Earlier this week, Joshua Kosman wrote about the newly-appointed (if not yet officially announced) principal bassoon of the San Francisco Symphony, Joshua Elmore:
Here’s one thing we can say right out of the gate, though: Elmore’s presence brings the number of Black musicians in the orchestra from zero to one. Depending on your temperament and your mathematical outlook, you could describe that as the smallest possible improvement to a historically lamentable situation, or you could describe it as an infinity-percent increase. Both are accurate. The lack of African American musicians — not only in the SF Symphony but in orchestras nationwide — is a perennial scandal, one of a range of systemic inequities that continue to plague the field while those in power resist change. Every incremental improvement is simultaneously welcome and grossly inadequate to the situation.
I couldn't agree more, and you should read the whole thing.
The dearth of Black musicians in the orchestra isn't the only problem just now at SFS. Another is the lack of music by Black composers on the orchestra's 2024-25 schedule. Tonight, the orchestra played this program:
- Bernstein, Suite from Candide
- Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue
- Still, Wood Notes
- Gershwin, Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture
As far as I can tell, Wilkins is the only Black conductor on this season's orchestral series, and Cann is the only Black piano soloist (and maybe the only Black instrumental soloist). I will note that Gale Deadrick who leads the Colors of Christmas concert in December, and Courtney Bryan, who curates a SoundBox concert, are both Black or Black-presenting.
And look at the program Wilkins has: two works by Gershwin, an appropriator of Black musical styles, one of them drawn from the very problematic opera Porgy and Bess; one work by Bernstein, and 50% of the works by Black composers to be heard this season.
That's right: William Grant Still's Wood Notes is half the works by Black composers. The other is by Xavier Muzik, winner of the Emerging Black Composers Project this season. Where on earth are Florence Price, George Lewis, George Walker, Tania Leon, Errolynn Wallen, Pamela Z, Carlos Simon, Julia Perry, Jessie Montgomery, Adolphus Hailstork, Eleanor Alberga, and so many more? I would like to see less Bernstein and Gershwin, and a lot more music by Black composers.
Now, I have no idea how this program came together or whether it's what Wilkins asked for, or what. But I mentally squirmed an awful lot about the fact that the only Black conductor this season was leading this rather narrow, classical-top-20 program and the only Black pianist this season was playing the Rhapsody. Maybe I am being snobby in some way? But boxing off minoritized musicians in specialized repertory or programs is definitely a thing that happens.