Diversifying the Symphony

Quote from Aaron Flagg:
Quote:
As far as celebrating goes, Canadian Steve Nash has been the NBA’s MVP for two straight years. African-American Grant Fuhr was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2003 and is ninth on the all-time wins for goalies. I call that celebrating diversity. By the way, how exactly does the orchestra field celebrate its diversity?

I would like to begin today with discussing how orchestra’s celebrate their diversity. Once a person is offered employment in an orchestra, the marketing department has an opportunity to introduce them to the community. Recently in the Kansas City Symphony, Damon Gupton was hired as assistant conductor. He is a talented and highly qualified conductor that happens also to be African-American. His appointment was based on merit. Once he joined the KCS he was featured in the local paper and has conducted many performances in many different venues. I think that the Kansas City Symphony has done a great job letting the people in the area know about their recent hires. If only one minority child reads that article and then attends a concert and in the future wants to be a conductor or musician, then we should always support those dreams. The problem is the final step, from university/conservatory to the professional orchestral world. This creates a difficult question to answer and I would like some input to help answer it:

Why are many young African-Americans and Latinos not showing up to symphony orchestra auditions? Further more, what bumps them off the track to success?

I am a strong believer in screened auditions. Once you add the screen, then you are basing all decisions on sound and style. This should encourage a more diverse pool of candidates. The real question is how does one win an audition. This question has many valid answers and many invalid answers, and every orchestra is unique as to what they are looking for, but the one thing to remember is that everyone has an orchestra. What I mean by this is that on any given day you can win an audition. Two factors need to occur, first the candidate needs to perform at a high level and second the committee needs to want that specific musician in their orchestra. The hardest part to understand about this approach is that you may need to take few to many auditions to find “your orchestra.” The process is very difficult and demanding but not impossible. I would tell everyone auditioning for orchestras to not give up. I would like to pose yet another question:

Are young African-Americans and Latinos more likely to get discouraged with the audition process?

I can only speak for myself on this one. I took many auditions before I won the Principal Horn position in Kansas City. It took me a bit of time to realize what I needed to improve my audition success. I spent four years in the New World Symphony and spent my summers performing with the Verbier Orchestra and Spoleto USA. I learned a lot from my colleagues and mentors, and feel that I was encouraged to attend auditions. I guess I am very optimistic and feel that if someone has the internal drive, then they will continue to attend auditions and not get discouraged. Of course this is always easier said than done.