Sacked percussionist details racism in troubled US orchestra

Josh Jones, who was refused tenure at Kansas City Symphony despite outstanding performance, has spoken for the first time of his experience there.

It does not make comfortable reading.

Among other things:

On multiple occasions, Jones had difficulty getting through security for performances at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.

“It’s always expected that we perform at a high level,” Jones says. “But it’s never taken into account what we have to do to weed out distractions.”

Still unfamiliar to many security guards, Jones followed a strict routine for performances, entering from the same stage door. According to Jones, one evening, security asked him if he had entered through a different door. Jones replied no.

“They then showed me a photo of a Black person wearing a hoodie and jeans at the parking lot entrance and said, ‘This isn’t you?’ And I again said, ‘No, I don’t even drive,’” Jones says.

Or:

During a rehearsal for the Kansas City Ballet’s production of The Wizard of Oz, Jones’ tenure committee chair told him one of the movements in the choreography reminded him of Sambo, a pejorative Black caricature. 

“In a run-through, afterwards, when we came to the section he was referring to, he made the suspender gesture relative to the character,” Jones says. 

Backstage during a performance alongside the Kansas City Symphony Chorus, a choir member approached Jones as he took a seat in the lounge. Both dressed in their concert attire, Jones says the singer declared that they both looked like Men in Black, characterizing Jones—one of very few Black performers on stage—as Agent J.

At a rehearsal, Jones wore a pick in his hair, a well-known symbolization of power and resistance among the Black community. 

“Michael Stern asked if I knew that I had a comb in my hair in front of another staff member,” Jones says. “They assured him that that was the point, and he responded that he didn’t know if I had forgotten it was there.” 

Read the full article in The Pitch here.