Author: Dan Oberlin ★2017
Date: 2021-11-07 03:04
The first article is an op-ed piece by Anthony Tommasini, chief NYT music critic. He starts out with the hisory of blind auditions at the NYPhil, where the impetus for their implemenation was an accusation of racial discrimination in that group's hiring practices (from 1969). He notes that blind auditions have been transformative in getting more women into orchestras, that blind auditions have "... changed the face of American orchestras. But not enough." He notes that the number of black players in the NYPhil is today what it was in 1969 (one, with that one being Anthony McGill). Some quotes:
"If the musicians onstage are going to better reflect the diversity of the communities they serve, the audition process has to be altered."
"Blind auditions are built on an appealing premise of pure meritocracy ... . But ask anyone in the field, and you'll learn that over the past century ... there has come to be remarkably little difference between players at the top tier."
"It's like an elite college facing a sea of applicants with straight A's and perfect test scores. Such a school can move past those marks, embrace diversity as a social virtue and assemble a freshman class that advances other values along with academic achievement."
Tomassini notes that McGill is "more ambivalent about blind auditions than I am." But quotes McGill: "representation matters more than people know" "Is slow and steady fast enough? The world has changed around us."
The second article is a collection of responses to Tomassini's article, interviews done by by Zachary Woole and Joshua Barone. Here is (only) a sampling:
Leonard Slatkin: "If a person of color advances to the final round, I would think that one would hopefully in this day and age say that these are players of equal capabilities and maybe it should fall to someone who more represents what society is looking for."
Lina Gonzalez-Granados (Conductor): "When people see a name like mine and they have a high aversion to risk, then already I am not competing on the same level as everyone else. So getting rid of the audition screen is useless unless we take care of other steps. I believe in the power of quotas ... ."
Max Raimi (Violist, CSO): "It's a blunt instrument we're using now, but on the whole it works pretty well. The people who play at the highest level get jobs, and the people who get jobs play at the highest level." Regarding the pipeline of applicants: "It seems to me that if we are addressing these issues at the level of orchestra auditions, we're clipping the leaves when the roots are rotten."
If "we had six more in the Chicago Symphony, I am not convinced what difference that is going to make in our society and how we are perceived in the community."
Weston Sprott, Alex Laing, Joy Payton-Stevens, Titus Underwood (Black musicians from the Met Orchestra and the Phoenix, Seattle, and Nashville Symphonies): "... we want to address a favorite myth about American orchestras: that auditions have been blind "'since the 1970's."' This simply isn't true."
"The reason there aren't more Black artists in orchestras isn't blind auditions. The reason is racism."
They argue that the audition process (with its trial weeks, invite-only auditions, occasional unsreened final rounds) is often not really blind.
"Many Black artists ... have fought for a fully screened audition process precisely because we know that racism in orchestras is real."
Aubrey Bergauer (arts administrator): There are four areas we could do differently:
(1) "Whom we invite and recruit ... ." " ... often black and brown people are left out of those invitations."
(2) Subs are often invited and this often leaves out people of color.
(3) "Leave the screen up all the way through the finals, period."
(4) "If we're trying to redesign the process, ask the people who are being marginalized what we should do. Not one Black person I have spoken to on this topic thinks we should do away with blind auditions."
Afa Dworkin (President and artistic director of the Sphinx Organization) and Anthony McGill:
(1) "We cannot fix what we do not measure ... ." "... it is important to know how many black and Latinx musicians audition today, and why."
(2) "We are what we repeatedly play." "Commit 15% of your subscription series repertoire to Black and Latinx composers, for the next decade."
(3)"Allocate 15% of your budget toward addressing systemic racism for the next 10 years" if we are to expect "a different result".
(4) "Work with the National Alliance for Audition Support and music schools to ensure a minimum of 25% representation at every audition, or the search must continue."
(5) "Let's have a transparent definition of what is needed of a musician to join and be tenured in a reimagined collective of artists."
Edward Yim (President, American Composers Orchestra): "... I think orchestras need to make a more concrete commitment to racial diversity." In addition to competence, we should ask of the successful applicant "Do they fit the culture of our orchestra?"
Thomas Wilkins (Conductor): "Perhaps you could have a system where you were going to deliberately hire on an alternating basis. So for this audition, I'm looking for the best female candidate I can find; on the next, I'm looking for the best candidate of color I can find; on the next, for the best player, period."
Post Edited (2021-11-07 19:10)
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