Exclusive: Minnesota Orchestra selects musicians on racial grounds
OrchestrasWe have received a message from the orchestra to applicants, making it clear that their racial and ethnic identity will be taken into consideration when selecting those who are suitable to play in the orchestra.
Can’t think where we last saw an orchestral audition process based on racial selection.
Here’s what the orchestra needs to know before they let you in:
Racist (and stupid). I hope that whoever came up with that bright idea will be unselected on the same basis.
Orchestras are already programming music based on the race of composers. Most music lovers who are Democrats are praising this.
Most Democrats were upset when The USA Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions.
Why do so many people who support these initiatives have a problem with race being taken into account with regard to orchestra auditions?
¿porqué no?
Carnegie Hall’s theme for this season is:
“Nuestros sonidos (Our Sounds)—a joyous celebration of the vibrant sounds, pioneering rhythms, and endlessly diverse traditions, and enormous influence of Latin culture in the United States, including vital contributions from the Caribbean”
Headlined by Gustavo Dudamel.
Who do want to hire, Christian Thielemann?
You can’t seriously expect Anglo players to play Latino music? It’d be cultural appropriation. Not to mention it’d be rythmically vanilla.
I think it’s wonderful that they are doing this at Carnegie.
And I think that orchestras that are populated by musicians that are in favor of affirmative action in college admissions should also be in favor of affirmative action in orchestra auditions? What’s the difference?
It’s easy to defeat the system if WE, THE PEOPLE collectively stand up to this atrocity of “reverse” racism and simply refuse to answer any of those questions.
This is in the running for one of your most misleading headlines yet. It clearly says that demographic information will not be connected to applicants’ names/instruments so will have no impact on their audition results. Orchestras should do this to find out if they’re attracting a wide variety of applicants or not. If you learn you’re not, you can adjust where you’re advertising and look into what could make a position more attractive to musicians who are deciding not to apply. The ultimate goal is to have a big pool auditioning so that you can select the best musician for the orchestra.
And you believe ‘it will have no impact on audition results’?
Never believe anything until it’s been officially denied!
Norman, surely not even you can be ignorant of the simple fact that American and British auditions are now universally anonymised and visually screened/hidden. These practises were enforced in order to counter alleged ‘bias’ against a few particular demographics. Ironically the effect has been to favour a different set of demographics and removing the possibility of benign positive discrimination, leaving the ‘diversity’ of orchestras no better and arguably worse than it was in the first place.
What exactly is benign discrimination?
Screened auditions were what made it possible for women to join orchestras in large numbers.
Norman – and anyone else confused or surprised by this – it’s standard practice in American orchestras these days. Not exclusive to Minnesota. It’s data gathering. And it has absolutely no impact on the outcome of auditions. Truly.
Why collect data if they do not want to use them?
Yes, in fact, I do. Because I’ve been involved in this process a number of times and have seen how this information is handled. And because I have nothing to gain by not taking them at their word.
We are working on technology and a platform helping to assure fair and unbiased pre-selections for and first rounds of auditions, often done based on (audio and video) files. It would be great to hear more about your experiences!
I believe that given that it is linked to neither the applicant’s name nor their instrument, you’d be hard pressed to explain how it can have any effect on audition results. Or are you accusing the orchestra and any of the tens of thousands of organisations collecting this data around the world of lying and mishandling data?
Norman, it is totally fine to not be aware of (standard) hiring practices in the US. Nobody’s an expert in everything. And it’s totally fine, in the face of new information on a subject on which you’re not an expert (such as US employment law), to be like “oh, I didn’t know that” instead of turning all conspiratorial to save face or dig in your heels.
For any readers who were not aware and welcome new knowledge: These are called EEO questions, and they are indeed voluntary, not mandatory. Most people ignore these surveys – like they do with pretty much any survey!
Let’s not make this a ‘the US is different’ simple misunderstanding. It is common practice in the UK too – I get asked those types of (optional) questions to sign up to online workshops at my work.
According to UK government guidance, Northern Irish companies must ask applicants whether they’re protestant or Roman Catholic: https://www.gov.uk/employers-responsibilities-equality-monitoring
I should add that EEO questions have been in place since 1966.
I’ve recruited in UK organisations which have these questionnaires. As a recruiter, I’ve never been provided with this information. No reason to believe it’s any different in Minnesota. It’s honestly a bit of a waste of time, because recruiters, if so minded, can still be as racist/sexist as they like in reaching final decisions (because usually racial origin/sex is pretty obvious). But if an organisation really wants to know whether, say, 20% of its applicants are black but only 5% get an audition and none get recruited, then this is a start.
For heaven’s sake, it’s anonymized data collection.
At my last job, where we conducted language testing, there were perceptions that we were biased against native and heritage speakers. We began to survey people to self-report their experience with the language. But the assessors didn’t have this information and it in no way affected peoples’ scores. But it was used for potential statistical analysis.
The Minnesota Orchestra could well have asked questions about years of study, degrees received, sports they competed in, etc..
If there was any confusion, a good journalist could have called up the Minnesota orchestra and asked some questions. Oh yeah.
Knowing this orchestra and a member of their DEI committee, I would say YES, no impact on results.
As someone whose orchestra also collects this data and then hires completely behind a screen… yes, it does have no impact on our audition results.
Please tell us what your point is here, because it’s got a really awful…. whiff about it.
We are working on technology and a platform helping to assure fair and unbiased pre-selections for and first rounds of auditions, often done based on (audio and video) files. It would be great to hear more about your experiences!
US law os EXTREMELY clear that this information can not be used for hiring decisions, but should be collected for demographic informational purposes. If there is a solid suspicion that the information is being used in hiring decisions, the Orchestra will be open to a lawsuit, which will humiliate it, and which it will likely lose. I would wager that every Orchestra does some version of this, just like almost every bank, supermarket, government agency, animal shelter, etc. Furthermore i can almost guarantee that all of the demographic questions are optional, and the Orchestra ALSO can’t use a decision not to respond against the candidate. This is how almost all hiring for large organizations, of all kinds, works in the US.
But you are more interested in throwing meat to your reactionary audience, so you don’t care to know the actual truth of what’s going on, nor do you care to do the slightest bit of research, despite the fact that you continue to claim the mantle of “journalist.”
You should be ashamed of yourself but I am quite sure that’s something you find very difficult.
It cannot, since the survey went out after the audition had taken place and the hire already made. Read it again.
Get real.
And the award for most naive goes to….
At least they’re blatant at this point. YEARS ago, and I’m talking 6-7 years ago, I was playing as a guest with Saint Paul Chamber and one of the orchestra committee members said there would eventually be an audition for my instrument, but that it would probably have to be a diversity hire. That would be kept secret of course. Oh well! Not that being a reliable guest for over 10 years would count for anything. Nothing has changed. And the orchestra has not hired a musician for the role to this day. No matter if it’s orchestra or Broadway. I know for a fact that some shows will just hire and fire unqualified diversity musicians until one of them is good enough to get by. One show hired and fired THREE female musicians before desperately seeking a male and they asked a colleague for recommendations.. but the contractor said and I quote “they still have to be DEI”..
I guess that’s what happens when the diversity quota paints you into a corner. “Oh no! Too many “white” men and women in the band! Let’s just hire some inexperienced amateurs and hope for the best!”
Mind you, there are terrific musicians of all stripes out there. Every nationality, skin color and sexual orientation. That should go without saying. Which makes it so much more frustrating when contractors hire crap musicians JUST BECAUSE. I think we are at a point now where musicianship and ability can start to be respected again. But it won’t be.
You sound like someone who is very disappointed at not getting the job you wanted. But your “diversity” story sounds like a fable.
where they’re advertising? every legitimate full time orchestra in the united states advertises in the International Musician trade magazine for the afm. any aspiring orchestra musician joins the afm – in some cases, the magazine w the job listings is the sole reason for joining – they also often put the listings on musicalchairs.info.
every single orchestra musician knows this is where to look for full time orchestra jobs with the 40 or so full time orchestras on the United States.
If this info will not be
I’d sure like to see that linked survey. And I like the new use of the word “robust.”
This sort of thing is surely flirting with illegality. Discrimination based on race and various other considerations is surely illegal in most western countries? Not that they haven’t got away with it, but this makes it official policy.
Literally thousands of organisations collect this. It’s so common that governments have information pages on how to do it: https://www.gov.uk/employers-responsibilities-equality-monitoring
For some employers in the US, it is a legal requirement: https://www.eeoc.gov/sites/default/files/2021-01/Applicant_data_OMB_July_2020.pdf
Come on, be serious.
The survey went out retrospectively, after the position had already been filled. No possibility of discrimination based on the survey.
Read it again.
Collecting demographic info is common practice in corporate America; companies do it to monitor potential discrimination in the hiring process. As is clearly stated in the email, the info is not tied to an applicant’s name/instrument and is only for internal records.
There’s also no indication that filling out the survey is required. And for what it’s worth, demographic information can include categories other than race.
Exactly. I’d say that SD is out of its league in understanding how hiring practices work in the U.S., but that’s probably not the issue. It’s just easier to stir the pot with insinuations of “reverse racism” against caucasians.
Norman, in the US businesses can ask for race/gender/handicapping condition/veteran status information of people applying for a job but this is voluntary. There is nothing in the Orchestra’s message saying that this information “will be taken into consideration” to decide who gets to audition.
Are you that naive?
Are you accusing the orchestra and every company collecting data like this – including many required to do so by law – of lying and mishandling data? Because they are very clear about how that data is stored, and that it is separated from applicants identities (and instruments).
“This information will not be connected to your name or instrument”. Either your reading comprehension isn’t great or you’re being disingenuous.
You honestly believe that the two columns of information will not be linked? Very naive.
Audition took place before survey sent out, so yes, not linked in any way that affects who got that job.
Don’t be so quick to dismiss the third possibility: “all of the above”
Well, it got me to read the story, and I’m a nonmusician in Ohio.
And that’s the point: To stimulate discussion and comments in order to keep you on this site for a long time so that Mr. Lebrecht makes lots of advertising revenue. Look at any orchestra in America and you’ll see that the members are still overwhelmingly white (regardless of Mr. Lebrecht’s conspiracies regarding the use of voluntary information).
There is at least one other possibility in addition to your ‘either/or’, namely, that the author doesn’t trust the orchestra’s assurances of ‘no connection’.
By the way, charging others with poor “reading comprehension” a bit of a cliche. Could you maybe find another phrase?
Meh. Collection of this kind of data is routine in the States, and the answers are purely voluntary. Health care providers ask about it to, as due census takers and maternity wards just so they have knowledge of who their residents and users are, etc. Doesn’t mean only people of one race are being born at a hospital or employed at a workplace. If you are looking for cases of “positive discrimination” against ethnic majorities in the USA, there are far more egregious examples than this.
Auditions are behind a screen.
As are final hiring decisions.
Back in the 80’s and in order to get a grant from the Greater London Authority the form filming was long, I had to state the ethnicity of all my actors and if any had disabilities and what their sexual orientation was. To the last question I said “Mind your own business” as I wasn’t willing to ask the actors. We got the grant! I guess they had boxes to tick to ensure that everyone was having equal opportunities.
That memo doesn’t say they are choosing based on race and that is not what will happen.
The memo says this demo info won’t be connected to their name or instrument, and the fact that this is a survey separate from their application supports that. This is very common practice in corporate HR.
It is also very likely that “prefer not to answer” will be an option under “race”.
By documenting the “demographics” of the applicants they will be ready to answer inquiries about discrimination. If someone says they don’t have enough black players they can respond, “well, only 3 of the 500 applicants over the last x years were black.”
You may be suspicious that this separate survey isn’t really separate, but it would only take one disgruntled former staffer to blow the whistle on that. A proper HR department will be able to show that the race info wasn’t available to anyone making the applicant screening decisions.
It could be both, so he is right to question it. Orchestras are anything but transparent about auditions, and politics comes into play almost every time. It’s common to discriminate on age (and everyone seems fine with that) and the classical community has been trying for decades, to attract more minorities. Let’s say you collect that info AFTER an audition: you get the same info. But, you can “find communities that aren’t showing up” (what exactly does that mean?) and work to”include them”. Well not everyone gets invited, so how do you “include” those communities, and turn your focus towards them (artificially), without excluding others? This is all euphemism, and yes, it’s just like other businesses, where outright discrimination is now common place. Even liberals like myself start to be turned off by the disenfranchised nature of this process. And I’ve watched it and been a victim of it, for 40 years, until I’d had enough.
Great news: no need for guessing or speculating that it’s “probably both” because it’s knowable through the magic of the internet and/or participation in the US labor market! This is *not* a practice by orchestras. It is also *not* a recent development. It’s a requirement under federal *law* since 1966 for any business with more than 100 employees. Anyone who’s under 80 and has ever held a job in the United States – in any field, public or private sector – has seen these voluntary questionnaires (it is mandatory for the employer to present them to anyone applying; it is not mandatory for candidates to answer them). I’ve never answered them across a number of job application processes, nor have a vast majority of people who’ve applied for jobs for which I’ve hired. Meaning: this is an innocuous box-checking exercise to comply with federal law and turning it into something related to some putative ‘woke agenda’ of recent time (again, 1966!) or making it seem as if it’s a practice by orchestras (again, a requirement for *every* employer!) is ill-informed or obtuse. Trying to dress the ill-informed claim with some veneer of philosophy is too cute by half, because, again: it’s a 1966 federal *law*, not a 2024 social justice fad. No need to fuel misinformation.
Demographic information requirement doesn’t sound racist to me. It simply wants to know where you are from, which might give a clue as to training, work experience, etc. Maybe, this is a desire for diversity.
Under every rock is not a toad, hiding from view.
Unfortunately, there are still those who yearn for the days when no prestigious job would ever go to those with the wrong pigmentation.
For them and their like, January the 7th 1955 remains a dark day in the history of The Met.
I know you’re being intentionally misleading, but you’d be incredibly ignorant if not.
It is extremely normal in the US to collect demographic information on job applicants in all industries. This information does not factor in the hiring decision. Typically it’s not even available to those conducting interviews.
It helps employers know who is seeing their job postings, who is interested in applying, and demonstrate that they are equal opportunity employers.
Did you not even notice that this was sent to someone who had already auditioned? How can it possibly affect the result?
That is NOT what it is saying, unless you ignore the part that states, explicitly, “will not be connected to your name or your instrument”.
You may also not be aware that collecting such information is extremely common in Britain as well as in the US. I have to fill it in when I apply for jobs, training courses, and everything in between. I’m pretty sure I was asked to fill it in to buy concert tickets once.
And again, these are statistics – not profiles.
The naïveté in some of these comments is amusing.
Pretty typical for audition these days. The Met asked for it in their most recent application
Norman this is not true and inflammatory. The letter specifies the information is for internal purposes and will not be associated with any candidate for a position with the orchestra. I happen to know, since I was associate principal cello with the Minnesota Orchestra for over three decades, that they are taking strong steps to ameliorate the lack of representation in classical music’s orchestral musicians. Getting a sense of who is applying is but one step to creating a more diverse community.
This still feels a little weird. First, the confidentiality of the survey may very well be true, but you’re taking the management’s word for that. Also, will they know if you don’t take the survey and take the audition anyway? Would that put you at a disadvantage? The letter does not state the survey is voluntary.
Why not just have the candidates fill out the survey after the audition is completed? The orch will still get the info, and nobody can complain that the survey tainted the process.
The DEI stuff has become all-pervasive in the music world, so it’s unsurprising that candidates might be wary. Also, does anyone know if MN orch uses screens for all rounds, or do they take them down for the finals?
“ Why not just have the candidates fill out the survey after the audition is completed? ”
They did. The audition took place in the winter, and this just came out.
Read it again. The survey went out well after the application process, and after the audition itself.
The normal way of wokism, what’s new….Wind has turned in some places, not in some other. Racism to fight racism, attack men to defend women, well that was the interesting set of mind of this movement. The level of education, general culture, people actually reading books, is so low that this obscure way of thinking found his way in society….
The EEOC has been mandating demographic data collection by some types of companies since 1966. “What’s new” indeed – not this.
For those of you who are making assumptions about what they are doing with this information (Norman included), why don’t you email Lisa Martinson yourself and ask, as her email has been shared? It says she welcomes your questions, comments AND concerns.
She’s welcome to respond.
Shoot first, ask questions later?
Presumably she was invited to before publishing the story?
American orchestras at the level of the Minnesota Orchestra have been holding auditions with candidates hidden behind a curtain for decades, precisely to avoid the kind of bias Mr. Lebrecht is fearing. Nothing to see here, except racism firmly in the eye of the beholder.
Um, you don’t remember when you were required to be a male to get a job in a certain orchestra in Vienna?
How many times have I warned that wokeism was coming to destroy classical music?
Is the answer ‘too many times?’
This information would only be pertinent if A) every applicant completed the survey and B) were truthful in their responses. U.S. orchestras are wringing their hands over the fact that they attract large numbers of white and Asian musicians and proportionately fewer musicians from other racial groups.
That’s not true. A sample is perfectly adequate to draw conclusions.
Why anyone would lie on a form like this is beyond me. They wouldn’t.
Dear Numbnuts,
This is standard procedure for American orchestras.
Demographic information is commonly required on grant applications and/or compliance reports in the U.S. Not just about players and potential players, but also paid staff, board of directors and audience demographics. Funders want to know who is being served (that includes audience and employees), and they request statistics on numbers of youths, seniors and disabled as well as ethnicity. I just provided similar data to one our funders a few days ago in my capacity as past president and grant writer for my community orchestra in Texas. We have always had to provide demographic data to foundation sponsors for as long as we’ve applied for grants. There’s nothing either new or uncommon or sinister in this.
“Can’t think where we last saw an orchestral audition process based on racial selection.”
Because you still haven’t seen that. It’s common practice to ask for demographic information of candidates in the US, and nothing in this ‘exclusive, leaked email’ demonstrates anything other than that.
Believe me, if HR suddenly popped up behind the screen at any orchestra audition to influence its results based upon a candidates’ particular demographics, the union would squash that right away or otherwise invalidate the results.
This is a brilliant meal of a nothingburger.
For what it’s worth, I recently submitted an online audition application for another orchestra and was asked to complete a survey like this immediately afterward. It was not required so I did not do it. I received an invitation to attend the audition several days later.
This is gaslighting. I was invited to that audition and did not need to provide them any demographic information. In fact, many orchestras now ask you to voluntarily provide that info but they say it is for their records. My guess as others state here is that it is to see what kind of people they are attracting to their positions. If you don’t provide it it doesn’t weigh on your invitation, as far as my experience has been. As orchestras in general are trying to reach a wider variety of people these days it is not surprising at all that they are doing this. It has always been voluntary in my experience.
If you’re going to criticize their hiring practices try getting more of them to offer video rounds, as any deterrent from participating in the audition process is much more prevalent from a financial aspect than from a racial one. Fronting the cost of an audition trip and having to take unpaid time off (if you’re even permitted) to attend is much more an issue than demographic info gathering.
Note, too, that the survey appears to have been sent in retrospect, not as part of the application process itself. It’s a follow-up survey for demographic data, not a decision-informing tool.
Racist, mean and full of bigotry. Are we back to the 3rd Reich? Only from the other side around. Who would want to hear their music?
I know of an orchestra that choses based on race – the Vienna Philharmonic. They’ve allowed a few women to become “professors” now, but 99.9% of everyone in that orchestra is as white as they come. They’re still holding onto that “pizzicato polka face” mentality.
But sure, Norman! Go ahead and stir up the “reverse racism” and drum up fears that the Minnesota Orchestra will hire a Black or Latino member with this *very* misleading headline and story.
This is a textbook libelous statement.
The headline completely contradicts the email from the orchestra, and is standard operating procedure with job hiring in the United States. Anyone who has applied for a job in the last decade in any sector has been asked to voluntarily provide this information.
The orchestra has not been asked if the racial and ethnic identity of applicants will be taken into consideration. No attempt at seeking clarity has been made.
For all of the fear mongering about the woke mob taking over orchestras, I cannot recall attending an orchestra concert in the US where more than three or four of the musicians were Black. Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, Mozart, etc. continue to dominate the programming year after year. Only one major US orchestra is led by a woman. Not much has actually changed in the last decade or two.
I wonder how various supporters of “diversity, equity and inclusion” deal with people whose politics they don’t care for? Or people whose politics they tend to prefer?
In turn, how do opponents of DEI deal with people whose politics they don’t care for? Or people whose politics they tend to favor?
Black conservative, white liberal? Male liberal, female conservative? Gay conservative, straight liberal?
Lebrecht, even you can’t be this dense. You are clearly being deliberate in this gaslighting and sensationalism.
The letter clearly shows that the information is being requested of people who have already gone through the audition process (which was screened and anonymous). No hiring decisions are being made based on race; they are just trying to determine the demographics of the applicant pool they are attracting, something every orchestra would like to know these days.
Stop with these inflammatory lies.
What? You mean the orchestra that had its Concertmaster married to its Music Director might be doing something sketchy with its auditions? Not possible!
That’s NOT what’s happening here. As anyone who has worked in recruitment knows, this data is collected all the time and isn’t used to select candidates or the successful applicant (it says so in the message). It’s used to see if the pool of applicants matches the population at large and, if not, suggests future policies such as – as a lot of orchestras do – visiting different neighbourhoods or running Saturday classes in underrepresented areas. It’s difficult to tackle under representation if you don’t have data.
You’ve got to work hard to see anything sinister in this.
This is pretty standard for all jobs these days, including almost every job application I’ve filled out for the U.K., even the ‘top music magazine’ that fired me for not making enough sales during my grandmother’s dying days.
Anyone too stupid to not select “Black” as their race deserves to lose.
I’m guessing Norman’s not applied for a job for a while…
This kind of survey is pretty standard these days, across all industries.
The struggling MN opera asks all players to volunteer their sexual orientation.