American orchestras have always struggled to perform music by women and peoples of color. They have stuck to a narrow canon of music composed mainly by white men.
However, protests over racial injustice and gender disparities in the United States seem to have prompted some changes.
According to Tuesday’s report from the Institute for Composer Diversity of the State University of New York Fredonia, 23 percent of orchestras now perform compositions composed by women and people of colour. This is up from 5% in 2015.
This increase is due to concerted efforts in the performing arts, which promote music by women of color. It was prompted in part in part by #MeToo and the death George Floyd.
“The change that has been talked about for a very long time has suddenly been tremendously accelerated,” Simon Woods, president and chief executive of the League of American Orchestras, which helped produce the report, said in an interview.
The coronavirus epidemic, which was a threat to many institutions at the time, may have also contributed to this change. Many ensembles had a more traditional approach before the pandemic. They planned their seasons years ahead of time. The virus appears to have encouraged experimentation.
“The pandemic has been kind of a jolt to the patterns that we’ve known for so long,” Woods said, allowing orchestras “to be much more responsive.”
Ensembles are more open to contemporary music, in general. The percentage of orchestras performing works by living composers was around 22 percent this season, compared to 12 percent in 2015. The report was based in part on data from hundreds upon hundreds of orchestras throughout the United States.
In recent years, many ensembles have taken steps to encourage the composing careers and people of color. Project 19, a multiyear initiative by the New York Philharmonic to commission works from 19 female composers, was launched in 2020 by the Philharmonic to celebrate the centennial celebration of the ratification the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right of vote.
Although orchestras have been more willing to program works by living composers in recent decades, there are still some obstacles, such as the fact that not all music is performed at once.
The League of American Orchestras is aiming to make living composers’ works more permanent in the orchestral landscape. Last month, the League announced a new initiative to recruit 30 ensembles over the next few decades to perform new pieces from six composers.
Source: NY Times