A great host of composers

These words of invitation —and their underlying message that all are welcome— express the core of our identity and mission at St. Stephen’s Church. It is an unfortunate truth, however, that most social institutions (including the concert hall, academia, and many Christian denominations) historically have not invited everyone to the table, a place in the choir stalls, or a space in the choral music library. As Louise Stewart, editor of Multitude of Voyces, an anthology series of sacred choral music by female composers, explains: “In the Anglican church [and musical practice] we have inherited an extraordinarily beautiful choral tradition, that is without question. It almost exclusively lacks compositions by women composers, however.” And I would add here, composers of color. Stewart adds that while “we cannot change the past… we can look more carefully to see if there is something of value that we have overlooked along the way… it is not too late to include music composed by [those] who, in their own lifetimes, were not included.” practice. If all are truly welcome at the table, is it not part of the broader mission of the Church to uphold that principle in our music as well—by building a repertoire reflective and inclusive of all siblings in Christ?

By Diana Chou

It’s worth noting that tradition and inclusion need not operate as a mutually exclusive binary; expanding our choral libraries to include underrepresented voices doesn’t come at the expense of traditional “classics” of the choral canon. Rather, it recognizes that there’s room to hear from a more diverse chorus of voices, which can only enrich the musical soundscape of our liturgies. There is a difference between honoring tradition and letting it become a force of what Susan Matthews calls “silencing inertia,” a barrier to stepping outside our usual modes and patterns because “it’s always been done this way.” An ossified musical canon doesn’t reflect that the church is not merely an inherited set of precepts, but a community of people and living

Over the last few years, my music staff colleagues Brent te Velde and Chris Edwards have begun working to diversify the repertoire at all of St. Stephen’s musical services, incorporating voices denied fair due during their lifetimes such as Amy Beach (1867-1944), Vicente Lusitano (ca. 1520-1621), and Rafaella Aleotti (ca. 1575-1620). In addition, we are making efforts to amplify the voices of living women and musicians of color—including composers such as Joan Szymko (b. 1957), Kerensa Briggs (b. 1991), Maggie Burk (b. 1990), David Hurd (b. 1950), and Cecilia McDowall (b. 1951)—laying a foundation for a more diverse and inclusive future musical practice here.

Working towards diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, isn’t easy; good allyship requires self-education. In a March 2022 panel, “Intentional Diversity in Church and Choral Music,” hosted by Trinity Episcopal Church on the Green in New Haven, Connecticut, church musicians Janet Yieh, Nathaniel Gumbs, and Walden Moore noted that this important and necessary work takes “time and intention,” and needs to be informed by “authenticity and context.” Meaningful inclusion requires that we study music by composers of color as seriously as we study Bach or Duruflé, approaching it “with the same integrity as it takes learning the [traditional] canon.”

It has been heartening to see growing public consciousness around the importance of DEI, with a particularly heightened sense of urgency in the last few years, catalyzed by dialogue from movements like #MeToo and Black Lives Matter. Resources supporting DEI in music have grown in number and ease of access; music publishing companies are also re-issuing out-of-print works (or printing posthumous, never-before published works) by women and Black, indigenous and people of color as well as slowly-increasing numbers of new works by underrepresented composers. Still, translating this into service and practice takes time: time to comb through and absorb resources and get to know pieces, time to assess what’s a good match stylistically and in terms of difficulty for different choral ensembles, and time to order or arrange scores and implement pieces into service planning.

In his 2018 New Yorker article on the “rediscovery” of the music of Black American composer Florence Price, Alex Ross observes that the establishment often “stick[s] with the known,” not because there isn’t anything good in the unknown, but “in order to avoid the hard work of exploring the unknown.” Questions of hard work aside, we do run into practical issues. Learning new music requires an investment of time, and rehearsal time is finite; as Walden Moore admits, out of necessity, some weeks we have to balance our time by “fall[ing] back on that which we know.” Rather than considering this a failing, Moore interprets it as a signal of work we need to do: we should aim to get to the point that pieces by underrepresented voices are amongst our familiar musical repertory, the works we can comfortably and fondly fall back on when needed.

This highlights how work towards DEI must remain a continual process. Programming composers of color on occasions like Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend or Black History Month is one step, but only a first step if we want to move beyond the impression of token inclusions of underrepresented voices. Meaningful change requires a consistent and long-term input of work; the goal is not simply to feature underrepresented voices more often, but for those voices eventually to number among the regular representatives in our music and liturgies. It’s been encouraging to see works by Eleanor Daley, Sarah MacDonald, Alice Parker, Stephanie Martin, Undine Smith Moore, William Grant Still, and others incorporated into the fabric of our growing and evolving St. Stephen’s musical canon. Many of these pieces were new to the choral and organ libraries here only a few years ago, but have already established themselves firmly enough in our repertory to become recurring works, joined in the library by additional pieces by the same composer, or both. Seeing this progress has been meaningful, and I look forward to sharing in this continuing work with Brent and Chris.

Diana Chou is associate director of music at St. Stephen’s Church. She has prepared a reading list for any who wish to delve more deeply into this topic. It’s available at ststephensRVA.org/composers, and hard copies are at Information Central, the area outside the parish office with a large computer monitor and a table and racks with printed materials.