Many conductors, directors, ensembles, and curators want to program the music of women and people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds, but sometimes don’t know where to find these works.
Thus, there’s the very human tendency to program the composers and pieces that they already know.
It’s not uncommon for someone to say, “I don’t care about gender or race, I just want to program excellent music!”
Absolutely: we can’t think of anyone who would prefer to program non-excellent music. That’s a perfectly reasonable sentiment, and in a perfectly balanced world this page of resources wouldn’t be needed.
Unfortunately at the moment, with only about 5% of all programmed concert and film music being composed by women, people of color, or of alternate sexual or gender identities, it’s actually very important to take diversity into account when choosing excellent repertoire. The people responsible for creating the music should be a reflection of the people playing it and listening to it!
We call this, intentional programming.
There’s a LOT of excellent music being written by composers of all backgrounds– it just takes an extra moment to discover these pieces. The many links on this page will help, and if you scroll lower down you can gather some easy, useful ideas. Enjoy!
Click here to go to Alex’s site.
