THREAD: US Orchestras and Large Ensembles

The past 10 years I've been researching and cataloguing the Orchestra. Not "Euro-styled Orchestras" (ala Lewis, "Eurological Orchestras"), but ALL Orchestras. Seven years ago I started a site (not public) to chart this in the US.

1/ Image
The generally received view is that the Orchestra evolved into its "final mature form" in the first half of the 20th century.

That's simply not the case and easily demonstrably false as long as we leave out Eurocentric/Colonialist/White Supremacist views and definitions.

2/
The Orchestra as an institution is constantly evolving and taking many different forms all around the world, but like the White Male Classical Music Canon, we tend to only see canonical ensemble types and treat them, like the repertoire canon, as universal and neutral.

3/
There's actually a pattern, *Logic of Exclusion of Colored Bodies in Classical Music*, that gets replicated [esp. in the US] in the canonical field. In fact, it's necessary for the maintenance of the hierarchy--and DEI initiatives won't change that.

silpayamanant.wordpress.com/2020/09/15/col…

4/
In fact, I would argue that DEI initiatives are a response of the Music Ecosystem to maintain itself in that position of dominance in the field.

Let's go back to Orchestras.

5/
If a white *Eurological Orchestra* can somehow show itself to be more diverse and inclusive, it will continue to absorb funding that might otherwise go to another orchestra that serves the needs of a different population.

6/
This was what happened when St. Paul’s Ordway Center received $86K grant to present "Notes From Asia" while Mu Theater, whose mission/audience is Asian-American, didn't. The grant was for "teach[ing] audiences abt the hist. of Asian-American theatre."

americantheatre.org/2017/07/21/who…

7/
The opposite happened in Toronto a couple years ago. The Canadian Opera Company and Toronto Symphony Orchestra, both Eurological performing organizations, lost funding for not following the city's Diversity guidelines.

ludwig-van.com/toronto/2018/0…

8/
As we see calls for diversifying Eurological performing arts organizations, we also see the lack of attention for the other performing organizations which serve other populations, and often are primarily composed of and create content by non-white populations.

9/
This is essentially what I discussed as the "Diversity in" versus "Diversity of" divide. DEI initiatives are designed to reinforce "Diversity in" Orchestras, not "Diversity of" Orchestras.

silpayamanant.wordpress.com/2018/07/18/div…

10/
What I'm hoping to highlight and amplify is the *Diversity of Orchestras* which will necessarily imply bringing to light the *Diversity of Composition* and Diversity of Audiences, Shareholders, and Communities and their performing arts around the US.

11/
In other words, DEI initiatives are designed to maintain the status quo and are intimately tied to White Saviorism, Colonialism, Civilizing Missions, and ultimately White Supremacy.

12/
By making Eurological Orchestras/Instrumentation/Repertoire the primary and *universal location* of DEI initiatives we're essentially replicating the Logic of Exclusion of Colored Bodies by letting BIPOC CosPlay a part in White Orchestras while ignoring their Orchestras.

13/end
P.S. I considered making an analogy of creating a kind of Classicalsound to drown out the Colorsound of other Music Ecosystems (h/t to @DrMaDMo and his work on Blacksound), but still not sure if that's an appropriate way to analyze/characterize the above discussion.

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More from @Silpayamanant

Jan 13, 2023
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content.govdelivery.com/accounts/MNORG…
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Aug 5, 2022
Welsh Harp tablature from the *Robert ap Huw manuscript* (1613). The manuscript is the oldest extant source of primarily Late Medieval eisteddfod repertory that dates to 1340-1500 and was compiled by Robert ap Huw (c.1580-1665).

pbm.com/~lindahl/ap_hu…
Short segment on the *Robert ap Huw manuscript* in Rhodri McDonagh's wonderful "Welsh Trad Music | A Beginner's Guide" video (cued up to that segment below). The whole vid is worth a watch and is only 24 minutes.

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Aug 3, 2022
One of the things I love about Georgian Harmony is that it's based on what's essentially close to a functionally 7TET/EDO collection of pitches. Many global harmonic systems are built on different tuning systems than those in what's typically referred to as Western harmony.
The above image from Malkhaz Erkvanidze's "On Georgian Scale System" pg. 181

citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/downlo…
See also:
"Tonal Organization of the Erkomaishvili Dataset: Pitches, Scales, Melodies and Harmonies"

publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/inde…
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Aug 3, 2022
Just looking the bi/polymusical course offerings at Thai Universities (sample below) in a Dissertation from 1998.

"Undergraduate Piano Pedagogy Course Offerings in Thai Universities" Chindarat Charoenwongse. University of Oklahoma.
shareok.org/handle/11244/5… Image
Bi/polymusical education ecosystems are far more common outside of Europe and North America.

H/T to @FergusonGuitar for this.

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doi.org/10.1177%2F1367…
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Aug 2, 2022
Latest update to the <Solo Keyboard Repertoire - Southeast Asian Composers> resource. Added about another 50 or so pieces by (primarily) Vietnamese/Vietnamese diasporan composers.

I'm barely scratching the surface of solo keyboard rep here, folks.
doi.org/10.6084/m9.fig…
I think it's easy to underestimate the size and diversity of SE Asia (hence why I added a new second paragraph to the doc). For example, Indonesia alone has a population of nearly 275 million: the 4th most populous country in the World. About 231 million Indonesians are Muslim. Image
And just hearing all those different composers that've created wonderfully expressive uses of the piano for native tunes, or how they've incorporated that into their compositional style or, in some cases, incorporated the piano into SEA folk and art musics, is just so refreshing!
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May 12, 2022
Finally getting a chance to read this and the intro piece "American Music and Racial Fantasy, Past and Present" is so excellent & lays out the backdrop for what I call the <Perpetually Foreign Music> idea & how Raceface Minstrelsy shapes current Anglo/American popular musics.
This, especially: "Dismantling the Black-white binary requires us to locate our discussion of music and race in the period prior to 1900" (pg. 573) though I'd argue we should extend this into discussion of race/music today & how the Black-white binaries create other...
...exclusions. Especially as this carries over into music education & how this "In every part of the globe that was touched by minstrelsy, fantasies served to advance white male status" plays into ehtno-nationalist views of what counts as "American Music."
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