Associate Dean Crystal Sellers Battle didn’t plan to be a leader in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices for musical institutions. After a childhood of singing in choirs and church, she was told she had the singing talent to pursue a performance degree in college. But when she arrived at college, she was pressured to choose between being a classical singer or gospel singer.
“I did not know that choice was going to be the first part that was going to lead me into this career of thinking about what equity and inclusion in music looks like and being able to bring your entire self into the place and not have to leave portions of your identity outside the room,” Battle says.
It was the start of several experiences that catapulted her into a career leading DEI initiatives in academic environments, eventually landing her at the Eastman School of Music as its first Associate Dean of Equity and Inclusion in 2022. As a first initiative, Battle quickly started on planning the school’s inaugural “Context Conference 2023: Contextualizing Equity and Inclusion in Music” taking place on November 3 and 4 at Eastman, sponsored by Eastman’s George Walker Center for Equity and Inclusion in Music, Eastman’s Institute for Music Leadership, and the University of Rochester’s Office of Equity and Inclusion.
The conference aims to be the first of its kind to gather people across all spheres of music to find solutions to the discussions many are having about equity and inclusion in music.
“There are a lot of conversations happening,” she says, “But what do you actually do? I chose the word ‘context’ because I wanted us to take these ideas a step further and actually figure out what it’s going to mean for my professional music organization, for my K-12 classroom, for my private studio, for my choral ensemble, for my wind ensemble, for my orchestra. What is this idea and concept going to mean for my specific areas?”
The Context Conference will feature 52 breakout sessions around five key conversation areas: Classroom Innovation, Curriculum Shift, Performance Practice, Community Engagement, and Recruitment & Retention. The conference features a full spectrum of speakers arriving from 28 states and Canada, ranging from national and international organizations to local educators and performers. Highlights include several representatives from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), as well as from organizations such as the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, El Sistema USA, Gateways Music Festival, and Sphinx. Eastman will also have several faculty and staff members giving talks, in addition to K-12 music educators and performers from the Rochester region.
In addition to Battle, the conference features two keynote speakers: Braxton Shelley, associate professor of music, of sacred music, and of divinity in the Yale University Department of Music, the Institute of Sacred Music, and Yale’s Divinity School, and Lisa Beckley-Roberts, an associate professor of music at Jackson State University (an HBCU).
Shelley not only holds a PhD in music history and theory from the University of Chicago but also received his Master of Divinity degree there, and his scholarly work finds analytical paradigms for gospel music that has helped institutionalize the study of black sacred music. He gives a presentation titled “A Time to Build” on Friday, November 3 at 2 p.m. in Hatch Recital Hall.
Shelley says that while there’s an important component of DEI work that is about deconstructing inequitable systems, his talk is more about reconstruction within the academy. “There’s another equally important way folks are taking this work on, which has less to do with the move to abolish and overturn than with the sense of ‘how can I find a way to turn this institution’s resources towards the good?’” he says. “This flows from the questions of, ‘are these intuitions worth keeping, can they do good, is the history too loaded and heavy laden with all the things we can analyze?’”
It’s work he has done at Yale’s Institute for Sacred Music by bringing in new materials and methods to reach audiences who hadn’t previously engaged with the campus community, “trying to be open handed about the sort of way we use resources to convene artists and experts and then to make those folks available to members in the broadest community.”
The second keynote speaker, Beckley-Roberts has close connections to Battle: the two started a consulting company called DIEMA (Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity in the Musical Arts) after coming together during the Covid pandemic in a support group for women music executives to share strategies during the pandemic. The two women gave a joint presentation on addressing issues of DEI to the group, which then blossomed into a full-blown consulting group. DIEMA now provides assistance to a variety of musical programs and organizations to help them better address DEI issues.
“There’s a solidarity to be a woman music executive at a meeting where there are many fewer of us,” she says of their pandemic meetings. “There’s also the solidarity of being black women in that environment.”
Beckley-Roberts’ talk is titled “Thinking of a Master Plan: From Theorizing to the Work of Contextualization in Music” and will take place in Hatch Recital Hall at 2 p.m. on Saturday, November 4.
The title is based on lyrics from rap artists Eric B & Rakim’s 1987 album Paid in Full:
Thinkin’ of a master plan
‘Cause ain’t nothin’ but sweat inside my hand
So I dig into my pocket, all my money is spent
So I dig deeper but still comin’ up with lint
“I love this idea about these two dynamic young men thinking of a master plan about how to manifest wealth for themselves in their community,” she says. “Because hip hop has shifted, it was much more about the community. And so that’s where that title came from. I was thinking of a master plan. How do we put into context this DEI work?”
Despite all the discussion at the conference, there will be musical performances woven throughout, which will culminate with a final performance at the Memorial Art Gallery on Saturday evening at 7:30 p.m. called “Classics with a Twist.” The concert is all about changing contexts: Music usually known to one genre will be transported into others, and the concert will be kaleidoscopic and interactive, inviting concertgoers to experience music in different parts of the gallery as a full, immersive experience. The concert features the versatile guest pianist Tony Walker, who has made a career out of genre-hopping.
Battle hopes that the conference spreads the message that opening the traditionally closed, privileged art form of classical music will have a positive impact on the art form at large.
“I like to think of the fact that classical music has been like a colonial home, made up of small rooms, a lot of small spaces very much compartmentalized. Each room had a specific function, and it stayed in that function,” she says. “What I’m hoping is that we can turn that old colonial home into more of an open concept, where we’re actually being influenced by each other, where the musical styles, the teaching, the pedagogy, the performances, the conversations, the theory, the musicology can all start to influence each other.”
Context Conference 2023: Contextualizing Equity and Inclusion in Music
Eastman School of Music, November 3-4, 2023
Registration open through October 25
See the full schedule of events.