In November 2018 I experienced one of the most negative reactions to my work . As you may know, I am the director of Forest Collective, a new music collective dedicated to diversity, unorthodox performance practice and bespoke performance experiences that bring new and old music together to make experiences you may not thought would have been possible. Part of our vision is to not program music by dead white men. This article with CutCommon was released on their Facebook page, and it was the first time I had really experienced such a negative reaction from what I believe were older, white men. Comments were made on the post like “we don’t want your hands on our masterpieces” and “what's wrong with Beethoven and Mozart anyway?” I felt that many of these commenters hadn’t read the article and seen that I take no issue with the cannon, just that the same operating space that Forest Collective has is as diverse as possible.
Disclaimer: I was approached by CutCommon’s editor who supported me through the immediate option to remove the story. But I chose to keep it published despite the comments. CutCommon does not support prejudice or discrimination of any kind, and comments were closely monitored by the editor, in addition to communication being open between us at all times.
As a cis, white man myself, perhaps I had been sheltered from this sort of commentary in the past. But this experience really opened my eyes to the fact that some people cannot accept change, progress or an attempt to call out injustice. If you read the article you’ll see there really isn’t anything to defamatory about it. I simply say that for the small position that I and Forest Collective hold will be as diverse as possible.
In the current climate of George Floyd, BLM, Harvey Weinstein, Trump, #MeToo, the fight for LBGTQIA+ rights and the rights of first nations peoples, I wanted to write an article about how, in my own very small way, I try to diversify and decolonise art music.
I would like to note that my work is primarily in the independent, new music scene in Melbourne. Luckily this small but rich scene of “new” classical music practitioners is generally based on a passion for innovation, diversity and progress. One could argue in opposition to the mainstream classical music world, which is slower to the diversity narrative. With this in mind, I can’t really speak for other artistic or social areas, and that the idea of decolonisation and diversity has a lot to do with representation of not only people of colour and first nations people, but also female identifying, LGBTQIA+ and people living with disability audience members and artists. Many organisations that fall under the Major Performing Arts Group (the big companies with Federal Government funding) are in my opinion and experience very White-Settler Australian focused, slow to innovation and change and who market mostly to a post war baby-boomer generation.
In this article I want to talk about a few of the roadblocks I’ve run into as a composer, conductor and curator of new art music, solutions I’ve tried to implement and consult on, and just general trends I’ve noticed in the industry.
I should probably add some personal definition here, because it can get confusing and I often use both terms interchangeably. I generally use Art Music to refer to music that isn’t in mainstream pop - so this covers a whole range of stylistic practice and genre. I feel the term classical music doesn’t really cover what I and Forest Collective do.
Female identifying
Probably the most noticeable force for change within art music and classical music in recent years has been a push for greater representation of female identifying composers. I have noticed a growth in a lot more composition competitions and fellowships for just female identifying artists, and there are many ensembles and artists, especially in the USA, that champion, almost exclusively the music of female identifying artists. Some great resources I’ve come across are Sarah Hetrick’s Works for Saxophone by Women composers, the Boulanger Initiative and Women In music.
In recent times in Australian we have seen more larger commissions going to female artists then in the past. Within Forest Collective we have a decent representation, however one trend I have noticed in programming our concerts collectively is that when the groups suggests works to perform inevitably many are by men. As a new music ensemble we often want to tackle the important works in the new music cannon. Examples being Pierrot Lunaire by Arnold Schoenberg, Folk Songs by Luciano Berio or the Chamber Concerto by Gyorg Ligetti. These are amazing works that are cornerstones for a new music ensemble. Often suggestions like these come from both male and female members of the ensemble. One can argue that we’re simply interested in programming “quality” pieces, but as I’ll talk about later this is a kind of backward cop out. So, when I do do a call out to the ensemble I will outwardly say don’t forget about women. Generally it doesn’t matter because there are alway suggestions of works by female composers, but it’s worth just taking a moment to look at a compiled list and just acknowledge the level of representation there and to try and find the most balanced outcome.
A further discussion on this can be found in this podcast we did from 2018.
There are many interesting initiatives I’ve seen implemented by different companies around the world such as female composer festivals and publicly advertised quotas for work by female composers. However I think the most successful programming comes when it’s not yelled from the rooftop or used as a marketing ploy. When concert programs are simply made to be as equal as possible. The argument that there are only a handful of female composers pre 1910 that have enough “quality” works to be programmed is rubbish. Another trend seems to say the cannon is so rich with works by white cis men that we have to keep that programming pillar intact and that in the fringes of a companies program, like a commission or a collaboration, organisations can look at enacting more diversity. I reject this. There are plenty of female composers, from all periods, who wrote good, bad, crappy and extraordinary music, it’s just generally they aren’t the ones who get the 10 page analysis in Groves or who feature on the top 20 lists of audience favourite. I am not blaming the audience here, but rather I would like to see more risks taken by the larger companies.
I have a passion for buying crappy old dusty music history books from second hand book shops, and it’s always interesting to see in a publication that might be 50+ years old how many words are dedicated to female composers (if any…). In Eric Blom’s Everyman’s Dictionary of music first published in 1947 Claudio Monteverdi is given half a page, with a lengthy list of works. His contemporary Francesca Caccini is given basically no biographical information, except to say her father is a well known musician himself (the next entry in the book dedicated to him, with double the information printed) and a piddly list of works. Of course Monteverdi is often cited as being one of the inventors of opera, and so deserves some extra air time. His works are cornerstones of the cannon, and are musically and culturally significant to the development of art. However surely so is a woman contemporary to Claudio, creating work that many leading musicologists now would argue made just as influential contribution to the development of the art form and perhaps never had it’s place in the sun due to Caccini’s gender. I would be very curious to see the attention put on Francesca in more contemporary publications. This sort of systemic misogyny seems to still hold sway over the opinions of many programmers and audiences around the world. In my experience of the works by female identifying composers are new or living composers. Some research and revision into older work would be fantastic to see across all areas of the industry.
First nations
In my growth as a curator of music I have worked hard to better myself with programming and knowing music by women. I have yet to really push myself into broadening my experience programming art music by first nations people. Some excellent initiatives I’ve researched include Ensemble Offspring’s Indigenous Composer in Residence series, Seattle Opera’s focus on First Nations opera artists and Industry Operas fascinating production Sweet Land.
My experience in Australia is that Indigenous music has often been quoted and/or appropriated by white composers. Many early, 19th century colonial works include titles like Corroboree and references to the sort of noble savage idea. Peter Sculthorpe and the “new” Australian sound that arose around him, Richard Meale and others in the late 1960s and 70s seems to have embraced indigenous culture in a way that seems less tokenistic and more authentic to its significance. However I feel that it’s only been since the 1980s where more authentic representation of Australian Indigenous music creation within the Art music concert platform has occurred. This has been spearheaded by composers such as Debrorah Cheetham and William Barton, and the fantastic collaborations such as the last album of Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter with the Australian Art Orchestra.
People of colour
Similar to the above, my work around inclusion of composers of communities other than white and english speaking has been slower than my focus on female identifying composers.
When one focuses on new art music you do get more of a cross section of composers from varying ancestries then you would within the traditional classical music cannon. This year in Forest Collective I approached the amazing Ali Fyffe who lived and worked in South East Asia to put together a program of works that focused on composers of underrepresented Asian nations in Australia. Often you can find works by Chinese, Japanese and Korean composers which are given reasonable air time, but the music of the middle east, south, central and south-east Asia is often less heard on the concert platform in Australia. It was a great gateway into discovering some unique and vibrant music communities with activities worthy of focus. I do also feel that with Chinese, Japanese and South Asian communities being some of the biggest non-European communities in Australia, art music producers have an obligation to create and curate work that reaches out to these communities. Classical music seems to froth over trying to get the 18-30 year old demographic, but I actually think trying to include immigrant, culturally and linguistically diverse communities would be more substantial for the growth and success of art music in Australia.
As I mentioned above when speaking about revision of the presence and contribution of female identifying composers in classical music cannon, there is also a lot of work to be done around the revision of people of colour, first nations peoples and basically non-European contributions to the development of Western Art Music.
A composer that really touches on some really fascinating intersectionality around art music and it’s appropriation of other cultures is Osvaldo Golijov. Golijov is an Argentinian composer, with influences from klezmer music, tango all the way through to middle eastern and african sounds. The work often has political and social influences, and uses this sort of quotation technique to highlight varying political ideas. The above linked work Azul brings the traditional 18th and 19th century concerto form, south american culture, folk and pop suggestions with contemporary music making together into a fascinating and really beautiful musical experience. Another work that does this is the fantastic Ayre, a sort of Berio’s Folk Songs for the early 21st century. Some fascinating extra reading for this piece here.
My experience with the African and African American art music cultures is very limited, outside of Jazz. There are certainly composers and works I adore such as Winnie: the Opera by South African composer Bongani Ndodana-Breen, anything by Julius Eastman, Champion by Terrance Blanchard and so many more jazz and jazz-art music collaborations. However, it is a narrative we don’t seem to see a lot of in Australia, and I would be fascinated to explore more music from the African or African American experience in Australia.
For some extra reading on the African and African American experience I would look no further then the work of Naomi Andre, especially the book Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement.
Disability access
Once again I need to admit that this isn’t an area I am at all an expert in. From my research, Australia seems to be a real leader in disability access to the arts, more generally, with great work being done by Arts Access Australia & Victoria, amazing work produced by Rawcus Theatre Company (often collaborating with live musicians) and some really well thought through funding pathways from the large funding bodies, like Australia Council for the Arts and Creative Victoria, amongst others.
Classical Music holds a lot of barriers for people living with disabilities. From my research a lot of the work around physical access and needs for audience members living with a disability are generally done by venues, rather than the presenting companies.
Many companies have implemented the standard experiences, such as tactile tours, audio description and relaxed performances. However, there does seem to be a lack of innovation and originality in this area which I feel has a lot of growth in creative bespoke experiences for those living with disability. Once again, I’m not saying I’m an expert or a leader in this field, but I feel that more dynamic options could be made to give audiences with varying access more access to new music. One simple and often overlooked aspect is for a concert to be Auslan interpreted. Interpretation can describe the feeling and mood of music, and is a remarkable way to give those who use Auslan access to an art form that is commonly thought of as inaccessible to them.
Second to this is a discussion around artists living with a disability working within new music. Pathways are few and far between. However, there are some fledgling projects that are creating some amazing work around access to performances for artists living with a disability. One such program is the National Open Youth Orchestra in the UK. However, many barriers are still in place for access to education opportunities and professional performance opportunities.
I would like to further explore these challenges within Forest Collective, and hopefully create a more open environment to artists living with a disability. Some members of our ensemble are from that community, so we have started some small steps in that direction, but further thought and innovation around access to new music for such communities is still new for us.
LGBTQIA+
Aside from the work I’ve done around programming more female composers, working with Queer artists and artists from the LGBTQIA+ community is probably the area I’ve worked hardest and in which I’m most proud of. Forest Collective has now presented a number of events for Melbourne Queer Cultural festival Midsumma that have included many artists from varying sexualities and gender experiences. I myself identity as queer, cis-man and so this does inform my practice as both composer, conductor and curator. It inevitably brings up a question, as it does for all other areas of diversity, around identity in the music, the program and how important is that in the narrative of the event. I will talk about this more in the below section on messaging, but it’s a tricky line to walk, and you need to really think about how the event is messaged. Do you present Tchaikovsky as a potential queer artists? Most musicologists (certainly outside of Russia) will say that he had same sex relationships and would be more fluid in sexuality then once previously thought. However, Tchiak was not “out,” and so does “outing” them and plonking them amongst other queer composers or apart of some celebration of queer-ness in music become a moral dilemma? Similar to my last thought around programming women composers, I think it’s about acknowledgment. In some instances it’s necessary, some instances it’s not. What is the performance about, what is the meaning of it’s focus. Works can have a distinctly queer tone and yet not be by a member of that community or vise versa. Is the event inherently queer, or is it simply presented by queers?
Some great work in this area is being done by Miranda Hill with 3ShadesBlack and the ever growing music program of Midsumma Festival.
Trauma and who can tell the story
Thinking further on the idea of when you want to be explicit about a programming angle, such as women composers or black composers, how do you tell these stories? How can these stories be told by a predominantly white ensemble, presumably for a predominantly white audience? A work like Porgy and Bess for instance is about the black experience in America but was created by a team of white men. Often, in my experience, works carry trauma by their creators around their lived experience. And so there is a delicate path that needs to be taken when bringing such works to an ensemble of musicians and then an audience. Forest Collective aims to be as inclusive as possible for both audience and performer, however the experience of being an independent art music ensemble has seen that our audiences are generally in the expected “classical” music mould. That is, white, middle aged and upwardly mobile. Is putting works that explore extraordinary trauma a process of empowerment and education to such an audience, confronting and perhaps sparking guilt and new thoughts, or again is it more morally bankrupt? I think it comes down to acknowledgement and clarity around the content. This is what we are presenting, this is what it is about and this is who is doing it.
A work I cannot recommend highly enough that touches on trauma, it’s communication and its intergenerational effect is P R I S M by Ellen Reid.
Emerging artists
Central to Forest Collective’s programming aims is to represent early career artists. I myself have recently made the awkward transition from “emerging” to “established.” What does that even mean? Well, it’s a prerequisite for some competitions and grants - up to 10 years out of your degree, you’re still emerging. Beyond that mark you’re obviously well established and inching yourself closer to the grave.
When FC was founded we were all emerging. Now we have a wonderful mix of early career, emerging and established artists and it makes for wonderful rehearsals, with a whole mix of experiences in the room. It brings a focus and freshness. The exchange of ideas between different career experiences is really cool to see, but it’s especially cool to see from composers. We often commission composers where the project is their first largish commission and so finally have achieved a canvas to paint something big on. Or composers who come from a totally different musical world, like folk or pop who have a whole new canvas open to them for the first time. This exchange of experience and world view keeps us on our toes and really inspires me to remind myself about the passion and view of the world held by those younger then me.
Interdisciplinary and “unorthodox” work
This is a key part to Forest Collectives work. How do we take art music and make it new, cool, memorable. Aside from the actual sounds being created, its a conversation around the venue, the style of the performance, seating, running a bar, pre or post show show music (DJs, guest etc) and then more wilder ideas such as performing across multiple rooms, interactive musical works and collaborations with other art forms.
This sort of work is a real passion of mine because it’s like gifting the well oiled machine that is an ensemble of musicians, trained to their highest point and giving it over to a choreographer, or a visual artists, or an improviser or a pop musician and saying here is this group of experts who can do pretty much anything sonically. How does this collaboration inform us, the performance style and from there a positive audience's experience? The latter is so important to me. We’ve been lucky enough to pull this off a number of times, and people leave FC gigs saying they have experienced something they will never forget, never expected or never knew would work with traditional instruments.
I think this is a really important factor to creating new spaces audiences can be brought into, feeling safe and secure and providing them with memorable experiences. There will always be a place for proscenium arch opera, concert halls for orchestras and recitals but I think the future of growing audiences for new and old music is bringing about innovative ways of how to present and collaborate with the music.
Finally, the internet is such a new and all pervasive force that art music doesn’t really know how to adapt to yet. Live streaming is sort of a thing, and Covid19 has pushed some interesting innovations for art music organisations to better engage online, but I feel that many of these companies are stuck in such backward, reverse innovative and white colonised spaces that they seem so impenetrable to the audiences they so hunger to engage to. Messaging and how the story of the company and the work is told is so crucial to this, and I will talk further about this below. I want to see more innovative work online by the legacy music organisations.
A recent work I’ve experienced online is an amazing work from The Hunt, Quarry: a story about grief.
Quotas, “affirmative action” & “good” or “diverse” programming
I often have these discussions within the FC team or to myself around quotas and if implementing that sort of thinking will be positive when programming. Or if the “just program what you think is good” path is better. Again, as I keep saying I think it’s about acknowledging what it is you want to do and what it is you’ve done. For example, by programming Pierrot Lunaire we’re not breaking down many barriers in terms of women composers, people of colour etc. However, how we present it and (this is so often not thought about) who is presenting it is crucially important. How does a south asian choreographer and a queer cis female musical director come together to forge a new angle on a seminal work? To me that is getting closer to some sort of “good programming.” Again, you end up talking to yourself about what it is you’re trying to say and what is important. Is it important that a female identifying musical director is creating the vision for Pierrot Lunaire? Perhaps not. Is it important that this musician isn’t from the western cannon and comes to the music from a Jazz perspective? Maybe, yes. Or is the South Asian choreographer bringing a style or reference to the work that is non-European? Then yes I would say it’s important to highlight this and to message your event around this path less trodden.
Messaging, who and how you engage audiences and how you tell the story
At the crux of all this thinking, you need to tell people what you’re doing, why you’re doing it and how. As I’ve touched on, how you acknowledge what you’re doing and the why and the how is so important. The narrative you set for your messaging is just as important as the curatorial vision. Often in art music, especially when we spend so much time frothing over the cannon, it’s often lost as to why we’re doing a work outside of it being just really cool to play or sing. Symbols have meaning. Words have meaning. The image used for promotion has meaning. The byline for an event is key to achieving the vision of a memorable, integrated event. And I think this is so important if you are interested in representing and engaging in non-Anglo white-settler communities in Australia. The large Government funded cultural organisations are symbols of colonisation, and still have a lot of work to do to be spaces that welcome and celebrate the broader community. I have never experienced being afraid of these companies and spaces. I have never felt at all reluctant to walk into the Arts Centre or the National Gallery to experience art. But I have learnt that for so many it is an oppressive place, full of stolen art, on stolen lands, representing white, European, settle art for predominantly white, settler people. I still have a lot to learn about how I try and make FC more warm and welcoming and it’s a good challenge to see how you can program and message your vision to be a space for all.
In preparing to write this post I had a glance over some of the books I adore, that talk about new music and 20th century music. They are listed below. I was disappointed but not shocked that out of the range of books published in the last 20-30 years only one had more then one or two references to female composers, most works are by European or Americans, very little touch on the LGBTQIA+ experience explicitly and I would say that pretty much none would have anything directly talking to inclusive experiences for those living with a disability. Very little is written on or reflects people of colour, colonialism, the civil rights movement or the challenges faced by composers of colour or from first nations.
However, as frustrating as this is, I am galvanised by the challenge it highlights. It’s pushed me to always remind myself to create and curate great work for all, by all. This was my thought when I foolishly started to read the comments on that CutCommon post. As taken-aback as I was with their reaction, I am inspired to meet the challenge of ignorance head-on.
My reading list for this article
Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement by Naomi Andre
The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth Century Opera Edited by Mervyn Cooke
The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross, and also Alex’s excellent Blog
The Classical Music Book Project editor Sam Kennedy
Everyman’s Dictionary of Music by Eric Bloom
Music After the Fall by Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Leaving Home Michael Hall & Simon Rattle
