City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects CUNY Graduate Center 2-2021 The American Symphony Orchestra Today: Problems in Community, Diversity, and Representation Hilary Slade Jansen The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/4192 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] i THE AMERICAN SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA TODAY: PROBLEMS IN COMMUNITY, DIVERSITY, AND REPRESENTATION by HILARY SLADE JANSEN A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2021 ii © 2021 HILARY SLADE JANSEN All Rights Reserved iii The American Symphony Orchestra Today: Problems in Community, Diversity, and Representation by Hilary Slade Jansen This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Music in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _________________________ ______________________________________ Date Abby Anderton Chair of the Examining Committee _________________________ ______________________________________ Date Norman Carey Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Anne Stone Allan Atlas Thomas Cabaniss THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iv ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the symphony orchestra and its socio-political context in the United States. Using three orchestral case studies—the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and VeneZuela’s El Sistema—I examine the ways in which American symphony orchestras have responded both today and in the past to the public and academic discourse around social inclusion. Interweaving musicology, sociology, urban anthropology, cultural studies, education, economics, ethnomusicology, economics, data from grant-giving institutions, and from symphony orchestras themselves, I seek to situate the wider discourse on social justice in the arts (which has, until recently, lived largely outside of academia) within a musicological framework. From this structure, I ask how the fate of an orchestra’s artistic and social relevance hinges on a series of distinct artistic, managerial, structural, and philosophical choices, and ask how the orchestral institution can actively engage with the experiences of its community in order to create a musical platform for social justice. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I’d like to thank Allan Atlas. We all know that Allan is a fine scholar and writer, but now I know him as an extraordinary and concise editor, and the most patient, encouraging advisor that I could have wished for. The road to writing this dissertation has been a . lengthy one, and Allan was a constant source of support. He rarely expressed frustration when other people would have, and when he did, it was usually in the form of a limerick. Thank you, Allan, for making me a better and more precise writer, and for being a source of kindness, understanding, and humor throughout my graduate school career. I’d also like to thank Anne Stone, who similarly helped me find clarity in both my writing and in my thinking, and who was willing to take on a topic that certainly falls somewhat off the traditional musicological path. Thomas Cabaniss and Abby Anderton were insightful and helpful members of my committee, and I’m truly grateful to them both. From the time I first sat at a piano, through endless lessons and concerts, commutes to youth orchestra rehearsals, treks to Maine to hear my performances, through graduate school in Boston and even more graduate school in New York, my parents have provided me with unfettered, unquestioned, joyful access to music. For this, and for so, so many other reasons, I am truly extraordinarily grateful. People often tell me that I am so lucky to have the parents that I do, and I can only say that they couldn’t begin to know how right they are. Lastly, I want to thank Ricky, Silas, and Ashwin. Ricky, for always offering me support and encouragement, even when I felt that I didn’t deserve it, and for being a partner in the ups and downs not just of graduate school, but of every roadblock and triumph we’ve encountered. No matter what else is happening, we can always make each other laugh, and it’s hard to ask for much more than that. And finally, thank you to Silas and Ashwin, for being so very funny and so vi very kind, and a constant reminder of all that is good in the world! vii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION…………………….…………………………………………………………1 CHAPTER ONE TWO ORCHESTRAS: LOS ANGELES/PHILADELPHIA COUNTERPOINT I ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND PERFORMANCE……….………………………..14 CHAPTER TWO TWO ORCHESTRAS: LOS ANGELES/PHILADELPHIA COUNTERPOINT, II MUSIC AND MUSICIANS………………………………………………..................................41 CHAPTER THREE EL SISTEMA IN VENEZUELA: FOUNDATION, AGENDA, CONTROVERSY…………...66 CHAPTER FOUR THE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA AND THE OPPORTUNITY FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, I...……………………...……………...92 CHAPTER FIVE THE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA AND THE OPPORTUNITY FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, II……………………..………………110 CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................................135 BIBLIOGRAPHY......................................................................................................................138 viii LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1.1 WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL………...…..…….…………………...…………...……….33 FIGURE 1.2 THE KIMMEL CENTER…………………...……………….……………..................................39 FIGURE 5.1 CENSUS FIGURES FROM DETROIT, 1950-2017…………………………………………...113 FIGURE 5.2 A LISTING OF RECENT MELLON GRANTEES FROM THE FOUNDATION’S WEBSITE…………...………………………...120 1 INTRODUCTION For he is the rich man In whom the people are rich, And he is the poor man In whom the people are poor; And how to give access To all the masterpieces of art and nature Is the problem of civilization Ralph Waldo Emerson 1 Visitors to the Egyptian exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City enter the galleries through doors marked “Sackler Wing.” Indeed, members of the Sackler family, who built the company that is now Purdue Pharmaceuticals, have been long time and prolific donors to the arts and humanities in academic and cultural institutions around the world. Their names adorn museums and galleries at Harvard, Columbia, and Oxford Universities; the Smithsonian Institution; the afore-mentioned Met Museum; the American Museum of Natural History, and many, many more.2 Yet in May of 2019, the Met joined the Guggenheim (where Sackler family members sat on the board for many years)3 along with the National Portrait Gallery, the Tate Modern, and the Louvre in a pledge to no longer accept funding from the family. The Sackler’s personal wealth is tied in no small part to the production of the drug 1 The Conduct of Life (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1860), 84. 2 ElizaBeth A. Harris, “The Louvre Took Down the Sackler Name. Here’s Why Other Museums ProBaBly Won’t,” The New York Times (hereafter NYT), July 18, 2019, online at https://www.nytimes.com/ 2019/07/18/arts/sackler- family-museums.html. 3 Alex Marshall, “Museums Cut Ties with the Sackler Family as Outrage over Opioid Crisis Grows,” NYT, March 25, 2019, online at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/arts/design/sackler-museums-donations-oxycontin.html. 2 OxyContin. Public outrage demanded a swift divorce from the family and its role in the ongoing and worsening public health epidemic fueled by the opioid crisis.4 At the same time, New York’s Whitney Museum removed Warren B. Kanders from its board after months of public protests over his company’s production of tear gas that was used at the United States-Mexico border.5 At a time when public funding for the arts is steadily decreasing, these institutions divested from a philanthropic income stream of millions of dollars, answering the ethical and political demands of their supporting communities. In Whose Muse?: Art and the Public Trust, Glenn D. Lowry, Director of New York’s Modern Museum of Art, asks: But what is public trust? How is this trust created and what does it mean to lose it? Why, one might ask, should we care about this term at all? By public, do we mean a community at large, or more specifically, the subsection of a larger community that museums actually serve? Are the interests and concerns of the public that any one museum serves the same as another one?6 Lowry’s questions are echoed in recent academic work in art history and museum studies. In her ethnographic study Exhibitions for Social Justice,7 Elena Gonzales looks at museum curation as a practice, and posits that museums have the power to create demonstrated change in societal equality through curatorial content and processes. Richard Sandell’s Museums, Equality, 4 In a story that is still ongoing, the family is in the process of settling lawsuits filed By more than 2,000 local governments. See Brian Mann, “Purdue Pharma Reaches a Tentative Deal to Settle Thousands of Opioid Lawsuits, National Public Radio, SeptemBer 11, 2019, online at https://www.npr.org/2019/09/11/759967610/purdue-pharma- reaches-tentative-deal-to-settle-thousands-of-opioid-lawsuits .Also Colin Dwyer, “Sacklers Withdrew Nearly $11 Billion From Purdue as Opioid Crisis Mounted,” National Public Radio, online at https://www.npr.org/