Voices for Change in the Classical Music Profession New Ideas for Tackling Inequalities and Exclusions

by Bull, Anna; Scharff, Christina; Nooshin, Laudan

• ISBN13: 9780197601228
• ISBN10: 0197601227
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2023-03-13
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Author Biography

Anna Bull is Lecturer in Education and Social Justice at the University of York. A former professional pianist and cellist, her research interests include class and gender inequalities in classical music education and staff sexual misconduct in higher education. Her monograph Class, Control, and Classical Music (2019) was joint winner of the 2020 British Sociological Association Philip Abrams Award. Anna is also a co-founder and director of The 1752 Group, a research and campaigning organisation working to address staff sexual misconduct in higher education. She has worked with music education charity Sound Connections on youth voice in classical music education, publishing a toolkit for teachers in 2022.

Christina Scharff is Reader in Gender, Media, and Culture at King's College London. She is author and co-editor of several books, including Gender, Subjectivity, and Cultural Work: The Classical Music Profession (2018). Dr. Scharff's research on the classical music profession, funded by the ESRC and British Academy, has contributed to our understanding of inequalities in the cultural and creative industries, the subjective experiences of precarious work, and the psychic life of neoliberalism. Dr. Scharff's other area of expertise is in engagements with feminism, building on her first monograph Repudiating Feminism: Young Women in a Neoliberal World (2012).

Laudan Nooshin is Professor of Music at City, University London, having previously taught at Brunel University and Goldsmiths University of London, where she gained her PhD in Ethnomusicology in 1996. Laudan's research interests include creative processes in Iranian music, music and youth culture in Iran, music and gender, urban music studies, and music in Iranian cinema. She is a co-founder and currently co-Chair of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Music Studies Network and she is also a Vice-President of the Royal Musical Association in which role she leads the RMA EDI Working Group.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Anna Bull, Christina Scharff

I. THE MAKING OF CLASSICAL MUSICIANS
1. Class and Gender Inequalities in the Recruitment of Classical Musicians: Reflections on the Case of Italian Music Conservatoires
Clementina Casula

2. The Role of Music Conservatories in the Making of Classical Music Careers
Rainer Prokop and Rosa Reitsamer

3. Social Inclusion in Contemporary British Conservatoires: Alumni Perspectives
Jennie Joy Porton

4. Inside Looking In: Strategies to Counteract Misconduct in Artistic Teaching within Higher Music Education
David-Emil Wickström

II. PROBLEMATISING INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE
5. (Un)settling Institutional Hegemony: Challenges of Diversity Strategies in the Western Classical Music Sector
Kristina Kolbe

6. "To Share Music with Children": The LA Phil and Neoliberal Philanthropy in Inglewood
Mina Yang

7. A Critical Perspective on Diversity and Inclusion in U.S. Classical Music Discourse
Marianna Ritchey

8. Staging a Loose Canon: Scripture, Tradition, and Embedded Exclusion in Opera Production
Caitlin Vincent

9. Disability Representation in Opera
Charlotte Armstrong

III. MARGINALISED VOICES
10. Gender and Class: An Account of a Female Percussionist in the Classical Music Industry
Beth Higham-Edwards

11. Making Space for Disability and Music to Interact: An Interview with Composer Oliver Vibrans
Oliver Vibrans

12. Black on the Podium: An Interview with Brandon Keith Brown
Brandon Keith Brown

13. Creolisation, Mixing, and Plurality: An Interview with Hannah Kendall
Hannah Kendall

IV. RACIAL INEQUALITIES
14. The New "Yellow Peril" in European Symphony Orchestras
Maiko Kawabata

15. Irreconcilable Senses of Belonging: Transnational Japanese Artists in Quest for Authenticity in the World of Classical Music
Beata M. Kowalczyk

16. [Re-]training Classical Musicians Towards Polymusicality and Hybridisation: An Interview with Jon Silpayamant
Jonathan Silpayamanant

17. Inclusion and Diversity in the Early Music Scene in the US: A Conversation with Patricia Ann Neely
Patricia Ann Neely

18. On Leaving Classical Music: An Interview with Anthony Gray
Anthony Gray

V. ACTIVISM: STARTING WITH THE SELF
19. Disorientate Yourself! "Decentring' "Whiteness" as the Norm in the Classical Music Higher Education Institution
Eleanor Ryan

20. The Ethical Orchestra?
Cayenna Ponchione-Bailey

21. Illuminating Women's Music: Exploring the Canonic Ethos Behind the Illuminate Women's Music Concert Series
Angela Slater

22. Changing Classical Music from the Inside: An Interview with Chi-chi Nwanoku
Chi-chi Nwanoku

VI. ACTIVISM: BUILDING NETWORKS FOR CHANGE
23. (Un)Silencing Blacktivism in Opera: An Interview with Quodesia Johnson about the Letter to the Opera Field from Black Administrators
Antonio Cuyler

24. Reflecting on the Work of Gender Relations in New Music: Institutional Critique and Activist Strategies
Brandon Farnsworth and Rosanna Lovell

25. Addressing Inequalities in the Music Industry Before, During, and After COVID-19: The Campaigning Work of the UK's Incorporated Society of Musicians
Deborah Annetts, Vick Bain, Chris Collins, Vinota Karunasaagarar

26. "A community of 30,000 musicians behind you": Campaigning for Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion with the Musicians' Union in the UK
John Shortell

Afterword
Gillian Moore