The New York Times: Musicians on How to Bring Racial Equity to Auditions
An article segment co-written with my colleagues Weston Sprott, Joy Payton-Stevens, and Titus Underwood: “Conductors, players and administrators don’t necessarily want to abandon blind auditions. But they say the lack of diversity in American orchestras is more complicated than that.” Read More
Dear White Orchestras
The field is having a moment right now about the lack of black and brown people in American orchestras - on stage, backstage and in the audience. Read More
Get A Room!
Looking at an orchestra through the four frames, I don’t see any space designed for innovation, imagination and open questions.
I don’t see anything like a workshop. Read More
Orchestras, Equity, and Disruption
Thinking about orchestras and equity, two things have helped me frame a perspective: Angus Maguire’s reboot of Craig Froehle’s graphic (featured above) and Createquity’s article Making Sense of Cultural Equity. Read More
What’s Going On?
A book that has been foundational for me making sense of orchestras is Reframing Organizations by Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal. I use their ideas all the time when I’m trying to figure out what’s going on in orchestras. Read More
The Unstructured Room Where it Happens
In my last post I noted that, when I look at an orchestra's structure, I don't see anything that parallels a musician's practice room. Scaled for an organization, what would a workshop like that look like? In the musician's practice room we have our abilities as musicians, but a practice room also has lots of tools available. Read More
I Hate Classical Music
A Conversation on Race, Identity, and Transformative Arts Practice between Justin Laing and Alex Laing. Read More
Framing “Classical” Music in Racial Equity Contexts
Calling orchestral or so-called classical music “white music” isn’t a framing that fits comfortably around many folks’ practice. This is particularly true for ALAANA (African, Latino/a, Asian, Arab, Native American) practitioners or those who teach ALAANA students. I get that on a personal level. Read More