Symphony trying to end lack of Black musicians
African-Americans have played as substitutes, but orchestra hopes to bring in members for the longterm
The Albany Symphony has established a long-standing legacy in the Capital Region since its founding in 1930.
It has an impeccable reputation and Grammy recognition, but what it has never had is a Black musician as an official member.
“Frankly, personally, I’m embarrassed,” said David Alan Miller, conductor and music director of the symphony. “I don’t think it was ever any overt exclusion that caused us to have no Black members, but I think it’s not acceptable.”
The orchestra does have African-American substitute musicians who play with them for shows for periods of time, but it is hoping to bring in members who will be there long-term.
In total, there are 70 musicians who are members of the orchestra. The number can fluctuate slightly based on the availability of members for each concert.
“For every concert we have some number of our member musicians — usually most of them — onstage, and then we fill in with substitutes for the gaps for people who weren’t available to play,” said Robert Pape, director of development and marketing at the symphony.
Between the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 seasons, the symphony has had eight Black musicians who performed with them either as substitutes or extra orchestra players. Three have performed with the symphony for multiple performances.
The symphony has been working to improve the diversity in the orchestra.
The IDEA, or Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access, Task Force is a body of the symphony that is in charge of identifying ways to improve diversity. Its mission is to take action toward being more inclusive by broadening the Albany Symphony’s audience and community partnerships, and increasing diversity in the orchestra.
The task force is composed of symphony board members, community members, symphony staff, a musician from the orchestra, Miller and Chairman Jahkeen Hoke, the CEO of the Business for Good.
“We are aggressively doing a great number of things to make our institution more progressive, such as: more soloists of color, composers of color, board members, staff members and substitute musicians,” Miller said.
Anna Kuwabara is executive director of the Albany Symphony Orchestra. As a Japanese-American musician, she expressed her passion for people of color to be represented and recognized in the field of classical musicians.
“This is all systemic,” Kuwabara said. “I think, in terms of empathy, sympathy and sensitivity as a person of color myself, this is something that hits my gut and my heart.”
Kuwabara focuses her passion for diversity and inclusion by serving on the advisory group for the National Alliance for Audition Support, a national initiative created to increase diversity in symphonies across the country.
She explained how, despite her more than 30 years of experience with orchestras, there has never been a breakthrough in the number of Black orchestra members.
“There’s a pretty significant mixture of AsianAmerican people in the orchestras as well, but still not Black and brown people,” Kuwabara said. “It hasn’t changed much.”
The Sphinx Organization is a Detroit-based social justice organization created by African-American violinist Aaron P. Dworkin, a New York native. The organization was established to create a pipeline between young musicians of color and classical music at every level from youth to professionals.
Bill Neri is the manager of ensemble advancement and artist engagement at the Sphinx Organization, and also manages NAAS.
“I was part of one of the first Sphinx Performance Academy sessions when I was in middle school,” he said. “It was my first exposure to high-level performers, and I could identify with these musicians because they looked like me.” Growing up as a Cuban-American, Neri appreciated the exposure to a diverse group of highcaliber performers in large symphony orchestras. Through his years in the field, he expressed the importance of having representation onstage at a young age. “So many Black and Latinx musicians that are in big orchestras today mention seeing someone they identify with in an orchestra when they were a kid,” Neri said. “They see ‘Oh wow, there’s actually a place for me in this world.’”
A report by the League of American Orchestras was published in September 2016 called “Racial / Ethnic, and Gender Diversity in the Orchestra Field.” The report specified how Hispanic and Latino musicians grew from 1.8 percent in 2002 to just 2.5 percent in 2014, and African-American musicians averaged 1.8 percent throughout a 12-year time frame.
The idea of hiding the identity of musicians while they audition — or blind auditions — is a concept that was introduced in order to address the lack of diversity in orchestras due to exclusion of people of color. But it has not fostered much improvement in recent years.
Judith Insell is a professional violist and executive director of the Bronx Arts Ensemble. Insell has grown to oppose the concept of blind auditions being utilized during the hiring process for orchestras. “Rethinking Blind Auditions” is an article published from a discussion of professional musicians and administrators in symphonies across the country.
“Clearly they don’t work,” Insell said. “As an industry, we have to be honest. If it worked there wouldn’t be a lack of Black and brown people in the orchestras. That has something to do with it.”
Insell expressed the necessity that an orchestra needs to be a complete reflection of the region it represents. That way the demographic of the community can be recognized and its people can be represented.
“Very often I would be the one person, Black or brown, in the orchestra,” Insell said. “And unfortunately, that hasn’t changed much. It has been like that for decades.”
In September of last year, members of Albany’s orchestra took a tour of historic areas to learn about the history of African-Americans in Albany and Black art.
The tour culminated with the launch of Convergence, a three-year collaborative initiative between the symphony and community members exploring three art forms with Black artists.
“Music has the power not just to be beautiful and comforting, but to really show the whole range of human existence and that’s a lot of what we’re trying to do through our Convergence program,” Kuwabara said.
While addressing the need for Black musicians in the orchestra, Miller spoke of the steps the symphony is taking to build diversity and connect with more artists from the African-American community.
“...We’ve built all sorts of wonderful connections, but at the core, if the people on the stage are mainly white, then something is missing.”