Classical music is not 'white' music. But given the rampant, systemic shutting out of black voices and black ideas, one wouldn’t be at fault for assuming as much. | | | | Roderick Cox conducts the Minnesota Orchestra, Oct. 26, 2016. "There are more voices to hear," he says.
(Jerry Holt/Star Tribune/Getty Images) | | | | | | “Classical music is not 'white' music. But given the rampant, systemic shutting out of black voices and black ideas, one wouldn’t be at fault for assuming as much.”
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| | rantnrave:// In its 137-year history, the METROPOLITAN OPERA has never presented an opera by a Black composer. You can be acutely, painfully aware of the racist history of classical music—why should it be different than any other genre of music?—and still be startled by that simple fact. Not. One. Single. Work. By. A. Black. Composer. Huh. Wow. There is now, finally, one on the schedule, TERENCE BLANCHARD's "FIRE SHUT UP IN MY BONES," which would have opened in 2020 if not for the pandemic and will instead make its Met debut soon after live performances return. (Blanchard's opera, based on NY TIMES columnist CHARLES M. BLOW's memoir of the same name, had its world premiere in St. Louis last year.) Fewer than 2 percent of the musicians in American orchestras, meanwhile, are Black, and those 2 percent are sometimes made to feel less than welcome, based on the stories posted anonymously at the INSTAGRAM accounts @orchestraisracist and @operaisracist. (There are plenty of stories of mistreatment of Asian and Latinx performers, too, like the Asian tenor who "was told by my white male teacher at a prestigious east coast music school that I wouldn't be convincing as a human being on the stage.") As a measure of how far the road to equality will be, WQXR, the classical public radio station that serves New York and New Jersey, noted in a blog post in June that after quadrupling the amount of music by non-white composers on its playlist, "their music still only makes up a tiny fraction of overall airtime." All of this has been an open secret for some time, but those blog posts and Instagram accounts are signs of a new discussion triggered by this summer of protest. The classical world may finally be facing the music and trying to prove, to itself and to its audience, that Black voices matter. MusicSET: "Roll Over Beethoven: Classical Music Confronts the White Elephant in the Room"... I'm fascinated by the censoring choices in the "WAP" video. Two of the three words in the title acronym, sure, I guess. The standard, generally agreed-upon vulgarities, OK. But the word "stroker"? The phrase "that lil' dangly thing"? Are things that you say instead of the things you're not allowed to say now disallowed, too? Have euphemisms been canceled? "Spit"? "Gulp"? "Weed"? Did I miss the press release about the new censorship code? And did anyone notice the "whores in the house" sample running through the entire song, which isn't censored? Can men still call women that over and over and over but women can't talk about men's little dangly things even once? Is that the current state of affairs? Just asking... LIVE NATION CEO MICHAEL RAPINO's response to the BILLBOARD headline "Live Nation Is Stuck in a Pandemic. What Now?": "we wait till it's safe to start up"... RIP MARTIN BIRCH, GLORIA DENARD, ALAN PETERS, DAVE "MEDUSA" SHELTON and DIMITRI DE WIT. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| In 137 years, the Metropolitan Opera has never presented an opera by a Black conductor (though there's finally one on the schedule). Fewer than 2 percent of the musicians in American orchestras are Black. Audiences look like the repertoire. But in this summer of protest, the classical world is finally facing the music. | | |
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| Recorded by Billie Holiday and Nina Simone, sampled by Kanye West and Rapsody, and streamed by the millions, the anti-lynching song has taken on a new relevance in the era of Black Lives Matter. | | |
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| Celebrating the release of his 'Blame It on Baby' deluxe album, DaBaby sits for an interview about misconceptions, police targeting, and more. | | |
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| A breakdown for those of us having a breakdown over the TikTok ban. | | |
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| Lawyers for the video-sharing app are likely to say the executive order was unconstitutional, arguing the company was not informed, as is standard, and the national-security concerns are baseless. | | |
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| It’s as rock ‘n’ roll as anything gets, but isn’t it kind of like keying your own car? | | |
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| The streaming platform pays artists approximately $0.00437 per stream, while Daniel Ek’s personal wealth is thought to be $4 billion. | | |
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| Here’s why it took the chamomile tea of pop singles to score her first No. 1 in years. | | |
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| After writing hits for other people, she's stepping into the spotlight with "Jaguar." | | |
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| As Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival has been forced to go virtual for 2020 it might be a good idea to reflect upon the history of where the festival usually takes place. | | |
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| As most musicians are freelancers, they are trying to solve for the present while also imagining the future without concerts. It’s the eternal question: How to eat? | | |
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| Even in the era of streaming, Best Of albums are in rude health, benefiting from both comforting nostalgia and confusing chart rules. | | |
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| Pex reported on the state of Youtube in 2018, analyzing its uploads, views, and growth. In 2019, some things have changed. | | |
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| In post-metal titans Neurosis, on his extraordinary new solo album, and throughout his first collection of poetry, the singer and musician summons up the eternity of the natural world. | | |
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| Esther Ngumbi, a professor from Kenya, and Ifeanyi Nsofor, a doctor in Nigeria, react to the megastar's movie-length music video - and to criticisms from other Africans. | | |
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| ‘His music gave us greater permission to believe in ourselves, and I think that’s the thing we’re grappling with.' | | |
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| “American Idol” creator Simon Fuller is turning to TikTok to find the next pop superstar, a sign of how much clout the controversial app has gained in the music world. | | |
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| The National Virtual Medical Orchestra brings together healthcare workers and gives them a creative outlet during the pandemic. | | |
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| Today marks the release of "The Stooges Live at Goose Lake 1970," a release so unlikely it kinda boggles the mind. Not only are there very few live recordings of The Stooges, but this particular recording of this particular performance is so drenched in legend that to even suggest there was a clean documentation of it sounds like a tall tale. | | |
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| In part three of our retrospective interview series, we talk to composer Hideaki Kobayashi. | | |
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| | | | | Cardi B feat. Megan Thee Stallion |
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