Tag: sjm

Jumping off from Boston Symphony principal flutist Elizabeth Rowe’s gender pay discrimination lawsuit, equal opportunity law scholar Nancy Leong and freelance oboist Tenly Williams argue that “substantive reform cannot happen without radical transparency regarding hiring, promotion, and pay. … While transparency is stressful and uncomfortable at the outset, it is also the key to unlocking equity not only for women but all demographics.” — Slate

Chad Cooper, a 45-year-old former managing director at Deutsche Bank in New York, left that lucrative job to become executive director of the conservatory, 121 years old but at that point nearly insolvent. And he seems to have rescued the BCM, which brings the only music lessons available to hundreds of public school students and provides music therapy to 1,500 clients, including seniors with dementia and children with autism. — Fast Company

“There is a school of thought in contemporary classical music that music should be above everything else, that it should have a purity about it. To me, that doesn’t make sense. Everything we do in art comes from what’s around us and who we are as humans.” – NewMusicBox

“It brings people together and gives them discipline and self-esteem. … When I first joined I really didn’t think much of it. And after a certain point I thought: You know, I think I have a voice, and I’m finding it.” — New York Times

“Choral Marx, which was recently performed at NYU’s Skirball Center, consists of nine singers whose variously musical utterance transfigures, toys with, and otherwise implements eight heavily excerpted selections from the 1888 Samuel Moore translation of the Manifesto. Led by [composer Ethan] Philbrick’s cello, the band played all the hits: ‘The history of all hitherto existing societies/ Is the history of class struggle,’ ‘The bourgeoisie has reduced personal worth to exchange value,’ ‘There is a specter haunting this world’ and so on.”

David Stull’s notion is that any reasonable education should teach you to think critically and creatively; write and speak effectively; work alone or on a team; translate constructive criticism to advantage, and, no matter the obstacles, continue to succeed. In sum, from a proper education, you should learn to embrace versatility, failure, and the desire to innovate. You should also know how to create a 501(C)(3).

New music has done very little to change the expected optics of classical music, which is why new music’s identity problem is what it is today. Moreover, despite the recent increase in conversation about female, non-binary, transgender, and BAME/ALAANA/diverse composers, the programming of these composers has not significantly increased.

Musicians began volunteering with 412 in September 2016, when violinist Lorien Benet Hart reached out to the food rescue organization in search of a way for musicians to contribute to the community during a two-month musicians’ labor strike. Since then, she has coordinated with 412 to send different groups of musicians and — starting a few months back — symphony staff members on a run or two a month to help connect good food that would have gone to waste with organizations that put it to better use than filling dumpsters.