[I wrote this essay in the summer of 2020, initially intending it to be an op-ed that; unfortunately I never found time to look for an outlet for it, so now it will live here.]
During this time of crisis and change in the United States—related both to COVID-19 and to the racial justice uprising following the murder of George Floyd—the US classical music industry must reckon with, and take proactive steps to correct for, its complicity in what feminist author and activist bell hooks calls the “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” Such a moment demands, and makes possible, radical change, not merely incremental reforms. The sorts of changes required of us now are not in one area or at one level of the industry, but are multi-pronged and overlapping.
First, a few definitions and caveats. By “classical music industry” I mean institutions like conservatories and university schools of music, symphony orchestras, opera companies, chamber music organizations, etc. And though neoliberalism is a global phenomenon, I confine my remarks here to the US classical music industry—as opposed to that of other countries—because peculiarities of the US political and economic system (particularly the tax code) are important structuring elements of this industry. (For a treatment of this subject in a European content, see Christina Scharff’s excellent Gender, Subjectivity, and Cultural Work: The classical music profession.)
I will not litigate here the question of whether the aesthetic content of the music itself is part of the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy; i.e., perhaps Wagner’s Die Meistersinger or Debussy’s Golliwog’s Cakewalk are, but Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony is not, etc. Nor will I do more than mention in passing the problematic nature of the term “classical music,” which, as musicologist Robert Walser writes, is “an ‘invented tradition’, whereby present interests construct a cohesive past to establish or legitimise present-day institutions or social relations[...] The hodgepodge of the classical canon—aristocratic and bourgeois music; academic, sacred and secular; music for public concerts, private soirees and dancing—achieves its coherence through its function as the most prestigious musical culture of the twentieth century.” These are both worthy conversations; however, here I write about the US industry of classical music, which is populated by classical music laborers, and institutions that employ and train them.
bell hooks remarks the following about the phrase “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy:” “I wanted to have some language that would actually remind us continually of the interlocking systems of domination that define our reality[...] a sort of short cut way of saying all of these things actually are functioning simultaneously at all times in our lives[....] I won't be able to understand it if I'm only looking through the lens of race. I won't be able to understand it if I'm only looking through the lens of gender. I won't be able to understand it if I'm only looking at how white people see me.” She often deploys this concept to critique popular culture, but it is not difficult to see the extent to which it applies to the US classical music industry. It is white supremacist because of the majority of its audience, musicians, and composers are white. (This is not to say that individuals, necessarily, carry prejudice in their heart; it is, however, to say that the industry participates in structural racism.) It is capitalist because it relies on accumulated wealth to sustain itself. It is patriarchal because most of its performers, administrators, and composers are men; in addition, some women have internalized this male dominance of the field, and, advertently or not, defend this system.
Regarding the “white supremacist” part of the triad: the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent uprising have prompted widespread and long-overdue attention to matters of racial inequity all across culture. The US classical music industry is among the worst offenders here, with its fetishization of “absolute music”—music that transcends extra-musical meaning, and that abides, supposedly, only by its own internal rules—the logic of which is only too reminiscent of discredited “colorblind” ideology, and which attempts to put it beyond question, critique, historicization. As George E. Lewis has written, “[a] cone of silence hangs over the work of Black composers from Africa and its diaspora. It is not that Black men and women have not written music, but too often it has been ignored—and thus assumed not to exist at all.” However, it is not merely Black composers that have been ignored or under-represented. BIPOC performers and administrators in our performing and educational institutions are found in disproportionately small numbers across the board. The US classical music industry must take immediate steps to diversify personnel in all institutional settings: from pre-collegiate music schools, to conservatories, to professional performing institutions. The problem must be dealt with from multiple angles: the “pipeline” problem must be addressed by schools, and solutions to diversify the ranks of performers, composers, and administrators must be implemented immediately. The tired concerns about, and overblown fears of, a drop in ‘quality’ must be viewed for what they are: stand-ins for the maintenance of socio-political power by white people. (Usually an appeal to ‘quality’ is vague and undefined, an appeal, perhaps, to a famous composer or performer; a person invoking a decline in ‘quality’ ought to be pressed on exactly how one measures such a thing, and who is allowed to do the measuring.)
Regarding the “capitalist” part of our triad, we face thorny problems. The US classical music industry is simultaneously both under-capitalized and deeply inequitable in its distribution of resources. Perhaps because of US culture’s glorification of individualism, competition, and wealth, unlike many other countries, the classical music industry in the US receives vanishingly small amounts of support from federal, state, and local governments. Classical music institutions, most of which are 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organizations, thus rely heavily on philanthropy—either support from foundations or wealthy donors who receive a tax write-off for their contributions. Such an economic structure favors the “haves” over the “have nots,” and perpetuates systemic inequality; it has privatized patronage of the arts, rather than placing responsibility for funding them in the commons. Larger organizations can employ development staff, and cultivate relationships with big-money donors and foundations, making it difficult for smaller or newer organizations to compete. (Notice that even here I have subtly allowed a notion of competition between organizations to creep in; while this may make sense for corporations, are we sure it is a healthy framework for arts organizations?) All of this renders classical music labor—with a small number of notable exceptions like tenured university and orchestra positions (even these less secure than previously thought in the era of COVID-19)—precarious and unstable. There has been a recent trend in education towards the development of entrepreneurship curricula. However, there is little evidence that such curricula are successful on a large scale or in the long term, and indeed it is not even clear how one would measure the success of such training. Surely, however, the wholesale COVID-19-related cancellation of gigs, performances for months on end, in some cases entire seasons, is all the evidence we need to prove that precarious labor is unsustainable for the vast majority of the US classical industry. Whether we call performing musicians members of the “precariat” or use scholar Angela McRobbie’s term “risk class,” it is clear that a new, shared, and clear-headed understanding of the severe plight of US classical music laborers is needed.
Regarding the “patriarchy” part of our triad, the solution may seem straightforward: hire more people who are not cisgender men (i.e., women and trans people)—especially in areas of the field that are most traditionally patriarchal—like conducting and upper administration, and address the gender pay gap in the industry. However, along with patriarchy comes a tendency to fetishize unquestioned authority. Conductors, composers, instrumental teachers, vocal and instrumental soloists, and others are traditionally treated as geniuses whose judgment and behavior is beyond critique or question. We should note that precisely because of this “genius ideology,” some professions in the US classical music industry tend to select for personalities that seek such praise and deferential treatment. An extreme case is that of James Levine: the all-powerful conductor of the Metropolitan Opera whose sexual abuse of young men was an open secret in the US classical music industry for decades (as an aspiring conductor at age 17, I was advised to be cautious about seeking a meeting with him because I was “pleasant to look at”). James Levine is hardly the exception, and every conservatory-trained musician is likely either to have encountered personally, or know people who have encountered, sexually, psychologically, or even physically abusive teachers and conductors. It is clear that, in addition to hiring more people who are not cisgender men in roles traditionally favoring cis men, the narrative of the genius, of the artist who can’t be bothered with rules, must end.
What this moment both demands and makes conceivable is a truly radical re-organization of the classical music industry in the US. For this, utopian imagination is required, and I share musicologist Marianna Ritchey’s view (in her recent book Composing Capital) that “[the] endeavor[...] to think and imagine differently[...] remains a necessary one.” This brief essay is meant only to introduce conceptual frameworks for understanding the state of this industry; it is clear from the pandemic that its structures were all too easily devastated. We must rebuild doing several things simultaneously. 1) We must proactively diversify—in terms of race, ethnicity, and gender—at all levels of this industry, from early education to prestigious performing organizations, from personnel to music performed. 2) We must develop a shared and clear-eyed understanding of the deep structural economic inequities that we face. We must reject the competitive narratives and self-exploitation of neoliberalism, reversing the logic of Claire Chase’s famous exhortation to young musicians—“I'd love for every single one of you to put me out of business”—in favor of a shared model that emphasizes community over individuality. We must develop an economic model, in short, that foregrounds sustainability of careers and treats musicians as subjects, not commodities. 3) We must dismantle patriarchal structures, and the genius ideology that accompanies it, in favor of a healthier model of power distribution in which people of all genders are equally influential.
Finally, perhaps most importantly, we must re-center who we serve. Section 501(c)(3) of the US tax code provides tax exemptions for “[o]rganizations organized and operated for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes, or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals,” in other words, for what we generally call a public, rather than private, benefit. The US classical music industry must take the spirit, not merely the letter, of this seriously. It must abandon its twin colonializing projects: that of paternalistically bringing so-called “great music” to the so-called masses, and that of obsessively seeking to “create new audiences”—as if the audiences serve the arts organization and not vice versa. The classical music industry must engage in dialogue and reflection about how it serves its community. This is an especially tricky and difficult task. Surely one of the single most important benefits of musical art is that it can be challenging, difficult, new, and productively disruptive; thus being “beneficial to the community” cannot simply be programming in a way that cynically caters to popular taste. Neither, however, can it be defensively posturing itself as conserving ill-defined “great music” or tacitly letting its community be a self-selecting and self-reinforcing revolving door of donors, foundations, performers, and audience members who are “in the know.” In short, the US classical music industry must view itself for what it is: not primarily part of a tradition, but a contemporary, living cultural phenomenon that must contribute to its society and community in a manner that is supportive and healthy.