteen-year legacy of Carlos Kalmar, whose final season as music director occurred during the pandemic season of 2020-21. The channel features newly released musical content along with archival concerts, interviews, stories, and more. Also included are “Essential Sounds,” a seven-episode series honoring essential workers during the pandemic; “Symphony Storytime” for families and educators; and short performances recorded from Oregon Symphony musicians’ homes and communities. Among the archived concerts at the site is Oregon Symphony string musicians and Music DirecGabriel Kahane’s 2018 emergency shelter intake form, an oratorio about homelesstor Carlos Kalmar rehearse for a virtual performance ness and housing insecurity. The drive to produce more digital content stems from captured for the orchestra’s new “Studio125” site. a patron survey about digital content, with more than 90 percent of respondents saying they expected online programming to play a role in their cultural lives going forward. The orchestra says “Studio 125” will serve as an Oregon Symphony community hub, with footage from events and programs.

Now Available: Videos from League’s 2021 Conference Nearly 1,400 orchestra professionals gathered online from June 7 to 17 for the League of American Orchestras’ 2021 National Conference, Embracing a Changed World, a powerful and inspiring two weeks packed with new perspectives, provocative discussions, performances, and meaningful connections—all delivered virtually. If you missed the Conference, the good news is that all keynote and elective sessions were recorded and are available on demand at the Conference platform until August 2. Register for access to the videos, transcripts, and presentation files at https://leagueconference.org/. Want to keep the learning going? One way that League members can continue to connect with peers is in a dedicated Conference League360 group. After you sign up for the League360 group, check settings to make sure you receive emails in either real time or as a daily digest. And though it might seem early, now is the time to save the dates for next year’s League Conference, in-person in Los Angeles, June 1-3, 2022.

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SUMMER 2021

Symphony at the Park

Parks continue to be popular destinations for music-lovers eager to hear their hometown orchestras in live performance. On April 28, the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra presented an outdoor pops concert for a socially distanced audience of more than 400 people at the recently opened Lowcountry Celebration Park at Coligny in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Music Director John Morris Russell led physically distanced HHSO musicians in the “Symphony Celebration!” concert, which featured music by South Carolina’s Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra George Gershwin, Dizzy Gillespie, Scott Joplin, and Astor performs at Lowcountry Piazzolla; performers included vocalist Kimberly Hawkey, Celebration Park, April 28, pianist Assaf Gleizner, and saxophonist Daniel Dickinson.

2021.

The concert had many of the hallmarks we’ve come to expect at events during the pandemic: no intermission, audience members seated on the lawn individually and in “pods,” masks required when not within one’s own pod, hand-sanitizing stations, and guests bringing picnics and sitting in their own lawn chairs.

Symphony CEO Alan Jordan described the event as a “great success. We know people are eager to gather and enjoy live music again, and we will make that possible in a safe and responsible way.”

Instrumental Connections

One unfortunate side effect of school closures during the pandemic was a decrease in enrollment in school music programs. This spring, five Connecticut orchestras created “Pick Your Instrument CT,” a free music-education initiative to increase enrollment in school music programs.

The Eastern Connecticut Symphony, Hartford Symphony Orchestra, New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Stamford Symphony Orchestra, and Waterbury Symphony Orchestra added free recorded, live, and online programs to encourA student tries out a trumpet age students to join their school’s instrumental ensembles. at a New Haven Symphony Designed for students and teachers, the site includes videos Orchestra family event. by orchestra musicians about each instrument; webinars and live, virtual open houses to learn about instruments; an instrument selection toolkit in English and Spanish; and “For Kids by Kids,” an online portal where students can submit their own videos about music. New Haven Symphony Orchestra Education Director Caitlin Daly-Gonzales said, “As schools went virtual last spring, many students lost connection to their school’s music departments.... Teachers couldn’t use their normal recruiting methods like in-person instrument demonstrations and open houses for parents and students. This felt like a problem that orchestras could help solve and it was wonderful to see orchestras across Connecticut orchestras quickly jump into action.”

Boston Pops’ Virtual “Thanks, Mom”

The Boston Pops launched its first-ever all-virtual season on May 6 with a program celebrating music by and about women, led by Pops Conductor Keith Lockhart. “The Boston Pops Celebrates Mother’s Day: Honoring Women” included Joan Tower’s Fanfare to the Uncommon Woman No. 3, music from My Fair Lady, and music by Rachel Bruerville, Maurice Ravel, and William Grant Still. Also on the program were orchestral arrangements of music by Carole King and ABBA, the first movement of Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto with soloist Tanya Gabrielian, and the final movement from J.S. Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins, Mother-daughter duo Ala played by Boston Pops violinist Ala Jojatu and her daughand Maria Jojatu perform the ter, Maria Jojatu. The Quincy, Massachusetts-based band final movement of Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins at the Dropkick Murphys performed the song “To Our Darlin’ Symphony Hall in Boston.

Mothers.” The concert joined other newly recorded Boston Pops performances at the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s BSO NOW web portal in May and June: “A Tribute to John Williams,” “An Evening with Chris Thile and the Stars of Tomorrow,” and “The Roots of Jazz: American Voices.” americanorchestras.org

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Erin Baiano

The New York Philharmonic’s Bandwagon 2 performs in Brooklyn, May 7, 2021.

It felt strange, wonderful, and hopeful. The New York Philharmonic was among the first to perform at New York City’s cavernous Shed venue for COVID-tested, vaccinated, masked, socially distanced audiences in April. Philharmonic musicians performed on two evenings for a reduced audience of 150 people, who listened to Caroline Shaw’s Entr’acte, Sibelius’s Rakastava (The Lover), and Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen, A Study for 23 Solo Strings, led by guest conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen. These were the first indoor performances for an in-person audience by the orchestra since the pandemic began in 2020.

Introducing the concert, Salonen said, “No single program can even begin to sum up our feelings and emotions after these months; instead, we should see tonight’s concert as a new beginning ... filled with music and other things that give meaning to our existence in this troubled world.”

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Chris Lee

Spring Awakenings

Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts New York Philharmonic musicians in two April concerts at the Shed in New York City—the orchestra’s first indoor concert since the start of the pandemic.

Outdoor concerts have not gone away: the Philharmonic launched the second iteration of its Bandwagon concerts this spring. Last summer and fall, musicians performed throughout the city’s five boroughs from a pickup truck; this time around, Philharmonic musicians and community groups are performing from a mobile shipping container. symphony

SUMMER 2021

Restarting Stages in NYC

New York City was hit hard early on in the pandemic, so it seems fitting that healthcare workers were the first to be treated to a performance by New York Philharmonic musicians on Lincoln Center’s campus in honor of World Health Day on April 7. The outdoor event kickstarted the launch of Restart Stages, an initiative that includes 10 new outdoor performance and rehearsal spaces as well as other open-air civic venues to help restart the performing arts sector and contribute to the revival of New York City. Leah C. Johnson, Lincoln Center’s Chief Communications, Marketing & Advocacy Officer, spoke at the launch, where officials included NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio and Lincoln Center President and CEO Henry Timms. A Lincoln Center-commissioned installation by Basil Twist featured puppeteers, who greeted audience members with “sheep” on the Illumination Lawn. The project was financed with support from the Lincoln Center Board of Directors and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation as part of the SNF-Lincoln Center Agora Initiative, a collaboration that reimagines and reactivates public space.

Musicians from the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in a joint performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 at the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, led by DSO Music Director Fabio Luisi.

Sylvia Elzafon

This spring, musicians from the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra performed together at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, led by DSO Music Director Fabio Luisi, who was the Met’s principal conductor from 2011 to 2017. The concert featured 100 musicians—50 from each orchestra—in Mahler’s First Symphony, for a reduced audience of 400 people, and the event benefited the MET Orchestra Musicians Fund and the DFW Musicians COVID-19 Relief Fund. It was the first time many of the Met musicians had the opportunity to perform for a live audience since the COVID-19 shutdown in March 2020. While in Dallas, visiting musicians also worked with the DSO’s Young Strings music education program in masterclasses and workshops. In the Dallas Morning News, DSO President and CEO Kim Noltemy said the concert came together in “a mere five days.” The DSO offered the concert online for free for two weeks on its NextStage portal and also issued limited-edition NFTs of the concert with unlockable exclusive, behind-the-scenes footage to raise additional funds for the MET Musicians Fund and the DFW Musicians COVID relief Fund.

Sylvia Elzafon

Musicians Helping Musicians

Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Metropolitan Opera Orchestra musicians in a post-performance gathering in Dallas.

Corrections The following are corrections to an item about the Santa Rosa Symphony’s youth ensembles that appeared on page 5 of the Spring Issue of Symphony. Santa Rosa Symphony Music Director Francesco Lecce-Chong was a guest soloist, playing harpsichord, at a May concert by the Young People’s Chamber Orchestra; he did not conduct the concert. The young musicians did not participate in the actual creation of the redwood violin, made by a local luthier, that was played at the concert. After the Spring Issue of Symphony went to press, the Santa Rosa Symphony announced that Gwendolyn Przyjazna, a member of a SRS youth ensemble, would compose a concertino for violin and strings for the redwood violin to premiere at a Young People’s Chamber Orchestra concert, played by Co-concertmaster Aedan Seaver.

Stephanie Berger

Information about the Peninsula Music Festival in the paid advertiser listings of summer music festivals in the Spring Issue of Symphony was incorrect. Below is the correct information.

Audience members enjoy an al fresco New York Philharmonic performance at the launch day of Lincoln Center’s Restart Stages initiative. americanorchestras.org

Wisconsin Peninsula Music Festival Door County, WI October 1 to August 21 In Person The Symphony Series • A Chamber Music Series • Recital Series Experience world-renowned conductors, acclaimed guest artists, and the eighty musicians of the Festival Orchestra from around the world.

Festival Artistic Direction: Christoph Ptack Festival Conductors: Rune Bergmann, David Danzmayr, Yaniv Dinur, Marcelo Lehninger, Ward Stare Festival Artists: Oliver Herbert, cello; Susanna Self, flute; Inna Faliks; Stewart Goodyear; Peter Jablonski; Antonio Wu, piano; Bella Hristova; Rachel Barton Pine; Simone Porter; Angelo Xiang Yu, violin.

For Information: Help Desk 10431 N. Water Street, PO Box 340 Ephraim, WI 54211 (920) 854-4060 musicfestival@musicfestival.com musicfestival.com @peninsulamusicfestival @thepeninsulamusicfestival

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FORWARD THINKING

As musical life begins to resume after more than a year of pandemic-induced hibernation, we are finding that the world seems to have changed at a faster pace than actual chronological time. What fresh approaches can we take to restart our musical lives, continue to innovate and experiment, and embrace our brave new worlds?

Simon Woods, president and CEO of the League of American Orchestras

by Simon Woods “I thought I was prepared. I knew all the theory. Reality’s different.”

That’s a line from one of my favorite movies of recent years, director Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, which was released in 2014. All Nolan’s movies demonstrate a deep fascination with time, often to an almost baffling degree—and his most recent movie, Tenet, is no exception. When I was in Los Angeles, I was lucky enough to spend some time with Nolan (he’s a classical music lover) and with Kip Thorne, the Nobel Prize-winning Caltech-based physicist who’s behind all the science in Interstellar. I don’t think I’m misrepresenting Professor Thorne in saying that everything in Interstellar is entirely scientifically legitimate, if not yet actually realizable.

The movie centers on the search for an inhabitable planet in a distant galaxy, as humanity’s survival becomes increasingly less assured on Earth. There’s a moment during the search that has been haunting

14

Craig T.-Mathew/Mathew Imaging

Returning After COVID’s Time Warp

me recently, because it seems such a metaphor for the moment we find ourselves in today. Three astronauts leave a spaceship to land on a planet that’s situated on the edge of a black hole. Returning after spending a few more hours than intended on the planet’s surface, they are shocked to find that their fellow astronaut who had remained on the spaceship has aged 23 years, due to the impact of “time dilation” near black holes—as Einstein predicted in his Special Theory of Relativity.

Just over a year ago, concerts came to an abrupt stop. For the last 16 months, we’ve worked remotely, improvised ways to sustain our organizations, invented new ways to work as teams, built out new digital media strategies at unprecedented speed, figured out how to play music socially distanced and with masks, and generally thrown everything we knew at adapting to a moment that none of us ever expected or asked for. Ingenuity and flexibility were the survival strategy. As each month

passed, timelines got gradually sucked into the black hole, as hopes for returning to live concerts, with a few exceptions, moved from the next month to the summer, to the fall, to the next year—and then finally the realization dawned that only with a COVID vaccine would we see the return of anything we recognized as normal.

For the last 16 months, we’ve worked remotely, improvised ways to sustain our organizations, invented new ways to work, built new digital media, figured out how to play music socially distanced and with masks.

Now, with an ever-growing proportion of the U.S. population vaccinated and the lines on COVID graphs plunging, we’re finally pulling away from the force field, as symphony

SUMMER 2021

returning to concert halls with full audiences at last comes into view.

But while we’ve been away, the world has changed beyond measure. Extraordinary events have happened in those 23 metaphorical time-distorted years. As of late spring, more than three million people had died from the pandemic, leaving behind gaping holes in their families and grief at the loss and the sheer pointlessness of it all. Health workers toiled on the edge of exhaustion to keep people alive and give comfort to those who couldn’t make the journey to recovery. Many whose incomes felt secure before the pandemic found the bottom dropping out of their finances. Communities of color and people with limited means suffered disproportionately. More Black, Asian American, Pacific Islander, and Jewish people were targeted and brutalized. We had a presidential election where truth, justice, and democracy teetered on the edge. And an iceberg larger than Rhode Island broke off Antarctica.

In a post-pandemic world where resources are few and need is great, impact is the galvanizing force.

What does this moment ask from us?

I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels torn between longing for the return of familiarity and owning up to the change we know in our hearts is needed. On one americanorchestras.org

hand, the joy and relief of being able to return to playing concerts for audiences is an incredible antidote to the vast strain and stress of the past year, which has extracted such a steep toll on the mental health of many across our field. Personally, I can’t wait to sit in close proximity to 2,000 of my best friends and experience together the magic of 100 musicians playing together. But I’m anxious that after what we’ve been through, so many of the assumptions we have long made about orchestras, the music they play, the people who are included, and the traditions they enshrine, will feel even more deeply in need of renovation than they did before.

And I don’t want the adrenaline flooding our nervous systems as those first notes sound to inure us to the opportunity to think differently.

At every turn, we must ask ourselves: “What decision are we making, why are we making it, what’s our purpose, who benefits, and who isn’t here?”

Over the past decade, many orchestras’ mission statements have quietly transformed from descriptions of musical activity to aspirational statements about intended impact, as they consider their broader role in their communities, in civic life, and in society. Never has there been more need for every decision in our sphere

of influence to be driven by a focus on what we mean, not what we do. In a postpandemic world where resources are few and need is great, impact is the galvanizing force. Every concert presented, every community engagement, every audition, every staff vacancy, every educational engagement, every board nomination, every tour, every recording, is an opportunity to ask ourselves: “What decision are we making, why are we making it, what’s our purpose, who benefits, and who isn’t here?”

Many orchestras’ mission statements have transformed from descriptions of activity to aspirational statements about impact, as they consider their roles in communities, civic life, and society.

So as the complex machinery of orchestras starts spooling up again after this enforced hiatus, let’s prepare ourselves for a roller-coaster ride: the physical thrill of the sound of a live orchestra, the joy of a musical phrase that’s as familiar as an old friend, the pleasure of reflecting on a concert over a drink with loved ones—and the deep jolt of uncertainty as we embark on the process of adapting to a world that has aged disproportionately to the actual number of months passed. Time to raise a glass to survival and resilience, enjoy the moment, let the emotion flow—and fasten our seatbelts!

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BOARD

ROOM

How Orchestra Boards Can Advance Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion A new guide from the League of American Orchestras makes the case for the vital importance of equity, diversity, and inclusion at orchestras—from the board perspective.

How Orchestra Boards Can Advance Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion discusses the urgency of this work and offers practical advice, contextual information, and strategies for boards and orchestras to become truly representative of the communities they serve. The Guide was written by Carmen Corrales, a board member of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and the League of American Orchestras, and Douglas Hagerman, board chair of the League of American Orchestras and past board chair of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. Here is the introduction to the new Guide; read the complete How Orchestra Boards Can Advance Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at https://americanorchestras.org/edi-guide-for-boards.

by Carmen Corrales and Douglas Hagerman MAY 2021

How Orchestra Boards Can Advance Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion: A Guide from the League of American Orchestras

By Carmen Corrales, Board Member, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and League of American Orchestras and Douglas Hagerman, Board Chair, League of American Orchestras and Past Board Chair, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra

I. EDI and Orchestra Boards: An Introduction

As orchestra board members who have been immersed

The murder of George Floyd in 2020 unleashed massive

Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Committee of your

civil rights protests and a more urgent response

board, or, better yet, of your board together with other

to racism. Orchestras, on hiatus in the midst of the

stakeholders such as musicians, staff, and members of

COVID-19 pandemic, found themselves asking serious

the larger community. An EDI Committee won’t solve

and course-altering questions about the role of race in

everything, but it is a start to a process that we believe

American classical music. The League has contributed

is essential. We think that all orchestra boards should

to this process of coming to terms with the past and

maintain such a

present deficits in representation of Black and Latinx

committee as a

people at all levels of orchestras and their audiences, as

matter of sound

well as with our shared responsibility for a culture within

governance, just

orchestral music that too often has excluded, erased, and

as all boards

marginalized performers and composers of color. Read

maintain Finance

more about the roots of this problem and the case for

and Governance

orchestras to address it urgently in these documents:

Committees. EDI should be at the center of American

• Making the Case for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Orchestras

advice about how to form and maintain an Equity,

An EDI Committee won’t solve everything, but it is a start to a process that we believe is essential.

orchestras’ strategic priorities, not just because it is the right thing to do, but because it is necessary so our orchestras can thrive by engaging new audiences and

• “League Statement on Racial Discrimination”

becoming even more relevant to the community.

• “Anti-Black Discrimination in American Orchestras”

We believe that accepting the status quo on race and

Where do boards of orchestras go from here? How do boards create the space and conditions to have ongoing dialogue and forge strategies for a more just, inclusive, and creatively diverse future? We know that diverse teams and organizations can produce better results than homogenous ones. How do we apply this axiom to classical music?

1

in this work, we want to start by giving some pragmatic

other dimensions of diversity is the worst stance that orchestras can take. Society has changed quickly and many members of our audiences—especially the younger ones we seek to engage—will balk at supporting institutions that fail to take EDI seriously. Many of our most vocal and vital constituents want evolution in the repertoire and composers that we showcase at our concerts. They want to hear not only the canonical

The League of American Orchestras 520 8th Avenue, Suite 2005, New York, NY 10018 • 212 262 5161 • americanorchestras.org

16

Carmen Corrales and Douglas Hagerman, co-authors of How Orchestra Boards Can Advance Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion: A Guide from the League of American Orchestras

symphony

SUMMER 2021

EDI and Orchestra Boards: An Introduction The murder of George Floyd in 2020 unleashed massive civil rights protests and a more urgent response to racism. Orchestras, on hiatus in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, found themselves asking serious and course-altering questions about the role of race in American classical music.

The League has contributed to this process of coming to terms with the past and present deficits in representation of Black and Latinx people at all levels of orchestras and their audiences, as well as with our shared responsibility for a culture within orchestral music that too often has excluded, erased, and marginalized performers and composers of color. Read more about the roots of this problem and the case for orchestras to address it urgently in these documents:

An EDI Committee won’t solve everything, but it is a start to a process that we believe is essential.

• Making the Case for Equity, Diversity, and Inclu• •

sion in Orchestras (https://americanorchestras. org/making-the-case-for-equity-diversity-andinclusion-in-orchestras) League Statement on Racial Discrimination (https://bit.ly/racialdiscriminationstatement) “Anti-Black Discrimination in American Orchestras” (https://bit.ly/antiblackdiscrimination)

Where do boards of orchestras go from here?

How do boards create the space and conditions to have ongoing dialogue and forge strategies for a more just, inclusive, and creatively diverse future?

We know that diverse teams and organizations can produce better results than homogenous ones.

How do we apply this axiom to classical music?

As orchestra board members who have been immersed in this work, we want to start by giving some pragmatic advice about how to form and maintain an Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Committee of your board, or, better yet, of your board together with other stakeholders such as musicians, staff, and members of the larger community. An EDI Committee won’t solve everything, but it is a start to a process that we believe is essential. We think that all orchestra boards should maintain such a committee as a matter of sound governance, just as all boards maintain Finance and Governance Committees. EDI should be at the center of American orchestras’ strategic prioriamericanorchestras.org

ties, not just because it is the right thing to do, but because it is necessary so our orchestras can thrive by engaging new audiences and becoming even more relevant to the community.

We believe that accepting the status quo on race and other dimensions of diversity is the worst stance that orchestras can take. Society has changed quickly and many members of our audiences—especially the younger ones we seek to engage— will balk at supporting institutions that fail to take EDI seriously.

Many of our most vocal and vital constituents want evolution in the repertoire and composers that we showcase at our concerts. They want to hear not only the canonical works, but also music from American composers of color and composers from other countries that has been historically and unfairly excluded. They also want to see more musicians and conductors of color. Undoubtedly, there is a shrinking but vocal segment of our constituency that wants everything to remain the same, but for the most part, consensus has built around the need to move toward a more inclusive future as we aim to reach wider audiences.

Institutional change begins at the top. Management and the board carry responsibility for turning good intentions into actions and grappling with hard issues.

In our view, boards should eschew ideological battles that only deepen divisions and instead focus decisively on the need for change that begins immediately. Institutional change begins at the top.

Management and the board carry responsibility for turning good intentions into actions and grappling with hard issues. The work of EDI, however, does not end there for orchestras, but extends to multiple internal and external constituencies.

Change in orchestras necessitates a participatory process that brings together different stakeholders within each organization. Although there can never be total agreement on everything, orchestras function through persuasion and consensus building. Orchestras differ significantly from other types of organizations in that there are so many stakeholders who are essential parts of the whole.

No orchestras can play without their violinists and bassoonists or without their CEOs and fundraisers, for example. Orchestras, by their very nature, require the participation (and motivation) of their stakeholders, including board members, staff, mu-

LEAGUE EDI RESOURCES The League of American Orchestras’ online Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Resource Center provides practical and helpful insights, advice, and a path to greater diversity and inclusion for every part of orchestras.

The Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Resource Center includes a number of important readings, research, and examples within our field, and is a useful repository for resources to help change discriminatory systems and for musicians, managers, and board members of color to thrive in the orchestra field.

Visit the League’s EDI Center at https:// americanorchestras. org/learn/equitydiversity-andinclusion/

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WHAT SHOULD ORCHESTRAS MEASURE? Here are some ideas for what to set measurable improvement goals around:

Budget • Percent spent on EDI work (define in advance what counts) Staff • Representation of staff by gender identity • Representation of staff by race/ethnicity compared to community • Share of management roles held by people of color • Percent of promotions and new hires with a qualified diverse applicant in the candidate pool • Pay equity • Employee engagement survey results Board • Representation of board members by gender identity • Representation of board members by race/ethnicity • Demographics of those holding leadership roles Artistic • Representation of musicians by race/ethnicity • Representation of guest artists and conductors • Percent of programmed works by underrepresented composers Community • Outcomes of partnerships

18

sicians, volunteers, artistic leaders/conductors, audience members and donors, and members of the community.

The point is that while delegating all decision-making about diversity to an EDI Committee would be just as inappropriate as making Finance Committee members completely responsible for all financial and investment decisions, we believe that change requires a communal process.

The board should model the kind of organization it wants.

An EDI Committee serves as a space for people related to the orchestra to talk to each other respectfully about equity, race, and other issues of diversity, as well as to work with management to bring diversity initiatives to fruition. We cannot overstate the need for spaces for people to speak about issues of difference. Through an EDI Committee, we can have these important conversations, demonstrating that we are all strong enough to endure and profit from these discussions. The focus of most arts organizations and orchestras currently, in terms of EDI, is race and racism.

But there are multiple other areas of diversity—such as gender, class, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, and age—that should also be considered and discussed as part of the life and evolution of the orchestra.

EDI Committees can facilitate both understanding and addressing the particular challenges faced by different groups. Prejudice is highly specific to affected groups in ways that can both benefit and hinder individuals, depending on the context, for reasons extraneous to who they truly are or their true talents. Those prejudices—together with unequal access to music education, training, and other resources—affect individuals long before they appear at the orchestra door.

Board members play a critical role in creating an organizational culture that nurtures all musicians, staff, volun­teers, and fellow board members.

One of the initial steps that most boards take is creating a more diverse board. But it has become clear that diversity does not work on its own without inclusion. Adding board members of color is insufficient if there is no effort to meaningfully include them in the work of the board. Inclusion is focused on making all members of the orchestra community, including the board, feel welcome and offering support as well as opportunities for leadership, connection, and growth.

While a board may successfully recruit women and symphony

SUMMER 2021

Anti-Black Discrimination in American Orchestras

 INSIDE Overview of This Guide Why Do EDI and Antiracism Matter to Orchestras?

Answering Common Questions Moving Forward

A broad historical look at American orchestras puts into context the field’s persistent lack of ethnic and racial diversity and examines the underlying culture of privilege, exclusion, and unacknowledged bias that contributes to it. Greater awareness of our shared history will contribute to fieldwide change in behavior—and ultimately improve equity.

Endnotes

Thy magic power re-unites All that custom has divided, All men become brothers, Under the sway of thy gentle wings.

—from Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller’s “Ode to Joy,” later used by Ludwig van Beethoven in his Symphony No. 9

W

hen we speak of the world of symphony orchestras in America, we say “the field.” “The field” has included many different stakeholders over the decades. Of course, we mean the orchestral music itself; the musicians who compose, organize, play, and conduct the music; the staff who arrange and publicize concerts to share the music; the audiences who listen to the music; and the volunteer community members who set policy, hire lead staff, govern, and raise the non-earned income needed to fuel the organizations that house the above. There are other stakeholders such as guest artists, musicians’ unions, service organizations like the League of American Orchestras, public and private foundations, governmental agencies, vendors, and more, all of whom support and impact the work of “the field.”

Despite a broad and functionally diverse group with many sincere individuals and well-intended initiatives, the field has never effectively engaged a fair representation of the racial and ethnic talent in the country within all the onstage and offstage roles noted above. One might ask: In 2020, are the musician, staff, and board roles equally accessible to everyone interested in this music? Sadly, the simple answer is no.

The reasons why include an ignored and uncelebrated history of minority artistry in classical music (by composers, conductors, performers, and managers); ignorance of the history of discrimination and racism against classical musicians of AfricanAmerican and Latinx heritage by the field; and a culture in the field that is indifferent to the inequity, racial bias, and microaggressions within it.

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symphony

A Guide from the League of American Orchestras

Statement on Racial Discrimination

Acknowledgments

Through listening to underrepresented voices in our field; centering equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in our programs and convenings; and researching our shared history and heritage, the League of American Orchestras is developing an

Introduction

understanding of the breadth and depth of systemic racial inequities that exist in the orchestra field.

The current pandemic and the growing recognition of disproportionate police violence against Black people shine a light on

by Aaron Flagg

As part of its planning for equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) work in 2018, the League of American Orchestras engaged in extensive listening and learning from orchestra staff, boards, and musicians about the state of EDI efforts in their orchestras as well as their expectations of the League. One of the frequent and emphatic messages to the League was to “acknowledge the painful history of discrimination within the orchestra field.” That view was echoed

by Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, who said in his June 16 video How We Arrived Here: “We need an era of truth and justice in America. We need to commit ourselves to being honest about our pasts. Truth and justice [are] sequential. You have to tell the truth before you get to the restoration, before you get to the reconciliation.” These beliefs gave rise to the article that follows, one effort in the League’s ongoing work of coming to grips with the past and working toward a more inclusive and equitable future.

—Jesse Rosen, President and CEO, League of American Orchestras

Making the Case for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion In Orchestras:

“Diversity is not our problem, it’s our promise. It’s our promise because it leads to unparalleled heights of creativity, expression, and excellence. It’s our promise because it leads to higher performing and more sustainable institutions. And it’s our promise because it allows us to live by our democratic ideals of fairness and equality.”

The Honorable Elijah Cummings, speaking at the League of American Orchestras 2016 National Conference

America’s long history of systemic inequities for the Black community in particular. This history includes chattel slavery, Black

This guide is intended to help the orchestra field take action to become more inclusive and welcoming of all people and all differences. It 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. The League will offer further resources to support orchestras on their journeys toward antiracism and equity, including the upcoming re-launch of the EDI Resource Center.

Code and Jim Crow laws, redlining, school segregation, voter suppression, and the prison-industrial complex. This challenging history and the current environment make it essential for us to assert our deepening commitment to be an advocate for and a credible partner with Black people and associated organizations as we seek a more equitable and diverse future for America’s orchestras.

The League of American Orchestras acknowledges, accepts responsibility for, and apologizes for the role it has played in perpetuating, excusing, and participating in systemic discrimination based on race within the orchestral field.

Orchestras have a long history of discrimination1, and data on their recent past reveals no change in representation of Black musicians in orchestras for 25 years, hovering at 1.8 percent.2 Board and staff representation is similarly static and well below that of nonprofit peers. This is despite various programs intended to increase onstage racial representation3 and the oft-espoused desire of orchestras to reflect their communities. Today, a continuation of the status quo poses a serious threat to orchestras, as stakeholders demand that nonprofits supported by federal tax policy fully reflect their communities.

SUMMER 2020

The staff and Board of Directors of the League have failed to sufficiently understand that systemic anti-Black racism and its resulting discrimination are rooted in a belief system, white supremacy, into which all of us, and the field itself, were born.

Consequently, the League has not been sufficiently engaged in challenging this racism within the broader field and the exclusion of this community as full participants.

The League recognizes the existence of many forms of discrimination in America that hurt our fellow human beings.

In additional to race, these include discrimination based on ethnicity, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, religion, and socio-economic status. The orchestra field must continue its fight against all forms of discrimination to help heal our society and allow all people to be fully seen and heard.

In America, the symphony orchestra field includes youth, community, academic, and professional orchestras; conductors; administrators; musicians; volunteers; board members; and unions. The field has allowed injurious practices and tropes to persist, such as the unfounded and disrespectful belief that diversity of personnel and/or programming can only be achieved at the expense of quality. The field has also played an active role in excluding Black musicians, composers, administrative staff, community members, and audience

The impacts of our actions have included the loss of valuable

members from auditioning, creating, performing, managing,

musical and other creative contributions by generations of

governing, and even listening to orchestral music. These

Black people, the disenfranchisement of fellow Americans,

actions stem from our country’s history of racism, which results

and redirected career trajectories, all resulting in fewer people

in racial and ethnic discrimination. These actions are also

engaging with the musical culture we all share and love. This

counter to our belief in the shared value of all music to, by,

ultimately diminishes the vibrancy of the art form and, therefore,

and for all people.

undermines the orchestral experience for everyone.

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Recent publications focusing on multiple aspects of equity, diversity, and inclusion from the League of American Orchestras.

people of color, for example, the effort will not succeed if those board members are tokenized or made to feel unwelcome and constrained.

In our experience, integrating EDI at the board level works best when BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and other people of color) individuals are recruited, welcomed, and offered full participation on the board and in the committees that interest them.

Inclusion of new board members begins at recruitment, when they are sought out for the skills and perspectives they bring to the board room, not just for what they represent. Unfortunately, there are too many examples of BIPOC board members in nonprofit organizations who have been recruited and then ignored or sidelined, causing many to be wary of getting involved.

For inclusion and equity to follow diversity, the board must set measurable goals over time. The effort of setting goals and keeping them starts with plans put together by boards and management. An EDI Committee helps to keep diversity issues on the front burner, even as they may fade from the news.

Orchestras can retain and please their current audience while reaching a new, larger audience if they choose to view the world through a “yes/and” lens.

The board should model the kind of organization it wants. It takes persistent and resilient effort at all levels of the organization to advance EDI. Board members play a critical role in creating a culture that nurtures all musicians, staff, volunteers, and fellow board members. And it’s critical to engage music directors and conductors in this process, so that those in whom we vest artistic leadership become themselves the leaders of change. americanorchestras.org

The classical music world is enamored with its European heritage while simultaneously being increasingly eager to explore the omitted and unfamiliar parts of the broader classical tradition. Orchestras can successfully retain and please their current audience while reaching a new, larger audience if they choose to view the world through a “yes/and” lens. We are not suggesting leaving behind the great works of the canon that bring pleasure, joy, and comfort to millions of people, but rather exploring the many exciting and enriching works we haven’t heard, and building a new tradition for orchestras that reflects the world we live in. Perhaps we are dreamers, but we have seen it work, in part because as people, we are more connected than we think we are.

Black American composers have always been part of classical music, even as they have been ignored and erased. Latin American and Caribbean classical music traditions have continued in the context of other world classical styles, often incorporating Indigenous and African folkloric elements along with elements of jazz and other musical forms. LGBTQ+ people have always been among our greatest icons. Women have always been part of the tradition but have been ignored or omitted. Some of our most cherished soloists and performers have suffered from disabilities. Diversity is nothing new within the classical music world. What is new is recognizing and valuing that diversity so that we neither frame it as an exception nor deny it.

We should move forward with full confidence that through pragmatic effort, we can further programs and initiatives that bring together the best of classical music for our audiences.

There is justice in diversity, but there is also the pleasure of discovering new works, new colleagues, and new friends, and of helping orchestras evolve toward a more sustainable future that reflects the true diversity and promise of America.

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AT THE LEAGUE

How Can We Help?

It’s been a year of unprecedented change and adjustment, but the focus at the League of American Orchestras remains constant: finding ways to help American orchestras not just survive, but thrive.

By Rebecca Winzenried

“Nimble” may be the word of the year across the orchestra field. Organizations everywhere have realized just how flexible they can be in the face of rapidly evolving circumstances. The same is true at the League of American Orchestras, which has weathered a challenging time through a series of quick pivots, all aimed to keep members informed, equipped, and connected as they confront the pandemic and examine their roles and responsibilities in the nationwide conversation about racial injustice.

The League has helped to keep everyone in the orchestra field connected during a difficult time while learning about best practices and staying abreast on emerging issues.

Here, we tell the stories of some of the people on the front lines of assisting orchestras in multiple League departments: Knowledge, Learning, and Leadership;

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Advocacy and Government; Artistic and Learning Programs; Member Services; Marketing and Communications; and Development. League staff members describe just some of ways they have helped orchestras adapt during a tumultuous year.

Online Convenings: Learning and Leadership

In early 2020, when organizations left David Styers, Director, Learning and Leadership Programs

and right were cancelling major gatherings due to the pandemic, the League faced a conundrum: how to produce its long-running National Conference, an annual, in-person convening of people

from orchestras across the country, in the midst of a pandemic? The League opted to go big, by going virtual, and turned that year’s Conference into a marathon online event offered over six weeks in May and June. The move into unfamiliar technology—who was truly fluent in Zoom 18 months ago?—meant that the League helped to keep everyone in the orchestra field connected during a difficult time while learning about best practices, and staying abreast on emerging issues. And when nationwide protests erupted after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, prompting a long-delayed examination of orchestras and racial inequity, the flexibility of the online format meant that the Conference added timely sessions focusing on current events and providing a safe space for needed discussions.

With pandemic still in force, the League’s annual National Conference went virtual for a second time this June.

Running from June 7 to 17, the 2021 symphony

SUMMER 2021

Conference, “Embracing a Changed World,” brought forward new voices and perspectives to explore what the future of orchestras might look like—and how to get there.

The move to virtual Conferences “has kept us in an online learning mode,” says David Styers, who produces the League’s National Conference as Director, Learning and Leadership Programs. “The learnings from this are going to be ongoing and continuous,” he says.

The 2021 National Conference builds on the success of the online 2020 Conference, only this time the decision to head online was made well in advance. Which gave organizers a little more leeway than they’d had for the previous year.

Back in early 2020, David Styers, Director, Learning and Leadership Programs, quickly drew up a master plan for how to incorporate a full slate of programming for that year’s online Conference, along with general sessions and constituent-group meetings. Then came the hard part. “Once I had a vision of what it could look like, then we had to figure out how to execute it,” he says. His situation paralleled that of many League members, who had been thrust into the role of digital producer/presenter overnight as concerts were cancelled and events went virtual. “All we knew was we didn’t know, and we went out and found the experts to fill out those gaps,” he recalls. One thing Styers did know, he says, is, “We are a field that’s used to rehearsing. Nothing happened online that did not have a rehearsal.” Some sessions at the 2020 online Conference went better than others, he says, “but we never had a failure. We got a good recording of every single one of the 28 sessions, so anyone who could not attend live could see it—and we had 4,000 people register.”

The opening session of the 2020 Conference drew 1,000 virtual attendees, and subsequent smaller sessions, which focused on specific topics, averaged 460 attendees. The numbers outpaced what could be expected for any in-person Conference, boosted by the League’s one-time decision to offer free registration. “We had hundreds of board members, youth orchestra, smaller-budget orchestras, finance directors—people who never would have been able to attend Conference in person,” says Styers. In addition to welcoming a broader range of orchestra stakeholders, making the 2020 Conference more accessible gave everyone in the orchestra community a sense of connection, continuity, and support in the face of the financial and emotion distress caused by the pandemic—and the chance to learn how other organizations were coping and innovating.

The League scaled up the number of online constituent meeting groups, “so we had a way to do peer-to-peer connection” online, says Styers. “How are you doing out in your community? Let me hear and learn from you.” In one example, a call went out for executive directors who had been through crisis situations like natural disasters or the 2008-09 recession who might be willing to mentor younger counterparts. “We probably had three dozen executive directors we paired with about a dozen mentors in the field,” says Styers.

The move to virtual Conferences “has just kept us in an online learning mode,” says Styers, who has also produced americanorchestras.org

The opening session of the League’s 2020 Conference, which featured New York Philharmonic Principal Clarinet Anthony McGill, drew 1,000 virtual attendees.

Smaller sessions, which focused on specific topics, averaged 460 attendees.

Multiple sessions as the League’s 2020 virtual Conference focused on helping orchestras navigate the pandemic. Sessions included “Scenario Planning in the Time of COVID-19,” hosted by Susan Nelson, executive president of the nonprofit management consulting and research firm TDC. At the League’s virtual National Conference in 2021, one session reexamined ways orchestras are engaging with audiences and connecting with communities.

Among the League’s activities are advocacy alerts reminding orchestras to contact members of Congress and other government officials with issues important to the arts—these alerts were often connected with pandemic relief packages.

In February, the League’s Najean Lee was among participants in a Music Policy Forum with arts coalition partners.

In March 2021, Heather Noonan and Najean Lee hosted a virtual event designed to help orchestras navigate COVID-relief opportunities.

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An advocacy webpage at the League of American Orchestra website includes links to multiple COVID-relief packages offered by the federal government between March 6, 2020 and March 11, 2021.

Kathleen Munkel

Conductor participants and League staffers at the League of American Orchestras’ 2018 Bruno Walter National Conducting Preview in Nashville.

During the pandemic, James Barry, Senior Manager, Artistic and Learning Programs (third from right), has worked virtually to support artistic administrators, conductors, composers, and musicians. Left to right: JohnMorgan Bush, the League’s former director of learning and leadership programs; conductors Lidiya Yankovskaya, Lee Mills, Mélisse Brunet, Raúl Gómez-Rojas, Nadège Foofat, and Ankush Kumar Bahl; and composer and musician C.F. Kip Winger.

In past years, Ford Musician Awards for Excellence in Community Service were given to recipients in person at the League’s National Conference.

In 2021, five orchestra musicians received Ford Musician Awards for Excellence in Community Service from the League of American Orchestras at the League’s 76th National Conference, which was held online for the second year.

Supported by Ford Motor Company Fund, the awards recognize professional musicians’ deeply impactful work outside the concert hall.

Among the virtual events produced during the pandemic was a webinar this winter for League members entitled “Mental Health and Wellness: A Conversation.”

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and hosted League webinars on multiple topics. And although the 2022 Conference is planned to take place in person, in part due to requests from members, many of the League’s offerings on multiple fronts now take place online, reaching wider groups of orchestra stakeholders. Says Styers, “the learnings from this are going to be ongoing and continuous.”

Federal COVID Relief, Legislation: Advocacy and Government

Most years, League members appreciate the League’s longtime, active presence in Washington, D.C., and know that they will be kept informed of pertinent issues like NEA funding or visa re-quirements for guest artists. But most years do not require immediate actions by virtually every orchestra, just to survive, and certainly not the tsunami of federal aid tied to COVID relief, like the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Shuttered Venues Operators Grants. As a result, says Heather Noonan, the League’s Vice President for Advocacy, “there was a commensurate realignment of how much time orchestras were spending on federal funding topics. Everything from how much advocacy they did, to how in the weeds they were with figuring out how all the pieces worked, to alliances they formed at the community level.”

Fast-breaking and complex relief packages have kept Noonan and Najean Lee, Director, Government Affairs and Education Advocacy, at work with arts coalition partners around the clock. One goal: to ensure that orchestras are included in legislation and qualify for support. Noonan recalls being told by a Senate staffer on one occasion that she shouldn’t plan to go to sleep that night: “And they weren’t kidding. They said, ‘We’re in the middle of these negotiations, and we have to know that we can reach you, in order to answer any questions.’ ” For their part, Noonan and Lee turned to orchestras for help in untangling aspects of some legislation. They made their own share of midnight and weekend calls to orchestra CFOs across the country for help in interpreting PPP regulations, such as determination of financial losses and projected revenue trends. “That was a huge part of qualifying for federal support: did you lose revenue due to COVID?” says Noonan.

Fast-breaking, complex relief packages have kept Vice President of Advocacy Heather Noonan and Najean Lee, Director, Government Affairs and Education Advocacy, working with arts coalition partners nonstop. Noonan was told by a Senate staffer that she shouldn’t plan to go to sleep on a certain night in case negotiators needed to reach her.

Discussions at League360, the League’s online member discussion forum, especially the Disaster Relief and Emergency Preparedness Group, have been a source for sharing information, asking orchestra peers for advice, and tracking emerging issues. Noonan says she’ll always remember how League members helped each other navisymphony

SUMMER 2021

Heather Noonan, Vice President for Advocacy

gate the Shuttered Venues program on the day it launched—and the web portal for the grants was so overwhelmed with applications that it didn’t work properly.

“Member orchestras were on League360 telling each other how they’d gotten through to the site,” she recalls. “It was a real-time example of this feeling of, ‘We're all in this together.’ ” Advocacy issues became an imporNajean Lee, Director, Government Affairs and Education Advocacy

tant topic at the new League webinars, with Noonan and Lee walking attendees through details of legislation. They’ve encouraged orchestras to build alliances at the local level, too, where decisions about how federal funding is distributed are made. “Orchestras right now are more experienced in engaging in these conversations and doing this advocacy because they’ve been doing so much of it in the last year and a half,” says Noonan. “They are building relationships not only with elected officials, but coalition partners.”

Help for Musicians: Artistic and Learning Programs

James Barry, Senior Manager, Artistic and Learning Programs

From microgrants for musicians to a webinar on mental health and wellbeing, the League’s artistic programs have responded with immediate, needs-based americanorchestras.org

assistance and information for musicians, composers, and conductors. When highly anticipated programs such as the League’s Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview, Ford Musician Awards, and Women Composers Readings and Commissions initiative were postponed in 2020, James Barry, Senior Manager, Artistic and Learning Programs, focused on pressing concerns being expressed by the artistic administrators, conductors, composers, and musician constituencies he handles.

As a composer himself, Barry felt the pain of those who had lost income, were having trouble covering expenses, or were facing hard decisions about staffing. “Orchestras just didn’t know where to look in the dark,” he says. “At the same time, deal-

session providing tips and resources.

Webinars also addressed issues of equity and diversity; one featured work on a new website of orchestral music by Black composers, the African Diaspora Music Project database; one of the site’s founders, Louise Toppin, took part in the webinar.

The African Diaspora Music Project’s creators explained how the resource can make it easier for artistic administrators and others responsible for programming concerts to locate scores and, thus, schedule more frequent performances of works by Black composers. Barry says he has also begun looking to the future with webinars on issues such as how orchestras are involved in educating about climate change.

One silver lining of connecting virtually, says Barry, has been a realization that topics can be addressed in a nimbler fashion. “If anything urgent comes up, we can mobilize and three days later we can have a meeting. We don’t have to wait to choose a city where we can meet in person six months down the road.”

ing with all these people gave me a bird’s eye view of what was needed.”

Efforts could be specific to constituent groups: Conductors, who had suddenly found themselves away from the podium and thinking about the changing nature of leadership, were connected in Zoom chats that Barry set up. The Ford Musician Impact Fund was created to assist individual orchestra musicians who were creating their own digital stories and performances. “I was able to put money in 166 musicians’ pockets. That was pretty amazing,” says Barry.

As the pandemic continued, broader topics became the subject of webinars offered to League members and nonmembers alike. When comments about the anxiety and depression associated with sudden loss of a lifestyle filled with performances and social interaction began popping up in online discussions, Barry organized a webinar with mental-health experts (covered in depth in “Restorative Notes” elsewhere in this issue). He invited composer Julia Adolphe, who had spoken publicly about her own struggles, to participate. “We were able to provide a little bit of strategy,” Barry says, with the mental health experts taking part in the

Problem Solving: Member Services

As a composer himself, James Barry, Senior Manager, Artistic and Learning Programs, felt the pain of those who had lost income, were having trouble covering expenses, or were facing hard decisions about staffing. “Dealing with all these people gave me a bird’s eye view of what was needed,” he says.

Daniel ElsPiercey, Senior Member Services Associate

Senior Member Services Associate Daniel Els-Piercey hadn’t been back to the League’s Manhattan headquarters in quite a while, as staff was working remotely since March of 2020 due to the pandemic. So when he did pop into the office after the beginning of this year, he was surprised to find a stack of holiday cards on his desk. They were from people he’d never actually met, but had gotten to know after responding to their email messages and phone calls to the League; they all expressed how important his frontline assistance had been when they were searching for answers to a wide range of questions.

The queries may have been about how to connect with online discussion groups or get more information about League resources. But their anxiety and worry were

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readily apparent. Often, he remembers, their first questions would be: How are other orchestras doing? What are other people doing? Els-Piercey’s response: “We’re going to have to tread water for a while, and at some point we’re all going to figure out where we’re going.” Delivered in Els-Piercey’s reassuring manner, his response was disarming enough to elicit a laugh from the most emotional of callers, who felt adrift in facing monumental financial, personnel, and artistic matters.

Senior Member Services Associate Daniel Els-Piercey pointed League members to resources where they could connect with peers or learn about federal relief actions. “It’s really just an effort to continue to try to be as open as possible,” says Els-Piercey.

Stephanie Berger

League of American Orchestras staff in January 2020, shortly after moving into the League’s new Manhattan office. During the pandemic, the League has continued its work helping orchestras virtually, with staff working remotely.

Els-Piercey was able to point them to resources such as League360 member forums, where they could connect with peers or learn about federal relief actions. The most active discussions happened on the Disaster Relief and Emergency Preparedness group, which was formed specifically in response to the crisis and opened to League members across constituent groups and orchestra budget size.

He also noticed an uptick in participation in online gatherings, even among orchestra groups that had been relatively inactive over the years. Some that had rarely met outside of the annual National Conference were getting together online two or three times a month. “It’s really just an effort to continue to try to be as open as possible.

And that is something I’m also going to take with me going forward,” says Els-Piercey.

Beth Barton-Burnt Toast Productions

Website Launch, Spotlight on Members: Membership and Marketing

The League of American Orchestras’ new website, americanorchestras.org, went live this winter. In addition to featuring eye-catching photos of Leaguemember orchestras, the new site makes information much easier to find with a filtered search function.

The League had been ramping up plans for digital learning even before the pandemic arrived and it began offering COVID-related webinars. That there is real, continued interest became apparent to Senior Director, Membership and Marketing Rachel Rossos Gallant, as numbers have remained at a consistent 200 to 300 registrations for each of the sessions offered, whatever the topic. Online, ongoing learning that anyone can participate in at a low cost, from their own home or office, she says, “has been one way we’ve been able to step up Rachel Rossos what we’ve been able to do to support Gallant, the field.”

Senior Director, Gallant regularly monitors parMembership and ticipation in various efforts, such as the Marketing League360 online discussion groups, and notes questions from the field that signal topics of interest. “It helps indicate to us where there’s a need to either provide more context or content around certain topics, or perhaps a webinar or some research is in order,” she says. Requests for help on advocacy topics, for instance, demonstrated a need for webinars on specific aspects of aid to orchestras. “As part of my role, I’ve been trying to better communicate about all the different options and resources people have available to them,” Gallant says.

Senior Director, Membership and Marketing Rachel Rossos Gallant says that presenting online events that everyone can participate in at a low cost, from their home or office, “has been one way we’ve been able to step up what we’ve been able to do to support the field.”

Many of the League’s fundraising events migrated online during the pandemic.

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A major communication tool is the League’s newly redesigned website, launched earlier this year. The site has a visual style that places timely information front and center and shines more of a spotlight on League members. A dedicated page in the “Connect” section allows orchestras to submit their own photos of people and activities for possible use on the site. “As we build new pages, we comb through the database of images. If we can’t use something right away, we might be able to three or six months down the line,” says Gallant. “It’s another way for us to support the field by giving visibility to what they’re doing.” symphony

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Fundraising in a Virtual World: Development

Marlah BonnerMcDuffie, Vice President of Development

As the League was reaching out to members in new ways this past year, so, too, was Vice President of Development Marlah Bonner-McDuffie. She came on board last September, joining incoming President and CEO Simon Woods. The usual meet-and-greets for new leadership had to be confined to virtual introductions, but it didn’t slow opportunities for Bonner-McDuffie to dig into development and fundraising issues facing orchestras.

Orchestras have grappled with how to stay connected with donors during the pandemic shut-downs. Marlah Bonner-McDuffie, the League’s Vice President of Development, advised them to ramp up fundraising efforts. “If folks are passionate about giving to your organizations, that doesn’t stop because of a crisis,” she says.

League orchestra members expressed appreciation for the rich content, webinars, and partnerships around COVID relief offered, and that the 2020 Conference had been offered free of charge.

Orchestras that had been conducting their own virtual fundraisers had come to understand the potential for increased audiences, engagement, and donor support. “Being able to sit in their living room and participate really opened doors, not just in terms of the League’s visibility and reach, but for our members,” she says.

Some orchestras shared that because of this increased engagement they were able to engage for the first time with national and even international audiences.

Equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) efforts were top of mind, says BonnerMcDuffie. Orchestras wanted to know, “How can you help us be more relevant and have meaning for our communities?”

She explains, “Some people would think that doesn't really impact development, americanorchestras.org

but it does because orchestras, like most organizations, struggle with recruitment and retention of diverse development staff.” Grantmakers are also interested in an orchestra’s EDI efforts.

Orchestras, as well as the League, have grappled with how to stay connected with donors who were engaged through virtual efforts. If anything, BonnerMcDuffie advised them to ramp up fundraising efforts. “Across the nonprofit

world, not just orchestras per se, some organizations really were paralyzed. They just felt the timing was not right to ask for arts funding, when in reality it was the perfect time. If folks are passionate about giving to your organizations, that doesn’t stop because of a crisis.”

REBECCA WINZENRIED is a New York-based arts writer and a former editor in chief of Symphony.

American Academy of Arts and Letters 2 0 2 1 N EW M EM B ERS A N D A W A RD W IN N ERS IN M U S IC Academy Members Anthony Davis · Wynton Marsalis Roberto Sierra · Henry Threadgill Honorary Member Unsuk Chin Gold Medal · Yehudi Wyner Arts and Letters Awards Gabriela Frank · Annie Gosfield David Sanford · Trevor Weston Benjamin H. Danks Award · Yotam Haber Walter Hinrichsen Award · Shawn E. Okpebholo Andrew Imbrie Award · Juri Seo Charles Ives Fellowships Gabriel Kahane · Narong Prangcharoen Charles Ives Scholarships William Dougherty ∙ Alexis Lamb ∙ Ehud Perlman Frances Pollock ∙ Joel Thompson ∙ Shelley Washington Wladimir and Rhoda Lakond Award Wang Lu Goddard Lieberson Fellowships Lei Liang ∙ Tyshawn Sorey

www.artsandletters.org 25

CURRENTS

To Stream, or Not to Stream?

Orchestras raced to put music online in the pandemic as a matter of necessity. But the move to streaming only accelerated a trend that was already underway. As we begin to transition to a post-pandemic world, orchestras must weigh the costs and benefits of streaming, audience expectations, and how to balance in-person and virtual presentations.

By Michael Bronson and Joe Kluger

A

s the U.S. gradually becomes vaccinated, orchestra leaders are faced with the Hamletian dilemma of whether to continue to offer digital streaming of live performances after concert halls reopen and audience-capacity restrictions are lifted. While most everyone acknowledges that streaming has been a critical lifeline to audiences and communities during the pandemic, many orchestra leaders may erroneously assume that there will no longer be an imperative to continue streaming once audiences can attend the live performances that are at the core of their missions.

There are several compelling reasons, however, why orchestras should consider a hybrid strategy of offering live and digital performance content, at least for the next year or so. To be most effective, each orchestra should develop a post-COVID digital strategy based on its unique circumstances, informed by its institutional objectives and community needs.

Each orchestra should develop a post-COVID digital strategy based on its unique circumstances, informed by institutional objectives and community needs.

The Why of Streaming

Although audience research by Alan Brown as part of WolfBrown’s ongoing Audience Outlook Monitor study (https:// www.audienceoutlookmonitor.com/post/executive-briefingwith-alan-brow-may-17-2021) indicates most ticket buyers are eager to resume attending live performances, there are a number of nuances in the data that support the case for orchestras to offer both live and digital performances in the coming season: 1. There is wide divergence as to when audiences say they will feel comfortable being in crowded spaces again, even after herd immunity is reached. At least 15 to 20 percent of those surveyed do not see themselves attending concerts in person until after January 2022. Some will not attend until masks

Minda Davison

Led by Music Director Joseph Giunta, members of the Des Moines Symphony perform “History & Folklore,” the first concert in the orchestra’s livestreamed “Live from the Temple” series, at the Temple for Performing Arts in Des Moines, Iowa.

and social distancing are no longer necessary, some are concerned about how long vaccine immunity will last, and some who are vaccinated worry about transmitting the virus.

2. Even when most audience members are ready to return to the concert hall, some will choose not to get vaccinated, some have underlying health conditions that make them especially vulnerable to COVID-19, some will remain fearful of venturing out, and some will have become accustomed to at-home entertainment. Though it is impossible to predict with certainty, it would not be surprising if these audience segments collectively represent 15 to 20 percent of an orchestra’s pre-COVID audience, which many orchestras were already struggling to maintain.

3. In the face of audience apprehension, or the risk that a resurgence of COVID-19 could require venues to shut down again, offering ticket buyers the option of deciding at the

This article originally appeared in different form in the "Navigating the Crisis" section of WolfBrown’s website at https://www.wolfbrown.com/post/digitalstrategies-to-stream-or-not-to-stream.

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symphony

SUMMER 2021

equipment must be rented, but could be significantly lower on a per-event basis if there is enough streaming activity to justify a capital investment in the purchase of equipment.)

Detroit Symphony Orchestra

Tech set-up for a Detroit Symphony Orchestra concert, five minutes before start time.

last minute whether to experience a performance in-person or at home could increase their willingness to purchase subscriptions or other future ticket packages, and decrease the need for organizations to offer cancellation refunds.

The benefits of reaching those audience members who are not ready to attend live performances, or providing an effective ticket-purchase insurance policy to retain those who are, justify the incremental production and distribution costs of streaming.

The financial calculus should not be contingent, however, on the unlikely realization of sufficient earned or contributed revenue to cover the cost of streaming. Symphony orchestras have always sought philanthropic support to cover the net margin loss (defined as variable revenue less variable expense) from live performances and educational activities. Why should the standard for digital distribution be any different?

The strategic financial questions each orchestra should ask about digital distribution are: 1. What are the incremental costs of capturing and distributing our digital content at an acceptable quality standard?

2. How many people can we reach with our digital offerings?

3. What is the net cost of serving that digital audience on a total and per-person basis, relative to the subsidy required for our live performances?

4. Is the incremental philanthropy required to subsidize the streaming of our digital content attainable and justified, relative to our goals and objectives?

In the hypothetical example below, a medium-sized-budget orchestra that charges $15 for pay-per-view digital access to a streaming program, which it spends $40,000 to produce, might reasonably be able to increase the total live and digital audience reached with that performance by over 50 percent, and decrease the net per person cost of serving each audience member by over 15 percent.

(These digital production costs could be $15,000 to $25,000 higher or lower, depending on the desired level of production values. They also assume that cameras and other production americanorchestras.org

Although it would certainly not be easy in today’s environment to raise philanthropic support to cover the incremental $25,000 in net streaming costs, and an equal challenge to reach such a large digital audience, some donors will surely applaud this kind of holistic cost/benefit analysis of a hybrid live and digital strategy.

The lens through which an orchestra should decide whether and how to offer future digital programming is materially different from whatever motivations drove its pandemic streaming strategy.

The How of Streaming

The lens through which an orchestra should decide whether and how to offer future digital programming is materially different from whatever motivations drove its pandemic streaming strategy. The decisions should also be based on the unique goals and objectives of each institution, which can best be determined by answering several key strategic questions:

Shannon O’Hara

Behind the scenes with Houston Symphony Recording Engineer Brad Sayles

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LEAGUE ONLINE The League of American Orchestras recently presented webinars that examine streaming concerts by orchestras.

Shifting from Stage to Screen focused on how and why orchestras are moving musical content to digital platforms—and creating entirely new experiences for virtual audiences. Panelists from several orchestras and online music outlets discussed aspects of navigating new platforms, including the creative, technical, legal, marketing, patron experience, organizational culture, and other considerations.

Learn more at https:// americanorchestras.org/ shifting-from-stage-toscreen-2/.

In 2020-21: The Resiliency Season, leaders at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra discussed their revamped seasons and offered insights regarding digital versus in-person performances, changes to patron engagement, and how approaches to leadership have evolved.

Learn more at https:// americanorchestras. org/2020-21-theresiliency-season/.

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Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

Just some of the equipment to capture an Atlanta Symphony Orchestra holiday concert.

1. What are the primary objectives of your digital strategy? Are you trying to use streaming as a marketing tool to sell more tickets to your live performances to new audiences with a digital-first strategy, or to drive loyalty and retain your existing audiences? Or do you view streaming as a separate product line that is as central to your mission as live performances?

Is the strategic objective to use digital content to broaden the audiences for your musical performances or to support your education and community-engagement initiatives?

What are the primary objectives of your digital strategy?

2. Who are your targeted audiences? Are you primarily trying to serve regional audiences, or do you believe your orchestra – regardless of budget size or artistic profile – can attract national or international interest in your streaming content? Do you seek to use digital content to expand access to those with economic or physical barriers who cannot attend live performances?

3. What kind of program content does your targeted audience want? Will your streaming audiences be interested in full performances of live concerts, perhaps with some addedvalue content about the works performed or social media interaction with artists? Or are they looking for the kind of highly produced, made-for-streaming content (e.g., San Francisco Symphony, BalletX, Opera Philadelphia, Weston Playhouse, etc.) that they have come to expect from at-home entertainment? Will the audiences for digital versions of full performances be interested only in the excitement of watching a truly “live” event at a scheduled time, or will they prefer the flexibility of

watching on-demand content when convenient for them? With increased competition from myriad online entertainment options, and declining audience attention spans, should you offer shorter excerpts instead of full-length performances?

4. Should access to your digital content be monetized or otherwise restricted? Does it make sense to monetize digital access via pay-per-view fees (e.g., Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, etc.) or subscription fees (e.g., Boston Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, etc.) and offer digital access only to ticket buyers to live performances? Or does it make sense not to limit access at all, but to use free digital content as an audience development strategy to entice people to attend live performances? Should end users have temporary access to the digital content, via live or on-demand streaming, or permanent control via downloads or podcasts? Will touring guest artists allow unrestricted digital distribution or, to avoid depressing demand for their live performances, insist on geofencing of local streaming (which limits access to devices in a defined geographic area)?

Should access to your digital content be monetized or otherwise restricted?

5. How should contractual agreements with content creators be structured for hybrid live and digital performances? Pre-COVID, basic employment agreements governed pay to performers and production personnel for live performances, usually with ancillary rights clearance agreements in place that determined symphony

SUMMER 2021

what they were paid for digital distribution to audiences beyond those in the concert hall. While those agreements may still make sense when an orchestra licenses content through a retail distributor, should they and those they employ agree to modifications to those agreements when the digital distribution is necessary to generate ticket revenue from core audiences to cover the live performance costs?

The answers to these questions should help each symphony orchestra determine what kind of streaming content to offer and whether to distribute it only on its own website and social media platforms via an OTT or “over-the-top” platform that works directly via the internet (e.g., Boxcast, Brightcove, Vimeo, etc.), or in collaboration with other arts groups through an international retail distributor (e.g., DG Stage, Idagio Global Concert Hall, Marquee TV, Medici.tv, etc.). The

answers should also help each orchestra decide whether to offer a handful of programs or follow the examples set by the Berlin Philharmonic and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and make much of their programming available for digital distribution, as part of a shift to make digital programming as central to their missions as live performances.

When COVID-19 shut down all in-person arts activity, many symphony orchestras quickly came to see digital distribution as an essential part of their strategy to remain in the hearts and minds of their audiences and communities. As we all eagerly await the end of a pandemic that has been devastatingly disruptive to the lives of everyone in the arts world, the question is whether electronic media projects will return to the ancillary, “nice to have” role they played in the prepandemic activity calendars and operating budgets for most orchestras. Alternatively, moving digital distribution of performing arts content to center stage as an institutional imperative could be added to the very short list of good things to come out of COVID-19.

JOE KLUGER is a principal of WolfBrown, with over 30 years of experience as a nonprofit executive and consultant in strategic planning, human capital strategies, organizational collaborations, and problem solving for museums, theaters, performing arts centers, opera companies, orchestras, and arts education institutions.

MICHAEL BRONSON has over 40 years of experience as an arts administrator, producer of television and radio programs, and arts management consultant to opera companies and orchestras in labor relations and electronic media projects.

Bronson and Kluger are recognized experts in the use of technology to accomplish strategic objectives in the arts and are consultants in this area to the League of American Orchestras and OPERA America and their members.

Find more information on the League’s Music Distribution and Licensing resources at https://americanorchestras. org/learn/music-distribution-andlicensing.

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NOTHING VALIDATES LIKE RESULTS. Established in 2006, Robert Swaney Consulting, Inc. (RSC) is a leading national provider of contributed revenue growth strategies, best-practice fundraising coaching, comprehensive studies and campaigns, and turnkey direct mail programs for arts and cultural institutions. The firm is headquartered in Indiana, with satellite offices located throughout the United States.

Virtual Fundraising Coach™ Our one-of-a-kind service delivers customized, top-level fundraising coaching – all online! You choose the duration and the focus. We deliver hands-on, comprehensive coaching on your Annual Fund.

of our clients recouped their investment with new money

of our clients met or exceeded FY20 fundraising goals

“In a year of upheaval and distractions, RSC was an invaluable partner. The expertise, discipline, and encouragement they brought to our fundraising program helped us realize record-breaking success that we’ll be able to build upon for years to come…. You will not be disappointed if you select RSC as your consultant for fundraising for an orchestra. I think they are the best in the business.”

–

Celia Mann Baehr, President and CEO Mobile Symphony Orchestra

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra and RSC have been long-time partners, and DSO’s annual fund has experienced unprecedented growth. This year, we easily transitioned to the Virtual Fundraising Coach program, and our annual fund increased again – this time from $7.25M to $8M! RSC’s online coaching system is both effective and cost-efficient!

– James Leffler, Vice President of Development Dallas Symphony Orchestra

“Our clients have found tremendous value in the RSC Virtual Fundraising Coach™ program. We start by creating a personalized fundraising action plan and a value-based message. Weekly coaching meetings perpetually reinforce our best practices. The VFC program became the winning approach for RSC clients in 2020 and 2021. If you’re orchestra wants to achieve superior fundraising results, please contact us today!”

– Bob Swaney, Founder & CEO

317-300-4443 30

| RSC@rscfundraising.com | RSCfundraising.com symphony

SUMMER 2021

PATRON PRESERVATION PROGRAM Since March 2020, orchestra fans have abundantly demonstrated affection and goodwill. Your orchestra likely experienced this generosity firsthand – from more donors making gifts, to ticket buyers converting admission funds into philanthropic support, and to those ‘heroic donors’ who kept your orchestra advancing during a difficult, unprecedented time.

The situation wasn’t pain-free for anyone, yet these combined sacrifices created inspiring stories of organizational survival and a bevy of artistic creativity that will influence music for generations. Patron generosity came with few expectations – simply the satisfaction of helping when it was needed most.

In the coming months, many orchestras will be moving back to the stage to once again perform for live, in-person audiences.

Anticipation will beget celebration – yet at least one major question lingers: WILL COMMUNITY AFFECTION AND GOODWILL CONTINUE AFTER THE RE - OPENING ?

Will consumers return with new expectations? Will donors continue to give as generously?

What will the community expect from the orchestra, both on and off the stage?

Let’s answer optimistically. The specifics will differ slightly by each orchestra, but there are likely two commonalities: how your attendees respond to returning to the concert hall, and your orchestra’s approach to PRESERVING THE PATRON BASE .

Generosity will continue to flow post-pandemic: •

K E E P T I C K E T B U Y E R S : Many concertgoers will return as consumers, but some may not because they will continue to watch virtually. Embrace all patrons, regardless of preferred consumption, and continue to be creative in how you engage audiences.

•

K E E P D O N O R S : Some patrons who permitted converting their unused admission funds into 2020 philanthropic support may consider their generosity a single event, while others gave multiple times via the web or special fundraisers. Analyze your data and work to extend that generosity into the new season.

•

K E E P N E W P A T R O N S : Consumers are returning to the hall with a mix of traditional and new expectations – about the music, the seating, and the safety. Stay ahead of those expectations and be ready to deliver.

Best-practice fundraising will always be essential to preserving the patron base, but the pandemic and recovery period has teased out NEW OPPORTUNITIES that can be replicated in a post-pandemic environment: •

V A L U E - D R I V E N M E S S A G I N G R E S O N A T E S – now more than ever. In the past year, more patrons became ‘mission fans,’ making the orchestra more beloved, well beyond personal consumption.

•

M E S S A G E D E L I V E R Y I S M O R E F L E X I B L E T H A N E V E R – in terms of method, frequency, reach, and impact. Use the new communication pathways established during the pandemic.

•

A S K I N G I S E X P E C T E D , S O C O N T I N U E T O M A K E G I F T R E Q U E S T S . Reliance on technology in 2020 opened the door for more efficient personal asking, and donors became more comfortable with various formats. Continue to ask – and keep using those tech tools to help preserve the donor relationship.

•

T H A N K I N G A N D S T E W A R D I N G now has an expanded delivery repertoire that includes virtual and online media. You can thank patrons and donors more often, with more personalization than ever before.

•

P A T R O N S A R E G E N E R O U S A N D P A T I E N T . Communicate with them frequently to make sure you are meeting those expectations – in-person, by phone, via the web – use it all.

Managing donor and ticket buyer expectations is key to attracting and keeping patrons. RSC has developed a Patron Preservation Program that combines fundraising fundamentals with the emerging innovation born from the 2020 shutdown.

To learn more, visit our website or contact us: 317.300.4443 | R SC@RS CFUNDRAISING .COM | w w w . r s c f u n d r a i s i n g . c o m

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Orchestrating a Better Future Few activities are as central to orchestras as auditions for musicians. “Blind” auditions, in which musicians perform behind a screen to shield their identity, were instituted in the 1970s to redress the longstanding exclusion of people of color and women from orchestras. While blind auditions were successful in some regards, particularly in increasing the proportion of women musicians at orchestras, the percentage of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) musicians has not risen significantly over time. Earlier this year, the National Alliance for Audition Support (NAAS), a collaboration of the League of American Orchestras, the Sphinx Organization, and the New World Symphony, recommended new audition and tenure guidelines to address the inequity of processes for people of color to gain permanent employment in American orchestras. The guidelines suggest new ways to approach the audition process to create more diverse, equitable American orchestras; NAAS acknowledges that any changes to current practice suggested in these guidelines are subject to collective bargaining.

Here are new Audition and Tenure Guidelines as issued by the National Alliance for Audition Support.

NAAS-Recommended Audition and Tenure Guidelines

On April 8, the League of American Orchestras presented Orchestrating a Better Future with New Audition and Tenure Guidelines from NAAS, a webinar exploring the guidelines from the National Alliance for Audition Support (NAAS), a collaboration of the League of American Orchestras, The Sphinx Organization, and the New World Symphony. The webinar is available on demand at http://bit.ly/ orchestratingabetterfuture.

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The processes for people of color to gain permanent employment in our American orchestras are not equitable. Exclusion, harassment, and the lack of access to education, mentorship, and networking opportunities have all impeded their participation in the orchestral field. These discriminatory practices have barricaded the door to our Black and Brown colleagues for the past century.

The exclusion of these musicians has resulted in the loss of their valuable musical and creative contributions, which ultimately diminishes the relevance and impact of the orchestral experience for everyone. Our shared belief in the universal benefit of music for all people is the central tenet of our existence. Our orchestras must find their unique path to greater inclusivity in order to better engage with all their diverse stakeholders.

Despite well-intentioned initiatives over past decades to broaden our racial and ethnic representation, the numbers remain unacceptably low. Aspects of our audition/tenure processes continue to contribute to the legacy of systemic racism that has existed in our country since before the very first orchestra was founded.

If we are to arrive at a fair representation of Black and Brown musicians onstage, we need to examine ourselves and our audition/tenure processes.

With the mutual understanding that there is both an immediate need and a desire to attain greater diversity and inclusion at all levels of our orchestral associations, we offer these audition/tenure guidelines in the hope that they will move us closer to the goal of equal representation. symphony

SUMMER 2021

January 15th, 2021

NAAS Recommended Audition and Tenure Guidelines The processes for people of color to gain permanent employment in our American orchestras are not equitable. Exclusion, harassment, the lack of access to education, mentorship and networking opportunities, have all impeded their participation in the orchestral field. These discriminatory practices have barricaded the door to our Black and Brown colleagues for the past century.

The exclusion of these musicians has resulted in the loss of their valuable musical and creative contributions, which ultimately diminishes the relevance and impact of the orchestral experience for everyone. Our shared belief in the universal benefit of music for all people is the central tenet of our existence. Our orchestras must find their unique path to greater inclusivity in order to better engage with all their diverse stakeholders.

Despite well-intentioned initiatives over past decades to broaden our racial and ethnic representation, the numbers remain unacceptably low. Aspects of our audition/tenure processes continue to contribute to the legacy of systemic racism that has existed in our country since before the very first orchestra was founded. If we are to arrive at a fair representation of Black and Brown musicians onstage, we need to examine ourselves and our audition/tenure processes.

With the mutual understanding that there is both an immediate need and a desire to attain greater diversity and inclusion at all levels of our orchestral associations, we offer these audition/tenure guidelines in the hope that they will move us closer to the goal of equal representation.

The following elemental principles run through both the audition and tenure processes:

3.

4.

5.

6.

1. A shared understanding between board members, music directors, administration and musicians that our orchestras should reflect the racial makeup of the communities they serve and should in good faith pursue that goal.

Orchestras ought to assess themselves and their communities to determine their representative needs.

Read and download the New Audition and Tenure Guidelines from NAAS at http://bit.ly/NAASguidelines.

The following elemental principles run through both the audition and tenure processes: 1. A shared understanding between board members, music directors, administration, and musicians that our orchestras should reflect the racial makeup of the communities they serve and should in good faith pursue that goal. Orchestras ought to assess themselves and their communities to determine their representative needs.

2. Training in anti-racism, implicit bias, and group communication skills is imperative at all levels of the organization, particularly for those individuals directly involved in the auditions and tenure review of new musicians.

3. Setting concrete/time-bound benchmarks toward reaching the target goal of inclusivity are strongly recommended. E.g.: Orchestras would explore, where necessary negotiate, and then implement pathways to increased diversity within the first season of adoption.

Audition Guidelines

With the understanding that there is no “one size fits all” archetype for audition procedures, we offer up these recommendations for discussion and exploration. Our hope is that these ideas will inspire an evolving understanding of the audition process as it now stands and how it might be more equitably applied in the future. All parties must recognize that these concepts fall within the purview of existing collective bargaining agreements and are therefore subject to mandatory bargaining.

1. Consider granting all applicants a live audition—no screening of resumes.

2. Recruit applicants of color, Black, and Latinx, for a higher degree of representation within the audition americanorchestras.org

7.

pool. The NAAS Musician Database lists qualified musician candidates. In addition, Sphinx Orchestral Partners Auditions (SOPA) is an audition preview opportunity for NAAS partner orchestras to hear live auditions of potential candidates.

Fully screened auditions from first through last rounds.

In cases of automatic advancement or invitation to later rounds, interrogate the determining criteria. Are there ways to ensure greater diversity? Try to include a percentage of Black and Brown musicians, at least 25%, into those automatically advanced rounds.

“No-hire” auditions are an expense and frustration to all parties. Strongly encourage that a decision will be made to hire by the end of that process.

Consider if the use of “trial weeks” inappropriately places candidates in the untenable position of having to “fit in” and meet unknown expectations. Information gleaned during trial weeks could be obtained through the audition process or during the probationary period.

In addition to musical excellence, a musician’s ability to serve as a cultural ambassador or spokesperson may be of value to orchestras. Where an orchestra’s bargaining partners (musicians/union and management) agree that such additional skills are desirable in new musician hires, the parties will need to develop and agree upon ways of evaluating applicants in addition to the blind audition. A consultant with expertise in equity and diversity may be helpful to the bargaining parties in developing specific methods and processes for extra-musical evaluation, as may the involvement of diverse musicians and community leaders.

Tenure Review Guidelines

1. Create a process of shared feedback throughout the tenure review that is transparent to the musician candidate, the music director, and relevant musician committee and section members. Constructive and direct feedback should be shared at a minimum of every six months for a two-year tenure process and every two to three months for a one-year process.

2. At the start of the tenure process, a meeting should be scheduled with the tenure candidate, musician committee representatives, and a representative from management to clearly explain the tenure process and the rights of the candidate.

3. In the interest of assisting in a positive outcome, the musician committee, in consultation with the candidate, should identify a musician advocate or ombudsman who can guide the candidate through the tenure process and assist in communication with other musicians and management.

4. The relationship of the candidate, musician committee, and orchestra should be collegial and respectful.

Candidates should be encouraged to share their own feedback.

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RESOURCES Read the New Audition and Tenure Guidelines from NAAS at http://bit.ly/ NAASguidelines.

NAAS Audition and Tenure Guidelines Committee

The following thought partners were involved in the creation of the document and endorse its message.

Administrators

On April 8, the League of American Orchestras presented Orchestrating a Better Future with New Audition and Tenure Guidelines from NAAS, a webinar exploring the new guidelines from the National Alliance for Audition Support (NAAS), https://americanorchestras. org/national-alliance-for-auditionsupport/, a collaboration of the League of American Orchestras, The Sphinx

Anna Kuwabara, Executive Director, Albany Symphony John Kieser, Executive Producer, New World Symphony (Guidelines Committee CoChair) Mark Hanson, Executive Director, San Francisco Symphony Afa Dworkin, President and Artistic Director, Sphinx Organization Union Officers:

John Michael Smith, President, Regional Orchestra Players Association (ROPA) Meredith Snow, Chair, International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians (ICSOM) (Guidelines Committee Co-Chair)

Organization, and the New World

John Lofton, Board of Directors, American Federation of Musicians Local 47

Symphony. The webinar, free for League

Music Directors:

members, examined how the NAAS

Michael Morgan, Oakland Symphony

audition and tenure guidelines offer paths

Tito Muñoz, The Phoenix Symphony

forward in eliminating the discriminatory

Musicians:

practices that have long impeded people

Titus Underwood, Principal Oboe, Nashville Symphony

of color in the orchestra field, recognizing

Alberto Suarez, Principal Horn, Kansas City Symphony, and Member, NAAS Artist Council

that any ideas in the guidelines operate under existing collective bargaining agreements and are subject to mandatory bargaining. Panelists included Andre Dowell, chief of artist engagement, the Sphinx Organization; Afa S. Dworkin, president and artistic director, the Sphinx Organization; John Kieser, executive producer of media, New World Symphony; Michael Morgan, music director, Oakland Symphony; Tito Muñoz, music director, the Phoenix Symphony; Bill Neri, project manager, NAAS; and Meredith Snow, ICSOM chairperson, and violist, Los Angeles Philharmonic. Watch the webinar on demand at http://bit. ly/orchestratingabetterfuture. Contact League Member Services at member@ americanorchestras.org with questions.

Read Symphony magazine’s Spring 2021 article “Rethinking Blind Auditions,” a panel discussion about the audition process among Black musicians, at https://americanorchestras.org/ rethinking-blind-auditions/. programs/the-catalyst-fund/.

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Naomi Bensdorf Frisch, Principal Oboe, Illinois Philharmonic, and Attorney, Illinois Advocates LLC Personnel Managers:

Rebecca Blum, Senior Director of Orchestra Personnel and Education Planning, San Francisco Symphony Shana Bey, Associate Orchestra Personnel Manager, Los Angeles Philharmonic Matt Oshida, Orchestra Personnel Manager, Modesto Symphony Orchestra Ex Officio:

Andre Dowell, Sphinx Organization Bill Neri, Sphinx Organization

Rethinking Blind Auditions Blind auditions, in which musicians perform behind a screen to shield their identity, were instituted to redress the longstanding exclusion of people of color and women from orchestras. Blind auditions were successful in some regards, but the percentage of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color musicians has not risen significantly over the years. Is it time to rethink blind auditions? Here, Afa Dworkin moderates a discussion in which several Black musicians offer their views on where things stand now, share their lived experience, and suggest new ways to approach the audition process to create more diverse, equitable American orchestras.

Discussion moderated by Afa Dworkin.

Starting in the 1970s, American orchestras implemented “blind belonged to a self-reinforcing network. Musicians’ unions were auditions,” whereby screens concealed musician candidates from segregated until the federal government ordered the merger of the audition committee and promised anonymity. The impetus Black and White unions in 1967. Some adjustments were made for blind auditions was to address orchestras’ enduring racial and to blind auditions along the way: carpeting was installed when disparity: most orchestra musicians were White men. By people realized that the sound of women’s shoes indicated gender.

In Springgender 2021, Symphony magazine published “Rethinking Blind Auditions,” a panel discussion eliminating visual characteristics such as race and gender, blind But despite the name, the process was never entirely blind. among Black aboutartistry the audition process. the complete article https:// auditionsmusicians meant that a musician’s became the central con- Read Particularly in terms of gender, blind at auditions changed the sideration, and that in turn would lead to greater representation face of orchestras. In 1970, according to a 2000 Harvard study, americanorchestras.org/rethinking-blind-auditions/. and hiring of long-excluded musicians. Orchestras would look women comprised about 6 percent of musicians at some larger more like the communities they served. orchestras. In 1978, according to the League of American OrHowever, it should be acknowledged at the outset that the term chestras’ 2016 Racial/Ethnicsymphony and Gender Diversity inM theMOrchestra SU ER 2021 “blind auditions” is a misnomer, since very few orchestras have Field study, the percentage of women musicians at orchestras engaged in truly blind auditions. Most orchestras have a process was 38.2 percent, and in 2014 women comprised 47.4 percent of which determines a musician’s readiness for an audition based orchestra musicians. The League study reported that the percentupon the individual’s resume and, more importantly, the vast maage of musicians with Asian/Pacific Islander backgrounds rose jority of orchestras eliminate the screen during the later rounds of from 5.3 percent in 1980 to 9.1 percent in 2014. However, the

americanorchestras.org

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Laken Emerson

A Fort Smith Symphony rehearsal for live concerts (with COVID-19 safety protocols) featuring Concertmaster Er-Gene Kahng conducted by Music Director John Jeter at the ArcBest Performing Arts Center, Arkansas, February 26, 2021. This summer, the orchestra will move to the campus of the Arkansas Colleges of Health Education.

Restorative Notes The pandemic ushered in a prolonged period when many musicians could not perform with their orchestras. This time has been psychologically and emotionally fraught not only for musicians, but for orchestra staffers as well, and it has brought heightened attention to the importance of health and wellness.

Instrumentalists, composers, orchestras, and therapists are stepping up to help their colleagues by creating programs that provide solace, support, and a space to talk.

by Michele C. Hollow 36

symphony

SUMMER 2021

M

any musicians subscribe to the myth that a tortured psyche creates great art. “We’re all familiar with it,” says composer Julia Adolphe, “and it’s heightened due to the pandemic.”

Last year was especially rough on musicians. The uncertainty of the pandemic, not being able to perform, losing income, being isolated, and feeling anxious and depressed were overwhelming for many. Others felt numb and exhausted.

In the midst of the pandemic, Adolphe says she lost her creative drive.

Deadlines loomed for four orchestral compositions, but she wondered if the works would ever debut. When she expressed her concern to the orchestras that commissioned the works, they reassured her the compositions would be part of their next season’s concert offerings—when it was safe to perform again in person. COVID caused a fair amount of rescheduling. “The uncertainty hit hard,” she recalls. “But talking to the people who commissioned the works and to other musicians, I knew I wasn’t alone.”

In February 2021, Adolphe launched a podcast called LooseLeaf NoteBook, in which she interviews performers about mental health and creativity. “It started as a creative outlet for me to connect with other performers,” she says, “and it’s grown.” New Music Box, the online publication of New Music USA, began posting the interviews on its website, with artist interviews on the second

Guests on Julia Adolphe’s “LooseLeaf NoteBook” podcast included discussions with singer and librettist Aiden Feltkamp (bottom left, about transgender identity, neurodivergence, and equity) and composers Cindy Lam (top left, about voicing trauma and connecting with your inner child) and Sarah Kirkland Snider (top right, about anxiety, creative process, and support).

and fourth Wednesdays of the month.

Adolphe says listener feedback has been positive. Adolphe has spoken openly about her own generalized anxiety disorder, with which she was diagnosed in college, and for which she receives therapy and medication. The podcasts are a place where Adolphe can help fellow performers to express their feelings and share ways to cope. Recently, Adolphe interviewed conductor Daniela Candillari, who talked about how she connects her identity to her work on the podium and as a composer and pianist.

Once that work vanished, Candillari

in her garden. We also discussed how play, meditation, letting go of control, and deep listening impact creativity and mental health.” The topics covered in Adolphe’s podcast are varied; in a February podcast, Adolphe reflected on the importance of asking for help and ways to create safe spaces. Among those who have been featured are composers Billy Childs and Samuel Adler, pianist Gloria Cheng, librettist and singer Aiden Feltkamp (who is also American Composers Orchestra’s emerging composers and diversity director), and percussionist Sidney Hopson.

Stephen Busken

The podcasts are a place where Julia Adolphe can help fellow performers to express their feelings and share ways to cope. Recently, Adolphe interviewed conductor Daniela Candillari, who talked about how she connects her identity to her work on the podium and as a composer and pianist. Once that work vanished, Candillari asked herself, “Who am I? How well can I express myself now?”

During the pandemic, composer Julia Adolphe created “LooseLeaf NoteBook,” a virtual interview series with musicians, focusing on mental health and creativity.

americanorchestras.org

asked herself, “Who am I? How well can I express myself now?” She told Adolphe, “For artists, what we do from an early age inherently becomes who we are. It shapes us.”

Losing that connection has left many performers feeling adrift. “Daniela found pottery and gardening as outlets,” says Adolphe. “She talked about the joy of pottery and being outdoors

In one of Adolphe’s interviews, composer Jessie Montgomery discusses her work and the diverse musical styles she loves; she also speaks about how systemic racism affects her perception of her own musical identity, and how it is often a challenge being the only musician of color—or one of just two.

“I struggled a lot when the Black Lives Matter movement broke out,” she says.

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Stephen Busken

“Talking about taking the stigma out of mental illness proved to help me and others,” says composer Julia Adolphe.

“I was not able to go to protests because of health concerns.” She says she asked herself, “What is the best way to participate? If I don’t say anything, nobody will say anything. We have to practice anti-racism. You have to look at things you do, say, and think that are framed by White supremacists and by history. It’s a shared discomfort talking about racism, but in order for the conversation to evolve, everyone has to participate.”

Adolphe says planning, hosting, and putting the podcasts together have broadened her connection to other artists. “Talking about taking the stigma out of mental illness proved to help me and others,” she says. When we spoke this spring, she had two big compositional deadlines to complete and said she feels motivated and content.

Putting Health Front and Center Holly Mulcahy, concertmaster of the Wichita Symphony, noticed the anxiety, fear, and depression among her peers during the past year, which had included canceling the end of the 2019-20 season, delaying the start of the current season to January 2021, and creating Zoom recitals by the orchestra’s musicians. With approval from the orchestra’s board, she came up with Wellness Wednesdays, a weekly series of videos that debuted in January 2021 on the Wichita Symphony’s website. Among those featured on the series were Music Director Daniel Hege and psychiatrist Shannon Loeck.

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Wellness Wednesdays proved so popular, Mulcahy says, that it continued through April, although it was originally set to end in February. The videos, which are a mix of music and chat, “give people a point to pause in their day, so they can feel a little better,” Mulcahy says. Each episode starts off with an introduction of the artist or expert, and there is a brief performance.

“When we first started, the assumption was it would be meditative kinds of music, and relaxation kinds of pieces,”

says Mulcahy. “But our approach was to acknowledge that everyone was experiencing some really powerful emotions, and we felt in order to bring a sense of complete wellness, acknowledging those emotions and experiences was authentic and sincere.”

The series—aimed at orchestra musicians, board, and staff, but also available to the public—covered relaxation and breathing exercises as well as coping with negative emotions. “It’s oddly comforting to know everyone had a variation of those emotions at one point or another during this crisis,” Mulcahy says, “and it was comforting to allow music to be the focal point of healing for vastly different reasons.” The popularity of the series grew by word-of-mouth. “People would comment on the site and email their friends, colleagues, and families telling them to try the relaxation and breathing exercises,” Mulcahy says.

It’s clear that Mulcahy put a lot of planning into each episode, including discussing ideas with a therapist. Everything centered around mental health wellness—even the more unusual topics, such as weighted blankets (blankets filled with plastic pellets or glass beads, with the weight designed to relieve stress and anxiety). In that episode, Mulcahy asked, “If music was a weight-

“Our approach was to acknowledge that everyone was experiencing some really powerful emotions,” says Wichita Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster Holly Mulcahy. “We felt in order to bring a sense of complete wellness, acknowledging those emotions and experiences was authentic and sincere.” symphony

SUMMER 2021

LEAGUE WEBINAR ON MENTAL HEALTH AND WELLNESS

Throughout the pandemic, Lauren Aycock Anderson, a licensed therapist, noticed that many musicians “beat themselves up emotionally. It’s common and most people don’t realize they’re doing it.” ed blanket, what type of music would you think of ?” Sibelius was one answer.

“Listening to his music, you can feel the warmth that you get from a weighted blanket,” she explains. Another Wellness Wednesday episode featured Wichita Symphony cellist Susan Mayo performing on her farm for her two goats. The idea was to listen to the calming sounds of nature.

The Wellness Wednesday site also featured a recipe for spiced chickenginger stew that Mulcahy compared to the music of Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring because of its richness. “The recipe is a super food that has healing qualities that help us maintain a healthy life and a balanced wellbeing,” she says.

“Copland’s Appalachian Spring weaves so many emotions and feelings throughout the 20-plus minute work. It offers calm, peace, joy, energy, textures, colors, flavors,

phony’s website, and the program was on pause for an encouraging reason: the orchestra was rehearsing for upcoming concerts this spring and summer.

A Holistic Approach The staff at the Fort Smith Symphony took time during the height of the pandemic to devise a game plan that fuses music with holistic wellness. This summer the orchestra, based in Arkansas, is moving its administrative offices to the campus of the Arkansas Colleges of Health Education (ACHE). The move, according to Fort Smith Symphony Music Director John Jeter, “benefits both Fort Smith Symphony musicians and staff and the faculty, staff, and students at ACHE. It provides opportunities for interaction between our two organizations. The school’s osteopathic medicine program is one of the largest in the

The Fort Smith Symphony’s office move to the campus of the Arkansas Colleges of Health Education “benefits both Fort Smith Symphony musicians and staff and the faculty, staff, and students at the college,” says Music Director John Jeter. etc. All of that in one singular work.”

The series is free and according to Mulcahy, many patrons are watching, too. “Wellness Wednesdays are a respite from the negatives of the pandemic,” she says. At press time, there were thirteen episodes posted on the Wichita Symamericanorchestras.org

country, and the college wants to have its medical students more engaged in music. The researchers at ACHE want to study how music and art affect us on all levels.”

This comes at a much-needed time, Jeter notes; after a year of limited con-

On February 24, the League of American Orchestras hosted a webinar entitled “Mental Health and Wellness: A Conversation,” moderated by Stephanie Wagner, a trainer and program specialist at Healthy Minds Innovations (affiliated with the University of WisconsinMadison). The 90-minute virtual discussion offered first steps in normalizing conversations about mental health for those in the orchestra field; panelists included a musician, composer, orchestra administrator, and licensed therapist.

The panelists included 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 included tips backed by science to support and nurture mental and emotional wellbeing during this challenging time, as well as a Q&A with the panel. The session was recorded and made available afterward on-demand.

For more information, visit https://americanorchestras. org/mental-health-wellness-aconversation/

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Laken Emerson

Laken Emerson

Top photo: The Fort Smith Symphony, Music Director John Jeter, and Concertmaster Er-Gene Kahng rehearse at the ArcBest Performing Arts Center, Arkansas. Above: Arkansas Colleges of Health Education President Brian Kim (left), who is a violinist in the Fort Smith Symphony, with Jeter (right) outside the new ACHE Research Institute Health & Wellness Center. The orchestra will move to the Colleges of Health Education campus in the coming months.

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Michael McEvoy

New World Symphony musicians rehearse Adolphus Hailstork’s Fanfare on Amazing Grace, coached by the composer (on video monitor) at New World Center in Miami Beach, Florida. Leading the rehearsal (standing) is NWS Dean of Chamber Music and Fellow Development Michael Linville. The World Symphony recently created a Resilience Fund to support mental health services for its participating musicians.

The recently launched Sound Health Network is a partnership among the National Endowment for the Arts, the University of California, San Francisco, the Kennedy Center, and the National Institutes of Health.

The network brings together scientists, music therapists, artists, and the public to study music’s impact on brain health and overall wellness.

americanorchestras.org

certs, musicians in masks, and keeping socially distanced, it’s a welcome change to have researchers seek to collaborate with orchestra musicians and staff.

Thanks to vaccines, everyone is starting to see a positive change. “With this move,” Jeter explains, “the orchestra will be involved in numerous research and educational projects specific to music and the arts as it pertains to wellness.

The researchers will look at how music contributes to overall wellness—both physical and mental.”

The list of research projects and activities is long. It’s in the developmental stage and includes more outdoor concerts, a summer music and health camp program for young musicians, rehearsals followed by yoga sessions, healthy-cooking workshops, mindfulness programs, outdoor hikes, and painting and sculpture classes for orchestra musicians, staff, and others at the college.

Jeter’s excitement is palpable when he talks about the orchestra’s involvement with the college’s osteopathic medicine

division. “Osteopaths focus on prevention,” he says. “They look at your lifestyle and environment, rather than just treating your symptoms.”

Brian Kim is president of Arkansas Colleges of Health Education and a violinist in the Fort Smith Symphony. He sees the move as a logical step for both organizations. “With the arts and wellness initiative that ACHE has begun to pursue, along with our close relationship with the symphony, it made sense to relocate their officers to our Research Institute Health & Wellness Center,” Kim says. Both Jeter and Kim say the decision to move was made jointly by the orchestra and the college. “With ACHE’s new arts and wellness initiative, along with our very close relationship with the symphony, it just made sense to relocate their offices to our Research Institute Health & Wellness Center,” Kim says.

Stop Beating Yourself Up Maryland-based therapist Lauren

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Aycock Anderson, owner of Counseling for Creatives, LLC, focuses on providing treatment for artists, musicians, and other creatives. During the pandemic, her practice has been conducted entirely through telemedicine. In March 2021,

she wrote on her Facebook page, “It’s been a year since the world stopped.

We’re living in the middle of a trauma anniversary. If you’re feeling strange, anxious, on edge, can’t sleep, or maybe particularly sad, depressed, or angry, it

Cassidy Fitzpatrick Carlson, the New World Symphony’s dean and senior vice president for musician advancement, says the organization’s new Resilience Fund supports a mental health platform for its musicians.

Judith Rodin, a New World Symphony trustee, seeded the organization’s new Resilience Fund, which supports a free therapy program where musicians can talk about anxiety, stress, and other issues that have been heightened during the pandemic.

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could be your body remembering what happened a year ago.”

Aycock Anderson, who’s also a musician, was among participants in the League of American Orchestras’ February 24 webinar, “Mental Health and Wellness: A Conversation.” (See sidebar.) Throughout the pandemic, she’s noticed that many musicians have been extremely hard on themselves.

“They beat themselves up emotionally,” she says. “It’s common and most people don’t realize they’re doing it.”

One of Aycock Anderson’s goals is to see artists become aware of their feelings. “When you say you hate yourself or ‘I’m such an idiot,’ it’s important to stop for a second and take a breath,” she says. “Look at what’s going on right now. Ask yourself, ‘What made me have that thought?’ And then ask yourself, ‘What do I need?’ It can be something as simple as a break.” Aycock Anderson says artists can be extremely critical of themselves. “Sometimes, they just need to stop and take a break. In that moment, they can let go of those negative feelings.”

Aycock Anderson says it’s important for everyone to understand “our worth is not defined by what jobs we have.”

Her recommendations to boost mental wellness include breathing exercises, meditation, exercise, connecting with others, going outside and connecting with nature, and being kind to yourself and toward others. If you’re not feeling well, talk to a friend, doctor, or therapist. “Listen to your body,” she says. “A headache may be your body telling you something emotional is going on. Ask for help. Anxiety only goes away when we address the problem.”

Bouncing Back In response to the devastating impact of COVID-19 and the consequences of systemic racism in the performing arts, New World Symphony, the orchestral training academy in Miami Beach, Florida, recently created a Resilience Fund to support mental health services for its participating musicians, who are referred to as fellows.

“Resilience is the capacity to bounce back from crises more quickly and effectively, to learn from them, and to transsymphony

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form as a result,” Dr. Judith Rodin, a New World trustee who seeded the fund with $500,000, says. Cassidy Fitzpatrick Carlson, the New World Symphony’s dean and senior vice president for musician advancement, adds, “The Resilience Fund gives us budgetary freedom to create an environment where fellows can continue learning.” The Resilience Fund also supports areas such as emerging digital technology as well as a “teletherapy mental health platform where individuals are paired with a licensed therapist,” says Fitzpatrick Carlson.

“They’ll receive regular talk therapy as you would in person.” The platform is called Better Help and “allows New World Symphony fellows to talk about stress and anxiety, racial injustices, social isolation, and being in an industry that emphasizes perfection. All of this is magnified due to the pandemic.”

According to Fitzpatrick Carlson, about 50 percent of orchestra fellows are taking advantage of the online therapy.

“The feedback is positive,” she says, “and it’s free to participate. We will be doing an enrollment again in the fall as new fellows join New World Symphony.”

The pandemic played a major role in the decision to create the Resilience Fund. In addition, the New World Symphony found real-world inspiration in the National Endowment for the Arts’ partnership with the University of California, San Francisco; the Kennedy Center; and the National Institutes of Health. That union created a program called Sound Health Network, which brings together scientists, music therapists, artists, and the public to study music’s impact on brain health and overall wellness. While uncertainty about the path of the pandemic endures, orchestras and musicians are finding ways to perform. And there is reason for optimism for the coming season, with vaccines and many venues offering concerts with limited seating. Research continues and changes are occurring.

MICHELE C. HOLLOW writes about health, mental health, climate, and animals. Her byline has appeared in The York Times, AARP, The Guardian, Parents, and other publications. americanorchestras.org

The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra proudly presents America Strong, a patriotic concert featuring a diverse range of music, performers and composers to celebrate what’s best of America.

Latonia Moore

Special performances from opera favorites soprano Latonia Moore and bass Morris Robinson.

Morris Robinson

Selections by modern-day composers Adolphus Hailstork, Kevin Day, Jimmy Lopez and more, all under the musical direction of Maestro Miguel Harth-Bedoya.

For more information visit fwsymphony.org 43

Seasons of Change As we tentatively begin to emerge from the pandemic, what will the fall orchestra season look like? One thing is certain: It won’t be business as usual. Orchestras have grappled with the pandemic and sought to confront racial injustice while adopting notably different approaches to the new season. Flexibility is key, given the unpredictable nature of the pandemic.

By Steven Brown

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Orchestras are moving ahead with initiatives born during the pandemic and the societal reckoning with racial injustice.

Forced by the pandemic to stream concerts online, groups ranging from Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra to Houston Symphony to San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale are now giving virtual performances a permanent place on their schedules. In Pennsylvania, the pandemic has influenced the Johnsamericanorchestras.org

Walker, and Florence Price. One example: William Levi Dawson’s Negro Folk Symphony, premiered by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1934, will be performed by the Baltimore Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, and Seattle Symphony. New attention is also going to women from the past—such as Louise Farrenc, a French contemporary of Hector Berlioz, and Ida Moberg, a Finnish contemporary of Jean Sibelius.

Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

town Symphony’s live-concert plans: Audiences took so well to community concerts by a string quartet and other small ensembles—some of the group’s first performances as the shutdowns eased— that the orchestra is launching a chamber series to keep them in the spotlight.

After long neglecting music by women and composers of color, orchestras are embracing them like never before. The Atlanta Symphony’s 2021-22 classical series will include artists from underrepresented groups in every program as composers, performers, or both, says Executive Director Jennifer Barlament. The bounty includes 23 works by women and composers of color, including the world premieres of Conrad Tao’s Violin Concerto, Xavier Foley’s Double Bass Concerto, and the violin-concerto version of Missy Mazzoli’s Dark With Excessive Bright, plus pieces by a century’s worth of composers from Lili Boulanger and Tōru Takemitsu to Alvin Singleton and Jessie Montgomery.

The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra are among the many ensembles of every size that will also perform generous helpings of works from once-minimized groups in addition to “standard” repertoire.

The Columbus Symphony is expanding its programs for local schools, Executive Director Denise Rehg says, and will start giving free tickets to people ages 6 to 16 to win them over to the live-music experience.

Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society, in keeping with its emphasis on the Baroque and Classical periods, has enlisted an artistic partner to help it seek out underrepresented composers from the past; it also recently livestreamed the premiere of a work by today’s Jonathan Woody that incorporates themes by Charles Ignatius Sancho, a Black composer of the 18th century who was enslaved. The Cincinnati Symphony, investing in a new staff position, has hired a chief diversity officer to orient it toward equity, diversity, and inclusion onstage and off.

All this activity does not mean that orchestras’ social-justice work is finished.

Many orchestras are featuring artists from long-underrepresented groups as composers, performers, or both throughout the 2021-22 season.

By premiering commissioned works and spotlighting existing ones, orchestras nationwide will highlight the rich diversity of today’s composers. The creators on season lineups include Xi Wang, Leanna Primiani, Roberto Sierra, Viet Cuong, Caroline Shaw, Jerod Impichchaachaahaˈ Tate, Gabriela Lena Frank, Vivian Fung, Joel Thompson, Unsuk Chin, Clarice Assad, Kaoru Ishibashi (also known as Kishi Bashi), and even a young undergraduate at Indiana University, KiMani Bridges.

The Las Vegas Philharmonic will devote its season to pairing Beethoven symphonies with modern-day pieces, including Anna Clyne’s Beethoven-inspired Stride and a new work by Mexico’s Juan Pablo Contreras.

Meanwhile, orchestras are rediscovering works by long-neglected Black composers such as William Grant Still, George

Todd Hull

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n a simpler, long-ago time—January 2020—the Columbus Symphony’s trustees ratified a new mission statement: “Inspiring and building a strong community through music is the core of everything we do.”

“At first blush, it doesn’t sound earthshattering,” Executive Director Denise Rehg says. “But that is way different from all the mission statements we used to have, which were about the excellence of the music. It clearly placed us in the role of being a servant-leader of the community.”

The Ohio orchestra’s commitment faced an immediate test, of course, when COVID-19 upended everything. “I don’t want to use the word fortuitous in the midst of a pandemic,” Rehg adds, but “COVID offered us the perfect situation” to prove the group could live up to its credo. The orchestra reassigned part of its slender staff to create two educational websites and enlisted its musicians to make instructional videos. Thanks to everyone’s efforts, the orchestra’s educational reach expanded from 22,000 students pre-pandemic to 55,000. When gradual reopening made community concerts possible, the orchestra played 23 of them in nine days. “The good things we learned and achieved through COVID— we’re not planning to discontinue them.

We’re adding on top of them,” Rehg says.

The Columbus Symphony is just one of the orchestras forging ahead with initiatives born during the pandemic and the societal reckoning that came on its heels: the demonstrations and soul-searching set off by the George Floyd killing and the alarming rise in violence against Asian Americans.

“The pandemic forced us to fast-forward some of these future-oriented and equity-oriented endeavors, which might have taken years to develop,” says Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Executive Director Jennifer Barlament. “It’s really important.”

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Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

Amid the constantly changing situation of the pandemic, many orchestras have had to plan and re-plan their seasons, postponing public announcements months past their usual timing. The Cincinnati Symphony penciled in a fall season for reduced orchestra and audiences, President and CEO Jonathan Martin says, then went back to the drawing board when it learned that everything could return to full-size.

The Houston Symphony in mid-June announced much of its classical season, but gaps remained here and there, such as weeks that showed the guest conductor but left the musical works to be announced. The orchestra may capitalize on the experience it gained last year, when it was one of the few ensembles that performed full classical and pops series in front of live audiences—albeit with social distancing limiting the sizes of both audience and orchestra. Because of shifting international travel restrictions and unexpected surges in the virus, artists sometimes had to drop out at the last minute. That forced the Houston Symphony to “constantly redo” its plans for repertoire and performers, Executive Director and CEO John Mangum recalls.

“It was an ongoing process of continuous reinvention,” and he thinks flexibility will remain the byword as the virus charts its own course.

Reinvention is in store for the Houston Symphony’s concert formats, too, now that its audiences have experienced a season of compact programs: roughly 75 minutes of music without intermission. “We’re not in a mad rush to go back

The Cincinnati Symphony recently hired Harold Brown as its first chief diversity and inclusion officer, a senior-management position reporting directly to the orchestra’s president and CEO.

Roger Mastroianni

Wilson Parish Photography

But the increased presence of women and Black, Indigenous, and other artists of color in programming is a tangible shift as part of ongoing efforts to effect real, lasting change.

The past year’s storms have had “a silver lining,” the Atlanta Symphony’s Barlament says. Orchestras had long been aware of technology’s possibilities and diversity’s value, she continues. But they needed a push, and it finally came. “The pandemic forced us to fast-forward some of these future-oriented and equity-oriented endeavors, which might have taken years or decades to develop,” Barlament points out. “I think it’s a renaissance for American orchestras, to come to terms with what it means to be an American orchestra. What does it mean to be the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, when people have become so much more aware of how differences and identities—including race and ethnicity—affect everything in our world? It’s been a long time coming, and it’s really important."

“Orchestras, like most arts organizations, tended to approach their work from the view that ‘We know what’s best.’ There wasn’t much give or take,” says Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra President and CEO Jonathan Martin.

“We have discarded that whole, ineffective way of doing things.”

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“We’re not in a mad rush to go back to business as usual,” says Houston Symphony Executive Director and CEO John Mangum, shown preparing for the orchestra’s livestream on August 22, 2020. “We want to take a lot of what we learned this year and bake it into what we do.”

Melissa Taylor Photography

Planning Ahead

The Houston Symphony regularly performed full concerts for live audiences during the pandemic—albeit with social distancing and capacity limits. In photo, David Robertson leads the Houston Symphony in works of Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Weber on May 14, 2021.

to business as usual,” Mangum says. The orchestra has gotten copious feedback from its patrons, and “we want to take a lot of what we learned this year and bake it into what we do. Some patrons, especially the weeknight patrons, really like when concerts are over before 9:30 p.m.

Some people want the traditional concert experience, where the bars are open and they can have a drink at intermission. It may be that on Friday night, you get your 70 minutes of music with no intermission.

It may be that on Saturday, there’s an encore—or there’s an overture or something that we didn’t announce—and there’s an intermission between the concerto and the symphony.”

After streaming its Saturday concerts last season, treating the virtual performances as an either/or option with the live ones, the Houston Symphony will experiment in the coming season with subscription and ticket packages that combine live and virtual events. The orchestra will offer “a sort of hybrid, where you have an opportunity to attend in person or watch the livestream, or attend in person and watch the livestream on a different night,” Mangum explains. “We’re looking at how that can become more integrated into the ecosystem of the Houston Symphony, and integrated into how our audience experiences the concerts. If you were blown away by a performance and want you want to show it to a friend, you have that available.”

Orchestras that relied on virtual performances last year as their only option are now reevaluating their strategies as they go back before their audiences. At press time, the Minnesota Orchestra hadn’t symphony

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Handel and Haydn Society

This spring, the Handel and Haydn Society livestreamed the premiere of Suite for String Orchestra After the Works of Charles Ignatius Sancho, by composer Jonathan Woody (in photo). Sancho (c. 1729–December 14, 1780) was born on a ship carrying enslaved people, escaped slavery, and later composed and published classical music. The orchestra will give Woody’s work an in-person premiere at its 2021-22 season-opening concert. americanorchestras.org

Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

Brantley Gutierrez

Caroline-Tompkins

decided how many of its performances it will livestream, Director of Communications Gwen Pappas says. Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society, which last season streamed videotaped performances that it packaged with interviews and other material, will switch to livestreaming the Sunday afternoon performance of each subscription program, President and CEO David Snead says.

The Atlanta Symphony, another orchestra that offered prerecorded and packaged performances last season, will stick with that, Barlament says. Rather than trying to evoke full-length concerts, their online programs will encompass music, interviews, and other material in one hour.

That’s no seat-of-the-pants decision: It sprang from viewers’ behavior. “We can tell exactly how long they watch,” Barlament says. “The data shows that after about an hour, the viewership falls off pretty significantly. So we’re focusing on that time window to create something that’s engaging throughout the program.”

Streaming has served the Atlanta Symphony well. Not only did the orchestra reach more than 250,000 people online over the past year, Barlament says, the streaming platform has brought in singleticket and subscription revenue. It also qualifies the orchestra for State of Georgia film-production tax credits, which the orchestra resells to individuals or businesses who are facing Georgia taxes—thus generating income for the orchestra.

While streaming has brought in ticket revenue for San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale, it has

In November 2020, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster David Coucheron and bassist and composer Xavier Foley performed Foley’s For Justice and Peace for Violin, Bass, and String Orchestra with the Atlanta Symphony (top photo). Premieres in the orchestra’s coming season will be by Foley, Missy Mazzoli (bottom left), Conrad Tao (bottom right), and more.

served mainly to “ensure connection with our wonderful and generous community,” Executive Director Courtney Beck says.

The group—which, despite its name’s focus on Baroque music, also commissions new works—has injected its online programming with a flavor of its own. The PBO/Virtual portal goes well beyond performances, making a place for recurring features starring Music Director Richard Egarr and others.

In the monthly “Live from Amsterdam,” Egarr performs in sites throughout the Dutch city that’s his home. In “What’s New & H.I.P.,” Egarr and composer Tarik O’Regan, PBO’s artistic partner, chat with composers who create new music for old instruments. “Up on the Downbeat” is a series of virtual dance classes illustrating the original steps that dovetailed with the music of centuries ago. Beck particularly admires “Live from Amsterdam,” in which Egarr “found unique sacred and secular spaces to perform” in the historic city.

The orchestra’s goal in creating the varied menu, she adds, is “to be unique and to offer to the public something they couldn’t get elsewhere at a horrible time when everyone was trying to connect.”

Online Learning

Virtual programming has opened new horizons for orchestras’ educational programs. The Atlanta Symphony’s Talent Development Program—which provides instrumental instruction and other guidance for Black and Latinx young people—couldn’t open student recitals to live audiences during the pandemic, Barlament says. When concerts that would have been limited to live audiences of 600 or so moved onto the internet, “thousands of people logged in. It was wonderful to get that exposure for those kids,” Barlament says. “And it allowed us to make the production values cooler—all these great interviews with the kids. You heard where they’re going to college, what they’re excited about, and what they like about music. It allowed us to shine the spotlight on them and elevate their voices.”

Not only will the ASO continue that, it will keep beefing up a statewide educational program it launched in tandem with the Georgia Music Educators Association. Based on suggestions from teachers and students, “Level-Up with the ASO” features orchestra members in short videos that focus on finer points of instru-

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Columbus Symphony

mental playing, from scales to spiccato.

The orchestra aims to build the archive to 150 videos, which tens of thousands of student musicians across Georgia will have at their fingertips.

The Columbus Symphony, after creating its online program for the Columbus City Schools, now wants to take it to other school districts, Executive Director Rehg says. Hoping to win over young people to the live-music experience, the orchestra will start giving free tickets to its subscription concerts to people ages six to sixteen. And the group is brainstorming a program to introduce children from underserved groups to music.

The Johnstown Symphony’s first pandemic-era performance as a full orchestra came this March, when musicians spread out in a basketball arena to play an

“By putting out digital content, we’re reaching people who never had access to our work before,” says Johnstown Symphony Orchestra Executive Director Jessica Satava, shown here at the orchestra’s April “Horns in the Hills” performance at the Roxbury Bandshell. “Of course, there’s no substitute for the experience of live orchestral music.”

Johnstown Symphony Orchestra

Johnstown Symphony Orchestra

The Columbus Symphony created two new websites for young people and expanded its online education offerings during the pandemic, reaching 55,000 students, up from the previous 22,000. The orchestra will continue to expand online and in-person education efforts in the coming season.

educational concert for the cameras. The copious floor space allowed Johnstown Symphony Youth Orchestra to join the adult musicians for a side-by-side performance, Executive Director Jessica Satava recalls, and “the response to the livestream was phenomenal. We had thousands and thousands of kids—many school districts—experience that with us. By putting out digital content, we’re reaching new and different audiences—people who never had access to our work before.”

School districts benefited, too, because they saved the time and expense of bus trips. “Of course, we all know that there’s no substitute for the experience of live orchestral music,” Satava says, “but adding this as an additional component really makes a difference for the schools, to have that option.”

Johnstown Symphony Chorus Director Jeffrey L. Webb hosted virtual sessions for young music students that spotlighted people of color who have leadership roles in the region’s classicalmusic ensembles. Next season, the orchestra plans to bring the students to in-person concerts and for members of the orchestra to work with them.

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O’Neil Arnold

Johnstown Symphony Orchestra

The Johnstown Symphony’s first pandemicera performance as a full orchestra came this March at the Kovalchick Convention and Athletic Complex on the campus of Indiana University of Pennsylvania, when it gave an educational concert for the cameras. The space was large enough for the Johnstown Symphony Youth Orchestra to join the adult musicians for a sideby-side performance. Johnstown Symphony Music Director James Blachly conducted.

The Louisville Orchestra performed “Ravel and the Power of Black Music” on March 27, 2021, which featured musician and Louisville city councilman Jecorey Arthur (at left) and his education program on the history of Black music from spirituals through jazz into the 1980s. In the first half of the concert, Louisville Orchestra Music Director Teddy Abrams was piano soloist and conducted the orchestra in the Ravel Piano Concerto, which was influenced by jazz.

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Chris Witzke

sic-making activity?’ Eighty percent said, ‘Absolutely yes. Give us the opportunity to experience classical music together.’”

The orchestra is now working to bring the students to in-person concerts next season and to create a setup for members of the orchestra to teach or coach them.

Contemporary Correlatives

As the site of the Breonna Taylor

O’Neil Arnold

Next April, the Louisville Orchestra will launch a multi-season series pairing Black composers with Jewish ones. “Freedom is obviously a historically Jewish theme, and that resonates with Black culture in America from the earliest times,” Music Director Teddy Abrams says.

killing by police, the city of Louisville, Kentucky faced an eruption of anger and protests. The Louisville Orchestra opened the current season with Vigil, a tribute to Taylor by bass-baritone Davóne Tines and three collaborators, and the coming season’s opener this October will turn to the other upheaval: The orchestra will premiere seven works by local composers looking back at the pandemic.

The Louisville Orchestra opened its virtual season on October 3, 2020 with bass-baritone Davóne Tines singing Samuel Barber’s Dover Beach, excerpts from Caroline Shaw’s By and By, and his own work Vigil, written in honor of Louisville native Breonna Taylor, who was slain by police officers in 2020.

Streaming also let the orchestra tailor a program to Johnstown’s central-area school district, which has the region’s highest proportion of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) students— “those who are least likely to feel like they have access to what we do,” Satava says.

Johnstown Symphony Chorus Director Jeffrey L. Webb, who is Black, hosted a series of virtual sessions aimed at the young instrumentalists and singers in the school system’s performing groups. Spotlighting people of color who have leadership roles in the region’s classical-music ensembles, Webb invited them to discuss music and their journey in it.

To gauge the impact of the programs on the young viewers, the Johnstown orchestra took before-and-after surveys.

“We asked the students at the beginning, ‘What do you know about classical music?

Have you heard classical music? Would you consider coming to a concert?’ At the beginning, 3 percent of the students said yes,” Satava recalls. “At the end, we asked, ‘What would your interest be in coming to the concert hall or being part of a muamericanorchestras.org

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Frank Wing

Anthony Roth Costanzo (left) as Galatea and Davóne Tines (right) as Polifemo in Handel’s Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, presented by Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale in February 2020.

Philharmonia Baroque Executive Director Courtney Beck with baritone Davóne Tines, the organization’s new creative partner. Tines will perform and curate programs and work with staff, board, and patrons to explore the organization’s 21st-century role.

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April, it will launch a multi-season series pairing Black composers with Jewish ones.

Looking back across centuries of history, Abrams notes, Jews and Blacks have both suffered displacement, enslavement, and oppression. “Freedom is obviously a historically Jewish theme, and that resonates with Black culture in America from the earliest times,” Abrams says. “That’s why I thought this is subject matter we can really explore. As a Jewish American, I find personal resonance here.” The Louisville series’ opening installment will culminate in the oratorio The Ordering of Moses by Black composer R. Nathaniel Dett, whose portrait of the Old Testament prophet premiered at the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s May Festival in 1937.

The National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. will also seek musical kinships, putting works by George Walker and William Grant Still alongside Beethoven symphonies in a three-week festival in January. A program by Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society will build a bridge from choruses by George Frideric Handel to early incarnations of Black spirituals. “The connective tissue is the Old Testament,” Handel and Haydn President and CEO Snead says. Spirituals “came out of the pain of slavery, and enslaved people in America drew inspiration from the Old Testament, turning it into song,” he explains. Handel drew on the same material “and turned it into beautiful music. We will talk about how both drew inspiration from that source, and how it

can inspire us.” (That Handel himself can now be viewed as problematic, because he reportedly profited from the trans-Atlantic slave trade, illustrates the complexities of where we are today.)

Remaining Relevant

Philharmonia Baroque and the Handel and Haydn Society may anchor themselves in music created long ago, but both intend to stay relevant today. Philharmonia Baroque has tapped baritone Davóne Tines as creative partner. In that role he’ll not only perform and curate programs, but work alongside the staff, board, and patrons to help the group define its 21stcentury role.

When it comes to social justice, Handel and Haydn’s bona fides date back at least

Marco Borggreve

Philharmonia Baroque

“It’s almost like commissioning a statue or plaza that commemorates an event,” says Teddy Abrams, the Louisville Orchestra’s music director. “We want to give the city a piece of public art that belongs to them.” Or seven pieces, in this case. A single one might not suffice.

“Part of this experience of the last 18 months—as of October—is that it’s not one thing,” Abrams continues. “It’s not a single, discrete emotion. Yes, there has been tragedy. But there also has been incredible resilience, incredible hope. This is so much broader, and we’re still living it.

I feel like the language of music might be the ideal platform to help us understand what we’ve all gone through.”

Many orchestras are embracing diversity and inclusion by programming works by composers from too-longignored groups. The Louisville Orchestra is offering a particular perspective: Next

Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra’s PBOVirtual portal includes performances, seminars, and masterclasses, as well as programs featuring Music Director Richard Egarr (in photo), who had been unable to travel to San Francisco from his home in Amsterdam due to the pandemic, in conversation with PBO Composer in Residence Tarik O’Regan and others.

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Handel and Haydn Society

to Jan. 1, 1863, when the group took part in a Boston jubilee concert celebrating the Emancipation Proclamation on the very day it took effect. A concert every January now commemorates the occasion. Since 2016, a second annual program—dubbed “Every Voice”—has focused on composers from underrepresented groups. As the leader of the concerts, Black countertenor Reginald Mobley has uncovered littleknown music. Snead says, “I turned to him after one of these events and said, ‘We should be doing this on a bigger stage. Can you help us find ways to bring these composers to our subscription concerts?’ ” That’s now part of Mobley’s mission as Handel and Haydn’s programming consultant. Among other pieces, Mobley led the group to Chevalier de Saint-Georges’ Violin Concerto in G Major, which opened the society’s 2020-21 season finale.

Mobley’s contribution shows that the breadth of a group’s programming depends on the vision of the people involved.

Taking that idea to the organization-wide level, the Cincinnati Symphony recently hired its first chief diversity and inclusion officer: Harold Brown, a Cincinnati native with deep connections to the city’s multifaceted community. In a seniormanagement position reporting directly to President and CEO Martin, Brown “has not only the responsibility but the authority to push across the entire organization,” Martin says. “He has the ability to go from department to department and have conversations with his peer group—chief marketing officer, chief philanthropy offiamericanorchestras.org

Liz Linder

The Handel and Hayden Society brought countertenor Reginald Mobley on board as its first-ever programming consultant to help diversify its repertoire. Mobley performed (at right in photo) in a February 16, 2021 Handel and Haydn Society streamed concert, “Glories of the Baroque Vivaldi,” at St. Cecilia Parish, Boston.

Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society will continue to present virtual performances even after the pandemic, says President and CEO David Snead.

cer, chief operating officer—and say, ‘This needs to change. This needs to shift.’ ”

As communities and their demographics evolve, orchestras say that learning to serve them is a moral and business imperative.

As communities and their demographics evolve, Martin says, learning to serve them is a moral and business imperative for orchestras. The past year may have delivered the long-needed catalyst. “In the old days, orchestras—like most arts organizations—tended to approach their work from the view that ‘We know what’s best, and we’re going to give you this, and you’re going to love it.’ There wasn’t much give or take,” Martin says. “We have discarded that whole, ineffective way of doing things. Look at it this way. How do we get funded? Ninety-nine percent of the funding that keeps us alive comes from the community—ticket sales, endowments, the annual fund, family foundations. If you allow yourself, as so many of

us have over the decades, to stray from the core needs of your community, you do so at your peril. We’ve got an opportunity to fundamentally change our approach, and we’ll have a better chance of survival if we’re responsive to it.”

The Louisville Symphony has its community in mind with the Latin American festival it will present next season. The orchestra’s hometown, conductor Abrams points out, has the second-largest Cuban American population in the United States, behind only Miami. The festival will include a commissioned work by Dafnis Prieto, the Cuban-born composer, bandleader, and MacArthur Fellow.

“It’s a concerto grosso for orchestra and timba band,” Abrams says. “Everybody knows salsa. Timba is related, but it’s the energetic, percussion-driven version of it.”

Abrams, who listened to Prieto’s first draft via MIDI technology, says he expects the piece to bring audiences to their feet—dancing. “That sounds like I’m being cheeky,” he says. “But I mean it quite literally. It will be hard not to.”

Abrams sees works like Prieto’s feeding into “a new American canon” of boundary-crossing works—a counterpoint to the longstanding European canon. And if the new classics occasionally stir up audiences to dance, maybe that’s everyone’s reward for making it through the past year.

STEVEN BROWN is a Houston-based writer specializing in classical music and the arts. He previously served as classical music critic of the Orlando Sentinel, Charlotte Observer, and Houston Chronicle.

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Catalyzing Change The League of American Orchestras’ groundbreaking Catalyst Fund is helping dozens of orchestras build understanding of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) and implement effective EDI strategies. And it’s making a real-world impact at orchestras and communities across the country.

By Heidi Waleson

I

n the last year and half, rocked by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd, many arts groups have been taking stock of where they stand as community members.

For 49 orchestras, this reckoning has been aided and strengthened by grants from the League of American Orchestras’ Catalyst Fund, launched in 2019. The three-year pilot program, funded by $2.1 million from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation with additional support from the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation, is designed to help orchestras develop their internal organizations and build capacity in equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). Lee Ann Norman, the League’s Director of Learning and Leadership Programs, who oversees Catalyst, says, “We hope, through the program, both in this iteration and future iterations, to support our members in transforming the field.”

The Catalyst Fund grew out of the recognition that the orchestra business is still overwhelmingly White—on staff, in the board room, in the audience, and on the stage. According

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to Susan Feder, the performing arts program officer in Mellon’s Arts and Culture program, the roots of the Catalyst Fund go back decades to orchestra fellowship programs, including several Mellon-supported projects. The fellowship strategy to diversify musician ranks by immersing young Black and Latinx musicians who had completed their formal music education in the day-to-day life of an orchestra for a significant period, with the objective of preparing them to compete for jobs, ran up against a barrier: the cultures of the organizations themselves did not change, and individual musicians of color were often isolated and uncomfortable. Following a 2015 meeting coconvened by the League of American Orchestras and Mellon to examine barriers to inclusion, projects like Mellon’s Musical Pathways and the National Alliance for Audition Support (NAAS) were launched with the objective of creating a critical mass of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) candidates for orchestra posts by targeting musician training and professional development. NAAS aims to increase diversity in American orchestras by offering Black and Latinx musicians symphony

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Djeneba Aduayom

Catalyst, explains that transformation starts with internal work. As recently as ten years ago, she says, orchestras tended to tackle their diversity issues with external programmatic efforts. “Something wrong? Add a program,” Schmidt says of the thinking at the time. “It’s easier to land in transactional relationships, versus taking a hard look at the internal practices of an organization and pulling apart the systems.”

Catalyst Fund grants pay for EDI consultants who help orchestras take a serious look at those systems and the individuals who work within them, thereby earmarking funds, time, and attention that might not otherwise be allocated to this challenging work of self-examination and decision-making. Susan Lape, executive director of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras, which received one of the first round of Catalyst grants in 2019, says, “Catalyst is a great national investment in EDI, a really good statement from the League to our board and our whole community that this work is important—and it is important for us to do it.”

The grants, recommended by an independent review panel, have been

“Over the past three years, the Catalyst Fund has worked to advance equity in American orchestras,” says Elizabeth Alexander, president of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which supports The Catalyst Fund.

americanorchestras.org

The Catalyst Fund is a three-year pilot program of the League of American Orchestras that awards annual grants to build the internal capacity of Leaguemember U.S. orchestras in advancing their understanding of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) and in encouraging effective practice. To assist orchestras in creating more equitable cultures, The Catalyst Fund provides: • Annual grants ranging from $15,000 to $25,000, enabling grantees to work with a professional EDI consultant to self-define and advance internal EDI objectives during the one-year grant period.

• A community to share learning with other grantees that includes an online forum as well as remote and in-person convenings.

• Opportunities to lead and participate in fieldwide learning activities, giving visibility to EDI work in orchestras.

• Disbursing 76 grants over three years, the $2.1 million program has helped create change in the orchestra field through programming and policy changes, organizational alignment, and fostering of community.

Mellon Foundation

mentoring, audition preparation, financial support, and audition previews. NAAS is made up of the Sphinx Organization, the New World Symphony, and the League of American Orchestras. NAAS is supported by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation as well as contributions from orchestras across the U.S. The Catalyst Fund, Feder says, was a corollary and a natural outgrowth of NAAS: “It was a promise to musicians of color that we would help improve the culture of orchestras: to make them more inclusive and to deal with unconscious bias, microaggressions, and racist behaviors.” Dedicated grant funds would ensure voluntary buy-in from orchestras; each year’s grantees would also be connected through meetings and other communication channels, encouraging them to share what they learned.

Numerous diversity-focused discussions at the League’s annual Conferences, as well as industry-wide conversations and surveys, revealed an appetite for changing the culture but a lack of knowledge or resources about how to do so effectively. Jessica Schmidt, an EDI consultant who helped the League gather information and shape what became

THE CATALYST FUND

The Catalyst Fund is made possible by

The Catalyst Fund, says Susan Feder, the performing arts program officer in the Mellon Foundation’s Arts and Culture program, was a corollary and a natural outgrowth of the National Alliance for Audition Support: “a promise to musicians of color that we would help improve the culture of orchestras.”

a generous grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with additional support from the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation.

Learn more at https://americanorchestras. org/learn/grant-programs/the-catalystfund/.

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Alan Poizner

Representatives of orchestras receiving Catalyst Fund grants met at the League of American Orchestras’ 2019 National Conference in Nashville. Catalyst Fund advisor and Canarii Solutions founder Liz Alsina (at right) facilitated the meeting, which helped build a sense of community and set a baseline understanding of what equity, diversity, and inclusion mean. awarded to 49 orchestras large and small, in big cities and small towns, in different areas of the U.S. Some grants have been renewed for second and sometimes third years. The grantee orchestras are at very different stages of development in EDI. Norman points out, “For some orchestras, it is transformative to begin to have conversations about this in an intentional way, to see who is not at our table. Others have been doing the work longer and are ready to identify priorities that can be put into action. Some are still further along and are looking at the integration piece: they’ve made decisions and put strategies in place. Now they are looking at things like, how are we communicating, and showing that our actions match our values.”

The Catalyst Fund gives orchestras the understanding and the tools to change.

And it’s making an impact, says Elizabeth Alexander, president of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation: “Over the past three years, the Catalyst Fund has worked to advance equity in American orches-

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tras—including building towards equal access for traditionally underrepresented musicians and representation in leadership and across program initiatives—and they’ve done so by confronting internal practices and building a strong coalition of U.S.-based orchestras committed to doing this important work. We look forward to the return to live programming, and hope that the Catalyst Fund’s ongoing efforts lead to orchestras that are more representative of diverse talent both onstage and off. We are proud to support the League of American Orchestras and the Catalyst Fund as they continue this critical work.”

Changing Internal Culture

In 2016, the Virginia Symphony Orchestra went through a strategic planning process and resolved to be “more outward-facing and community-oriented,” says Karen Philion, president and CEO. One-third of the Norfolk, Virginia community is Black, yet people of color represented only a tiny fraction of the

“We hope, through the program, both in this iteration and future iterations, to support our members in transforming the field,” says Lee Ann Norman, the League’s Director of Learning and Leadership Programs, who oversees The Catalyst Fund. symphony

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Alan Poizner

orchestra’s audience, so the orchestra started looking for community partners.

The Catalyst grant radically reframed that work. “Our EDI work [with the consultant funded by] Catalyst was internal,” says Philion, “but it helped shift the focus of these efforts to listening to the perspectives of other people in our community and thinking about how we may put up barriers. We came to understand that just throwing open the doors and saying, ‘We are right here, you can find us,’ didn’t make sense.”

With its first year of Catalyst funding, the Virginia Symphony started at “square one” with an equity audit, assessing EDI in the organization’s governance, operations, programming, and culture using interviews, focus groups and surveys of stakeholders, as well as a review of its programming history and marketing materials. The consultant also did education sessions focusing on basic anti-racism training. In the second round, the consultant worked with four staff members who produced individual equity plans in their americanorchestras.org

areas—artistic planning; development; human resources; and education/community engagement—as well as continuing with education sessions and holding focus groups with existing partners and new community groups.

From the beginning, Philion says, “We got especially incredible enthusiasm from the musicians. They said, ‘Where have we been all this time?’ It was really encouraging—we felt we were really tapping into something.” The third year of funding will focus solely on the musicians and how to diversify their ranks. “That is the place to start: the audition committee is all musicians, and the language in the collective bargaining agreement about auditions is something they have to agree to,” Philion says. “That’s the group that needs to have the confidence in anything that changes where the needle is going to move.”

With only a few Black staffers and board members, and, since the retirement of the organization’s principal violist last fall, no Black members of the orchestra, Philion acknowledges that the Virginia

David A. Beloff

The League of American Orchestras’ 2019 National Conference in Nashville featured a meeting of Catalyst Fund grantees. During a group discussion, Shiva Shafii, then Director of Communications at the Seattle Symphony and part of the Catalyst cohort, proposed a definition for the word equity. Shafii is currently Director of Communications, Content, and Digital Strategies at the San Diego Symphony.

A Catalyst Fund grant radically reframed the Virginia Symphony’s EDI work, says President and CEO Karen Philion, and led to “listening to the perspectives of other people in our community. We came to realize that we can’t serve the community if we don’t look like it.”

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Symphony has a long distance to travel in terms of representation. “We came to realize that we can’t serve the community if we don’t look like it,” she says.

“We’ve named this as something we value; it’s now a higher priority and we have to work actively on it.” The hardest work, she thinks, won’t be changing programming, or how and where jobs are announced, or even continuing to change internal culture. The challenge is “to be successful in actually bringing people who were not invited before in on decisions.”

Articulating the Vision

The Oakland Symphony has a Black music director (Michael Morgan), a longstanding practice of artistic collaboration with individuals and groups from different musical and cultural backgrounds, and a programmatic focus on themes of social justice and equity. When Mieko Hatano became executive director in 2018, the orchestra was part of the first cohort of museum director Nina Simon’s “Of/By/For All” program, in which cultural institutions learned to share resources with their communities. However, Hatano says, “We realized that we didn’t

ORCHESTRAS PARTICIPATING IN THE CATALYST FUND Adrian Symphony Orchestra

Los Angeles Philharmonic

Albany (NY) Symphony

Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra

Arkansas Symphony Orchestra Berkeley Symphony BRAVO Youth Orchestras Charlotte Symphony Orchestra

New Haven Symphony Orchestra

Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras

New Jersey Youth Symphony

Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

New World Symphony

Contemporary Youth Orchestra

North Carolina Symphony

DC Youth Orchestra Program

Empire State Youth Orchestra Grand Rapids Symphony Grant Park Music Festival Oakland Symphony

Nashville Symphony

Chicago Sinfonietta

East Texas Symphony Orchestra

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Minnesota Orchestra

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra

Detroit Symphony Orchestra

With Catalyst Fund support, the Oakland Symphony worked on “recruiting a task force of people inside and outside the organization and building an equity framework so we could be explicit about our values,” says Executive Director Mieko Hatano.

Louisiana Philharmonic

New York Philharmonic Oakland Symphony Oregon Symphony Pacific Symphony Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Princeton Symphony Orchestra Richmond Symphony San Diego Symphony Orchestra

Handel and Haydn Society

San Diego Youth Symphony and Conservatory

Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra

San Francisco Symphony Seattle Symphony

Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra

South Dakota Symphony Orchestra

Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra

St. Louis Symphony Orchestra

Kennett Symphony

The Philadelphia Orchestra

Lexington Philharmonic

The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra

Virginia Symphony symphony S U M M E R Orchestra

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Arkansas Symphony Orchestra

have anything that articulated that vision [of inclusion] of our organization—internally or externally. We were still an orchestra, with an orchestra structure. The orchestra was still very White. Having the Catalyst consultant for two years gave us the opportunity to dig into this for the first time.”

Changing vocabulary was one of the first steps, Hatano recalls. “We started to use more empathetic vocabulary. The way we approach meetings, and getting more information from each other, has deepened. Our ears have gotten better.

Our collaborative programming model is slow. It requires listening, getting to know new people, developing trust. Now, the administration, the board, our committees are starting to develop some of those same modeled habits and intentions that they didn’t have before.” That makes those participating “open to innovative ways of doing things. We’re taking time in meetings to ask, how do we do this? Is this comfortable? How would it make others feel? We’re considering implications for staff, musicians, audience, board—everyone.”

In the fall of 2019, soon after beginning the Catalyst work, a hate crime

“We want to be more inclusive, equitable, and diverse,” says Arkansas Symphony Orchestra CEO Christina Littlejohn. “The Catalyst grant gave us a chance to hire a consultant ... which is critical to our becoming what we want to become.” americanorchestras.org

was committed against an Oakland Symphony staffer at a concert. Hatano prefers not to divulge painful details, but the incident, she says, “made us realize that our culture is not as open, welcome, diverse, and positive as we thought. We were challenged by that incident, and not equipped to deal with it.” The Catalyst consultants helped with the internal and external response, and the awareness gained from that experience helped inform the subsequent work of addressing internal issues and structures.

In the past year, with no concerts possible due to the pandemic, the orchestra worked on “recruiting a task force of people inside and outside the organization and building an equity framework so we could be explicit with our internal and external constituents about what our values are,” Hatano says. “We had our consultants for that [hate-crime] incident; now I have 20 people that I can call on.

We’re not finished, but the process has created a network of support so that we can move forward and be accountable.”

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Changing the Conversation

For the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, which was part of the second group of Catalyst grant recipients, learning how to have difficult conversations was the point. “We want to be more inclusive, equitable, and diverse, and that is really hard work,” says CEO Christina Littlejohn. “We have to hold the mirror up to ourselves. That’s uncomfortable. It’s not something we normally do. The Catalyst grant gave us a chance to hire a consultant to hold our hands and make it easier for us to learn to sit in that space, which is critical to our becoming what we want to become. It’s not like strategic planning. Coming to grips with where you are starting, looking at systemic racism and implicit bias, is very different from saying, we want to serve 1,000 more people.”

For Littlejohn, the biggest surprise in the process was “the number of people who think we are as diverse as we need to be, that we are inclusive, and that no changes need to be made.” Jessica Schmidt, who began her career in orchestra administration more than 20 years ago, pivoted to EDI consulting for the field, and has worked with several orchestras through Catalyst, is no stranger

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EDI and Youth Orchestras

The Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras began its EDI work two years ago, using support from the League’s American Orchestras’ Futures Fund, before receiving a Catalyst Grant. “EDI is an immediate issue for youth orchestras,” says Susan Lape. “We deal with evaluation, admissions, families; we’re connected to schools.” With support from previous Futures Fund grants from the League, CYSO did an inclusion audit and focus groups, analyzed how its student body was evolving, where the students are coming from, where they are not coming from, and why. “Things

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Kristen Lorenzen

to those opinions. “Folks are at different moments in their journeys,” she says.

“When a statement like ‘racism doesn’t exist’ is made, it comes from a place of fear—often the fear of loss, of comfort, of ‘this is my special place and it’s going to change.’ I hear your fear and your experience. Having compassion in that space is a big part of the work.” Schmidt says she has seen progress. “The conversation has changed. Over the last year, I have watched orchestras start to say the words, to understand what anti-racism is, to explore White supremacy, which is difficult for us even to say, and to go from talking about diversity to the need to disrupt oppressive systems.”

The goals of the Catalyst work are not easily quantified by traditional metrics.

“For a long time, our field has viewed this work as representation only and failed to understand inclusion and equity,” Schmidt says. “We have welcomed people of color into environments that were not healthy for them”—places in which even unconscious racism makes them feel isolated and unwelcome. “Representation is deeply important, but it will not stick without inclusion,” which means changing the culture of an organization.

Through the Catalyst work, she says, conversations that have not taken place before are now happening. “Organizations are hearing directly from a board member of color who walked into a reception and was mistaken for the wait staff; or a Black musician, walking outside the concert hall in a tuxedo and carrying an instrument, who was asked what he was doing there.”

Susan Lape, executive director of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras, which has received Catalyst Fund support, says, “Catalyst is a great national investment in EDI, a really good statement from the League to our board and our whole community that this work is important.” we heard a lot were, ‘I don’t understand why some kids are advancing and my kid isn’t; I don’t feel it could work for me; I didn’t want to apply because I felt scared,’ ” Lape recalls.

In 2019, the first year of the Catalyst grant, Karen Mari joined the CYSO organization full time in the new position of community and family engagement coordinator. One of her most important roles is one-on-one communication with students and families. “Someone like Karen, who has time to meet with people, talk these questions through and help them, is what we needed more than any other shinier bells and whistles,” Lape says.

Advancing through CYSO’s ensembles and orchestras is competitive; its players are, Lape says, “top-tier.” “Kids who are from all different kinds of backgrounds deserve to be part of that, but they need information and help, guidance and support. Sometimes they need literal support, like an internet connection or an instrument, and Karen handles all of that.” Mari also does recruitment relationship-building for CYSO. “We never used to have time to do that—for example, meeting with someone who

runs an all-Black music program in Chicago, and saying, ‘You are not referring any students to us. Do you know about our program? Are you suspicious of us?’

That takes slow, deliberate relationshipbuilding.”

So far, the slow and steady work has paid off: an increase in the number of Black and Latinx students in CYSO’s top and middle school orchestras, for example, as well as a broader income range.

However, the organization is working just as hard on inclusion. Mari says, “That focus on numbers and demographics has become a little less important in our minds, taking a back seat to ‘How do our students feel at CYSO?’ Rather than, ‘We have ten students of color in this orchestra and they all feel terrible,’ it’s better to say, ‘We have eight students, they love it here, they feel 100 percent included, and they are going to recommend this to their friends.’ ” With its Catalyst funding, CYSO worked with consultant Derrick Gay on writing and refining the group’s EDI statement with feedback from staff, faculty, board, families, students, and the community. Mari says, “He showed us how to do the work ourselves, so we didn’t stop after the grant ended. This past year, we put together another document, ‘Promises and Requests,’ which outlines what it means to live up to our EDI statement: the actions we want to take, the behaviors we want to see.” This intensive process of self-examination meant that during the summer of 2020, during the protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, CYSO was able to respond with a statement immediately. “We had a position, because we had already done a lot of work about a youth orchestra’s role in trying to be a force of anti-racism,” Lape says. Similarly, after the alarming rise in anti-Asian hate crimes, CYSO organized a Circle of Community Care for its Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) students, with AAPI facilitators and board members. “Students said that this was the only organization they knew that had mentioned this at all or provided any safe space for them to process it,” Lape says.

Mari stresses that such programs are “our cutting edge. We are able to start offering these kinds of new tools because symphony

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Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras

With its Catalyst funding, Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras worked with an EDI consultant who “showed us how to do the work ourselves, so we didn’t stop after the grant ended,” says Karen Mari, the CYSO’s community and family engagement coordinator.

americanorchestras.org

of the work we’ve done over the past years. We have partnerships with teachers who told us how to do it; the partnerships came about because of the work we did with Derrick Gay and our team. We started trying to build a common vocabulary so we can talk to each other, even though we are all coming from different places. We’ve had three or four years of practice talking about topics that maybe other orchestras and workplaces aren’t discussing. The staff all feel empowered to speak up—that is a skill we practiced with Derrick Gay. It’s been a long road of baby steps that have led up to this really cool stuff.”

Continuous Learning

Michigan’s Grand Rapids Symphony also used its Catalyst funding to build on earlier EDI work, which had included the creation of a new neighborhood concert series. The Catalyst consultant spearheaded an organization-wide EDI audit and identified priorities for implementation.

“We believe strongly that this is about

culture, an organic way of operating that should affect everything we do every minute of the day,” says CEO Mary Tuuk Kulas. The orchestra has also started work on an Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), a personal inventory of values and beliefs across the organization and its constituencies. “It’s part of the path forward,” she says. “We need to be honest with ourselves and recognize what our implicit biases might be.” Grand Rapids, she says, has had no issues with accepting the value of the work. “The primary concern is that we don’t lose sight of the long-term path in light of day-to-day pressures and operational priorities.”

Tuuk Kulas, who came to the orchestra world after a long career in the for-profit sector, sees one significant difference in the two areas. “EDI tends to reflect itself more directly in a nonprofit’s mission,” she says. “Especially in the orchestra world, it is directly relevant to the desire to deliver on the mission to the community; you can’t deliver on the mission without progress in EDI.” The first test

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Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras Grand Rapids Symphony

With Catalyst funding, Chicago Symphony Youth Orchestras created a new EDI statement—and invited its young musicians to unpack and mark up the statement (photo). The organization also sought input from staff, faculty, board, families, and the community.

Equity, diversity, and inclusion affect “how we look at things and evaluate them, how we make decisions, the impact we have on patrons and the community,” says Grand Rapids Symphony CEO Mary Tuuk Kulas.

americanorchestras.org

of success? “EDI no longer has to be discussed as separate topic. It affects how we look at things and evaluate them, how we make decisions, the impact we have on patrons and the community. It just is.”

The League’s Lee Ann Norman notes that the process isn’t quick. “It has been striking to see how time has been a big factor,” she says. “More talk and focus open a Pandora’s box. It’s the nature of orchestras to be really polished and put their best foot forward. I think it can be frustrating and surprising to have to rethink that, to backtrack, to discover that everyone is not in the same places as we thought. On the flip side, there was anxiety about how this would be perceived, as well as skepticism, and the idea that taking the time to do EDI is an extra thing.

Now, we’re starting to understand that it’s a different lens through which to do our work. When you take that approach, it’s easier to make a case for it.”

That assessment reflects the experience at CYSO. “The biggest surprise to me was how many times you have to repeat

this stuff,” Susan Lape says. “That ‘everybody’s on board and now we’re going’ moment: we’ve done enough orientation, everyone can define these terms, everyone agrees that classical music has an equity and diversity problem, and now we’re going to change stuff—getting to that moment is more work and harder than I think many people expect. For some people, this is really new content. You have to repeat things, especially when you have big generational differences, as we do on our board, when people came into it with the right spirit, but not using the right words. We’ve done the training four times in four years. Now we can do pretty radical stuff for the orchestra world. But it took a lot of drilling to get to that point.”

HEIDI WALESON is the opera critic of the Wall Street Journal and the author of Mad Scenes and Exit Arias: The Death of the New York City Opera and the Future of Opera in America (Metropolitan Books/ Picador).

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LEAGUE OF AMERICAN ORCHESTRAS With the support of our valued donors, the League continues to have a positive impact on the future of orchestras in America by helping to develop the next generation of leaders, generating and disseminating critical knowledge and information, and advocating for the unique role of the orchestral experience in American life before an ever-widening group of stakeholders.

We gratefully acknowledge the generosity of the following donors who contributed gifts of $600 and above in the last year, as of May 26 2021.

For more information regarding a gift to the League, please visit us at americanorchestras.org/donate, call 212.262.5161, or write us at Annual Fund, League of American Orchestras, 520 8th Avenue, Suite 2005, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10018. $150,000 and above

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American Express Ford Motor Company Fund Howard Gilman Foundation Martha R. Ingram The Julian Family Foundation, Lori Julian National Endowment for the Arts The Negaunee Foundation Steve and Diane Parrish Foundation Patricia A. Richards & William K. Nichols Linda & David Roth Sakana Foundation Sargent Family Foundation, Cynthia Sargent ✧ Richard & Emily Smucker

$25,000–$49,999

Paul M. Angell Family Foundation Dr. & Mrs. Malcolm McDougal Brown ✧ Trish & Rick Bryan ✧ The Hagerman Family Charitable Fund, Douglas & Jane Hagerman Mark Jung Charitable Fund Alan Mason + Mr. & Mrs. Alfred P. Moore New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Mary Carr Patton Ms. Trine Sorensen & Mr. Michael Jacobson Penny & John Van Horn † Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation Helen Zell

$10,000–$24,999

William & Solange Brown The CHG Charitable Trust ✧ The Aaron Copland Fund for Music Peter & Julie Cummings ✧ Drs. Aaron Flagg & Cristina Stanescu Flagg Marian A. Godfrey John and Marcia Goldman Foundation Mary Louise Gorno Jim Hasler The Hyde and Watson Foundation Hugh W. Long Peter & Catherine Moye Lowell & Sonja Noteboom Mark and Nancy Peacock Charitable Fund Jesse Rosen † Drs. Helen S. & John P. Schaefer †

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PLAYING OUR PART: THE CAMPAIGN FOR THE LEAGUE OF AMERICAN ORCHESTRAS

Playing our Part is a campaign to support a major $2 million infrastructure investment in our service to America’s orchestras, including a new headquarters, modern website, increased digital learning capacity, and an improved information technology ecosystem. We gratefully acknowledge the generosity of the following donors who have made commitments to support this work: Burton Alter Tiffany & Jim Ammerman † Alberta Arthurs Brian & Emily Wren Baxter Marie-Hélène Bernard • Trish & Rick Bryan ✧ Michelle Miller Burns Janet Cabot Chuck Cagle † Lorenzo Candelaria The CHG Charitable Trust, as recommended by Carole Haas Gravagno ✧ Heather Clarke Melanie Clarke Bruce & Martha Clinton, on behalf of The Clinton Family Fund ✧ Bruce Colquhoun Margarita Contreni † Peter & Julie Cummings ✧ Gloria dePasquale The Doerr Foundation Marisa & Allan Eisemann Baisley Powell Elebash Fund Dr. D.M. Edwards, in honor of the Volunteer Council and Jesse Rosen Daniel & David Els-Piercey Phillip Wm. Fisher Support Foundation David J.L. Fisk Drs. Aaron & Christina Stanescu Flagg Ray Fowler Vanessa Gardner, in honor of Group 5-6 members GE Foundation Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation Marian A. Godfrey Mary Louise Gorno The Hagerman Family Charitable Fund, Douglas & Jane Hagerman Daniel & Barbara Hart • Jim Hasler Patricia G. Howard H.T. and Laura Hyde Charitable Fund at East Texas Communities Foundation † Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles James M. Johnson The Julian Family Foundation, Lori Julian Mark Jung Charitable Gift Fund Cindy & Randy Kidwell Bob & Charlotte Lewis Helen P. Shaffer Connie Steensma & Rick Prins ✧ Penny & John Van Horn ✧

Dr. Hugh W. Long Kjristine Lund William M. Lyons John & Regina Mangum Alan Mason Steve & Lou Mason, in honor of Jesse Rosen † Barbara McCelvey Debbie McKinney † Anthony McGill David Alan Miller Mr. & Mrs. Alfred P. Moore Peter & Catherine Moye Kim Noltemy Lowell & Sonja Noteboom Steve and Diane Parrish Foundation Mary Carr Patton Karen & Tom Philion Raymond & Tresa Radermacher Patricia A. Richards & William K. Nichols Susan L. Robinson Jesse Rosen † Barbara & Robert Rosoff ✧ Linda & David Roth Sakana Foundation Sargent Family Foundation, Cynthia Sargent ✧ Michael J. Schmitz Andrew Sewell Helen P. Shaffer Laurie & Nathan Skjerseth Richard K. Smucker Irene Sohm Ms. Trine Sorensen & Mr. Michael Jacobson Ruth Sovronsky Connie Steensma & Rick Prins ✧ Laura Street Linda S. Stevens Isaac Thompson & Tonya Vachirasomboon Samara Ungar Alan D. Valentine Penny & John Van Horn † Robert Wagner Kelly Waltrip Terry Ann White David Whitehill † Sheila J. Williams Lindsey Wood Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation Geraldine B. Warner Anonymous (1)

symphony

SUMMER 2021

$5,000–$9,999

Burton Alter Alberta Arthurs Benevity NancyBell Coe Gloria dePasquale Marisa Eisemann Barbara Hostetter Jerome Foundation Robert Kohl & Clark Pellett Kjristine Lund Marin Community Foundation Steve & Lou Mason, in honor of Jesse Rosen † Anthony McGill Alan & Maria McIntyre † New York State Council on the Arts Howard D. Palefsky The Brian Ratner Foundation Michael J. Schmitz Norm Slonaker Irene Sohm Alan D. Valentine Sally Webster, in memory of Nick Webster Simon Woods & Karin Brookes

$2,500–$4,999

Tiffany & Jim Ammerman † Jennifer Barlament & Ken Potsic • Marie-Hélène Bernard • Ann D. Borowiec Michelle Miller Burns • Charles W. Cagle † Lorenzo Candelaria Martha and Herman Copen Fund of The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven Norman Eaker Dr. D.M. Edwards, in honor of the Volunteer Council & Jesse Rosen Daniel & David Els-Piercey Catherine French ✧ Gary Ginstling & Marta Lederer Mark & Christina Hanson • Ms. Sharon D. Hatchett James M. Johnson Cindy & Randy Kidwell John A. and Catherine M. Koten Foundation † Dennis & Camille LaBarre † William M. Lyons Leslie Lassiter Charitable Fund Mr. John & Dr. Gail Looney Mattlin Foundation David Alan Miller Kim Noltemy Raymond & Tresa Radermacher Susan L. Robinson Laura Street Melia & Mike Tourangeau Steve & Judy Turner Kathleen van Bergen Doris & Clark Warden † Terry Ann White †

$1,000–$2,499

Jeff & Keiko Alexander Gene & Mary Arner Mrs. Dawn Bennett Peter Benoliel & Willo Carey Beracha Family Charitable Gift Fund William P. Blair III ✧ David Bornemann, Vice Chair, Phoenix Symphony americanorchestras.org

Elaine A. Bridges Susan K. Bright Karen & Terry Brown Wayne S. Brown & Brenda Kee † Monica Buffington Janet Cabot Janet & John Canning † Leslie & Dale Chihuly Darlene Clark Bruce Colquhoun The Dirk Family The Doerr Foundation + Feder Gordon Family Fund Courtney & David Filner • John Forsyte • James M. Franklin † GE Foundation William & Nancy Gettys Edward B. Gill, in honor of Jesse Rosen † William & Martha Gilmer Joe & Madeleine Glossberg Gordon Family Donor Advised Philanthropic Fund Paul Grangaard Joe T. Green Nancy Greenbach Andre Gremillet Suzanne Gronemeyer Bill Hagens Daniel & Barbara Hart • Jamei Haswell Patricia G. Howard + H.T. and Laura Hyde Charitable Fund at East Texas Communities Foundation † Howard Herring Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles Paul R. Judy The Junek Family Fund Emma (Murley) Kail • Peter Kjome The Hess and Helyn Kline Foundation Joseph Kluger and Susan Lewis Fund Donald Krause & JoAnne Krause † Bob & Charlotte Lewis Sandi M.A. Macdonald & Henry J. Grzes Yvonne Marcuse Jonathan Martin McCollum Family Charitable Fund Debbie McKinney † Anne W. Miller † Bob & Kathy Olsen Barbara S. Robinson Barry & Susan Rosen Barbara & Robert Rosoff ✧ Mr. Donald F. Roth † Dr. Lee Shackelford Pratichi Shah Cece Smith Daniel Song Linda S. Stevens David Strickland Isaac Thompson & Tonya Vachirasomboon Marylou & John D.* Turner Gus M. Vratsinas Robert Wagner David Whitehill † Donna M. Williams Sheila J. Williams The Sam and Sonia Wilson Family Foundation Paul Winberg & Bruce Czuchna Edward Yim

HELEN M. THOMPSON HERITAGE SOCIETY

The League of American Orchestras recognizes those who have graciously remembered the League in their estate plans as members of the Helen M. Thompson Heritage Society.

Janet F. and Dr. Richard E. Barb Family Foundation Wayne S. Brown & Brenda E. Kee † John & Janet Canning † Richard * & Kay Fredericks Cisek ✧ Martha and Herman Copen Fund of the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven Myra Janco Daniels Samuel C. Dixon • Henry & Frances Fogel ✧ Susan Harris, Ph.D. Louise W. Kahn Endowment Fund of The Dallas Foundation The Curtis and Pamela Livingston 2000 Charitable Remainder Unitrust † Steve & Lou Mason † Lowell & Sonja Noteboom Charles & Barbara Olton † Peter Pastreich † Walter P. Pettipas Revocable Trust Rodger E. Pitcairn Patricia A. Richards & William K. Nichols Robert & Barbara Rosoff ✧ Robert J. Wagner Tina Ward • † Mr. & Mrs. Albert K. * & Sally Webster ✧ Robert Wood Revocable Trust Anonymous (1)

$600–$999

Janet Lempke Barb Drs. Misook Yun & James William Boyd • Wayne S. Brown & Brenda E. Kee † Don & Judy Christl † Jack M. Firestone David J.L. Fisk Vanessa Gardner, in honor of Group 5-6 members Bob Garthwait, Jr. Marena Gault, Volunteer Council B. Sue Howard Sally & William Johnson Russell Jones & Aaron Gillies Adrienne H. Knudsen Anna Kuwabara & Craig Edwards • Robert Levine † David Loebel Ginny Lundquist Patrick McCown Diana Scoggins, Metropolitan Youth Symphony, Portland Laurie & Nathan Skjerseth David Snead Joan Squires • Edith & Tom Van Huss † Directors Council (former League Board) ✧ Emeritus Board • Orchestra Management Fellowship Program Alumni + Includes Corporate Matching Gift * Deceased

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CODA

Sound Embrace

Meredith Whitefield for DreamPlay Films

Xian Zhang, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra’s music director, brings a sky-high energy level and full-body approach to the podium. She leans in almost as if to embrace the musicians, and that’s not accidental. Even during the past year, with people socially distanced due to the pandemic, she has stayed tightly connected with NJSO musicians—and a film crew—to craft imaginative concert films. She has also traveled a surprising amount, guest conducting the Houston Symphony and Seattle Symphony, as well as the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, where she led the November world premiere of Tyshawn Sorey’s For Marcos Balter. Here, she talks about keeping connected, shifting programming to include a more diverse group of composers, and what the past year taught her about not taking the music for granted.

Xian Zhang conducts the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra for a concert film created during the pandemic.

D

Benjamin Ealovega

uring all the rehearsals and videos that we had to do this year—I think of myself and the musicians as “we”—we felt closer and more bonded compared to pre-pandemic times. And this is not just our musical level, this is on a personal level.

People want to be closer in a way, and especially to be supportive to our colleagues. We seem to be able to Xian Zhang understand each other a little better. We have been very lucky; we have received government funding twice, so our musicians have been taken care of financially.

During this past year and a half, we did two things very differently compared to the pre-pandemic. One is that we leaned much closer to media. We hired DreamPlay Films, and the concert videos they have produced are very artistic. We performed William Grant Still’s Mother

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and Child for a film where they took shots of people on the streets in Newark, at the most difficult time a year ago, and it was really beautiful and fitting to the time.

The other thing we did differently this year is to shift our programming focus quite a lot more toward African Ameri-

All of us crave the interaction and the direct contact, seeing the physical orchestra onstage. We took it for granted, and one should never do that.

This pandemic has taught us to treasure all of these moments. can, Latinx, and female composers. We commissioned a piece from José Luis Domínguez, our NJSO Youth Orchestras artistic director. We are starting the new Catalyst Residency with Daniel Bernard Roumain. It’s a way to showcase what we are striving for, and what we care about.

This past season, we wanted to make something special for our season-opening video, so we commissioned Daniel’s i am a white person who ____ Black people just a month before the premiere, and he was

able to write a great piece for us, composed in response to the fight for social justice, in a short time. We are opening the 2021-22 season with his Voodoo Violin Concerto.

This past year, we had the extra luck to have some really top-level soloists joining us: Shostakovich’s First Piano Concerto with Daniil Trifonov, the Wieniawski Violin Concerto No. 2 with Joshua Bell, and Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder with Renée Fleming. I would never have imagined that I could have all three of these soloists in one season.

I think the way we use media livestreaming platforms will stay after the pandemic. At the same time, I think all of us crave the interaction and the direct contact, seeing the physical orchestra onstage. Everybody misses that. The chemistry that that produces, you can’t deny it.

For the videos we have produced during the past year, we have been meeting about once a month. For those weeks, my energy levels were much higher than usual compared to the rest of the pandemic months.

That made me realize how much we have to cherish the whole music-making experience: concerts and rehearsals. We took it for granted most of the time, and one should never do that. This pandemic has taught us to absolutely treasure all of these moments.

XIAN ZHANG has been music director since 2016 of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, where she has commissioned works from composers including Thomas Adès, Qigang Chen, Christopher Rouse, Tyshawn Sorey, Vivian Li, Gary Morgan, Christian McBride, and Paquito D’Rivera. symphony

SUMMER 2021

Your Legacy Matters Share the magic of orchestras with future generations

Planned Giving enables individuals like you, who care deeply about the League of American Orchestras’ mission of advancing the orchestral experience for all, to support the League’s work beyond your lifetime.

To learn more about the League’s planned giving opportunities, please visit americanorchestras.org/donate/plannedgiving.

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FOUR DECADES OF DISCOVERY