On June 8th, Carnegie Hall announced that the historic All-Black Orchestra, named "The Gateways Music Festival Orchestra", founded 28 years ago by the seminal pianist and pedagogue Armenta A. Dumisani in North Carolina before moving to New York in 1995, would be performing at the Hall for the first time. This would mark the first, "official" time that an All-Black classical ensemble would be hosted at the 3,671 Hall in their 130-year history. The article posted by Harlem World Magazine explains that the Gateways Music Festival Orchestra's composition, inaugural and contemporary partnerships, and the details of the six-day festival to be held in 2022.
However, provided were two quotations but only one notable one for this particular article, that being by the Orchestra's Director of Community Relations. He mentions that the showcasing of an all-black classical orchestra at such a prodigious venue like Carnegie
"show Black children that they can perform classical music at the highest level, while reminding people of all backgrounds that this music belongs to everyone..."
As I will write later, I vehemently reject this on the basis that this, i.e., promoting the segregation of demographics in the performing arts, does more to discourage "Black children" [as if they are not enough on their own regards and must be thought of as color first] from pursuing classical music than pursue. By showing them that they belong only in their own divisions and not in the central forces, what is being taught? Nothing of service to anyone involved. You are telling them that if they show interest in classical music, they must self-segregate themselves if they hope for even a passing glance, let alone a job because if they try to go to the "Mixed" orchestra, they will never succeed. Self-sabotage to the max.
Maturing children, especially now with the rise of tenuous race relations across the globe, need to be privy to the integration of racial groups and the bonding [disincentivizing] of divides through any means necessary. We certainly should not be advocating them in such brazen manners, especially if our collective goal is supposedly inclusion and diversity. This seems not only anachronistic but antagonistic to the goal of the great racial project known as integration. This groups was founded during the early 1990s and since then, ethics and social morals have changed and there is no need to lambaster and rejuvenate the idea that All-Black, All-Asian, All-[fill in the minority] groups need to be preserved.
What needs to be encouraged and allowed to flourish is the idea of 'music belongs to everyone.' It doesn't belong to anyone and you can show this through REAL diversity, not operating in a highly decorated version of segregation under the guise of historical merit.
Disenfranchised students interested or becoming interested in music and the many paths therein need to be shown that they belong. Not only in their own communities but the communities at large, in venues great and small, in orchestras and choruses and chorals of all shapes and sizes. You can't do that if keep the charade up of "Having an All-Black, All-[fill in the blank] is a good thing because it highlights X's voice and their talents in an eco-system of oppression."
Good luck having real diversity and inclusion being the default paradigm in the performing arts then. Self-segregation does not have any end and it will only get worse if we don't stop it now and shift the paradigm from petty victimhood and escapism to real, dynamic change.
There is no need for All-X this and integrated that, or diverse this and inclusive that within any layer of the arts. There is but one, total default and that is X. Everyone belongs there!
Period.
[Inevitably, the more politically insipid will say my thoughts are less worthy due to the color of my skin, my experiences and jada jada. I disavow racism and their attempts at cogency.]
For more information on the 2022 Carnegie Hall Festival, click here.
Incredible times, we live in. Who would have thought this level of neo-segregation was possible in 2021? Two national anthems, separate college graduation ceremonies, forging education to make it more black-friendly, and now this: all black orchestra. If it was the other way around (all-white african music ensamble), it would have been called a cultural appropriation. Good text, thanks.