Another country where arts funding is governed by DEI ideology
NewsTweet by composer Samuel Andreyev:
A composer friend attended a programming meeting in Vancouver during which the possibility of one of his works being played was raised.
‘Sorry,’ they said, ‘we’re only doing DEI pieces’.
‘OK, but you do realise I’m gay, right’? Said my friend.
‘That doesn’t count,’ came the reply.
Another friend, a distinguished conductor living in Toronto, attended a similar meeting. He noticed a huge pile of scores going straight into the bin.
‘Why aren’t we looking at those?’ Asked my friend.
‘Those are the non-DEI submissions’
I’m hearing a lot of people saying ‘yeah it sucks but if you don’t go along with it you won’t get your funding renewed’, and ‘we don’t really think this piece is so good but we’re doing it because DEI’.
What I’m not hearing much of is ‘we’re doing this piece because it’s one of the strongest new works we’ve seen’, or, ‘here’s an important talent that we want to showcase’.
It would perhaps be one thing if people were doing this because they genuinely thought it was the right thing to do. But they don’t. They are bullied into it and resent having to participate. Everyone privately acknowledges that this is happening. Who is it helping?
DEI = Diversity, equity and inclusion
This is the monster that they have created, so suck it and live with it.
It is a catastrophe for every individual (young) composer. The new glass wall, it’s deadly.
” ‘That doesn’t count,’ came the reply. ”
When *that* counted, 20 and 30 years ago, it was already the same problem. Slippery slopes work.
Discrimination, Exclusion, and Indoctrination.
How many more sh!t works by freaks who were awarded participation awards to feel important and special do we have before people would rather listen to Sukihana or even Lizzo’s new single WAP Them My Fries.
Meanwhile, anyone white need not apply. I am seeing it in publishing, staging decisions (including concert choices), casting, TV presentation, every area I can think of.
A writer I know is interested in doing a book about a quite famous but essentially unrecorded Canadian artistic family. A few years ago such an idea would have been beating off bidders. Now it seems unlikely there will be any takers: the writer, and the family, happen to be white. Oddly enough, in Canadian history, white families were more likely to get into the arts half a century and more ago. But that history is no longer fit to be told.
I know there are imbalances that must be rectified. The stories of the indigenous must be told, as well as that of minorities who, one way or another, have come to our various countries. But this seems a pretend solution and is likely to breed more resentment and racial tension than a more rational, generous approach.
Indeed.
The absurdity is that a white artist is now forced to pay for injustice not done by himself at all, so an inverted repetition of the original injustice.
It is now very prevalent at the LSO. Has happened by stealth, but the grapevine states the other London orchestras are not so keen, or have common sense?
DEI is not about unquantifiable characteristics like quality; DEI is all about race, specifically nonwhite race. DEI does not find itself on basketball courts or the 100m dash, at math Olympiads or spelling bees, nor has it made its way to rap albums or erhu performances.
DEI at best is affirmative action in the workplace. At worst it’s life or death:
Hospital must hire a heart surgeon:
Applicant
1) Harvard Med graduate, top GPA, risked life to save a polar bear from a fire
2) Howard University Med graduate, mediocre grades; grew up in slums, overcame drug addict single mom’s troubles.
Well, must hire #2. Eat your Cheerios.
Kamala Harris is a DEI hire. Since her website is light on policy, it’s recommended to watch her latest interview (…but there haven’t been any. Her Time Magazine cover this week is a sketch because she didn’t want to be interviewed and photographed by Time).
Obama, great president. He didn’t need DEI. 50Cent, great rapper, and he didn’t need DEI or Suge Knight. Lebron James didn’t need DEI. Whitney Houston, Chuck Berry, Michael Jackson—no DEI necessary.
Now composers in socialist Canada are losing opportunities because they were born the wrong skin color. It is sickeningly painful. I pray that there’s just a few more months of this madness. My partner is black, and he’s tired of hearing about it.
Thomas Sowell: “Surely, no human being should be blamed for the way his culture evolved for centuries before he was born.“
Canada is NOT a socialist country. If you want to be taken seriously, stop misusing political terms. You’re as bad as those who run around calling every conservative “fascist” or a a “Nazi.”
DEI = Didn’t Earn It
Good for Canada. For centuries, composers from non-white male backgrounds deliberately suppressed and kept off concert stages. Perhaps it’s time for a course correction. There’s enough room in the concert world that Mr. Andreyev’s works will be heard if they have merit.
“ For centuries, composers from non-white male backgrounds deliberately suppressed and kept off concert stages.”
Maybe because it was never part of their culture but was obviously part of ours. Share with us precisely how many sub-Saharan composers were competing with Beethoven and “kept off the stage.” Are you serious? I’m leaning towards the possibility you are pure parody.
Years later, Judith Still, the daughter of Still and Arvey, said that the New York critics intentionally panned Troubled Island due to racism. “Howard Taubman (a critic and friend of Still) came to my father and said ‘Billy, because I’m your friend I think that I should tell you this – the critics have had a meeting to decide what to do about your opera. They think the colored boy has gone far enough and they have voted to pan your opera.’ And that was it. In those days, critics had that kind of influence.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Island
Do you know William Grant Still’s music? It’s respectable. Nothing wrong with it but in no world would he be considered a leading American composer. I would suggest you read some of the reviews the leading white American composers from that era got. They often were not great reviews. So the fact that Still got bad reviews isn’t surprising. Living when he did, I’m sure he faced a lot of racism but did it impact his career that much? I don’t know….show me a white composer from that era writing stuff on his level that had much of a career. I can’t think of anyone.
In premodern Europe, people from African descent were in an absolute minority, so even statistically it is very unlikely that one-off greats like Bach, Beethoven, Mozart could be among them. And then, all the white male composers whose works now form the bulk of the Western classical music repertoire, were not at all responsible for the type of culture they were born into, and they were not responsible for the social injustices of their society.
In case a super musical talent happened to be born in premodern, feudal Europe, who found him/herself to descend from African stock, he/she would indeed find him/herself be blocked in terms of development. We would never know. Boulogne was really an exception who was lucky, but he was not one of ‘the great’ and that has nothing to do with his descendance. The whole question is moot and only serves the anti-racism racism spreading through woke.
Course Correction= responding to bigotry and discrimination by advocating for more bigotry and discrimination.
That seems to be the trend.
Not a surprising point of view considering the writer’s association with Jordan Peterson.
However, plenty of “non-DEI” works are still being performed and recorded all the time. If Mr. Andreyev is not receiving as many performances as he thinks he deserves, perhaps he should instead try to discover why his work isn’t connecting with audiences.
Complaining and airing grievances is much easier than critical self-reflection. Blaming others for one’s own lack of success is just lazy.
Here is some:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9BoGRnpois&list=PLPyqt9rE6s4spZjy_4IfNDg58sDQx7e5B
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2N3Mrbquwg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYLcS38y4Tw
It is the usual, mediocre, oldfashioned ‘modern music’ that became fashionable since the fifties of the last century when contemporary music was supposed to be progressive.
So, PC music. Can be translated as Politically Correct and Pretentious C…. (to be filled-in according to taste).
Yes, I listened to whatever I could find online. Didn’t hear anything individual or special or different. The same quasi-intellectual squeak-bloops being composed by any number of others. It failed to hold my attention for more than a few minutes. There *is* plenty of wonderful new music being written and performed (and enjoyed). Not this.
My original comment still stands. If Mr. Andreyev seeks greater recognition and appreciation, he has some serious self-evaluation to do.
“Squeak boops” LOL.
If the composer had said, not “I’m gay,” but “I’m LGBTQIA2+,” he might have stood a better chance of getting his piece accepted.
The gays fighting for DEI are now finding themselves cast aside for more important minorities. Just like all the women that fought for trans rights, only to find the trans movement making them more woman than a born women.
But you can’t define a woman!!!
Yes. We can.
I’m a very feminine woman with long blond hair & working my tail off in a business I don’t like but I have always been entirely confident about what kind of human being I was. But nowadays I have begun to doubt I’m a woman at all and maybe I’m kind of trans, unconsciously? Maybe suppressed memories? My therapist says that my doubts suggest unresolved traumas so I get more worried by the day. My boss says I should not read that stuff and pay more attention to speling but well, he’s very oldfashioned.
Sally
That guy is a French citizen who hasn’t resided in Canada in over 20 years, seems pretty half-assed of you to publish his tweet of an obviously fabricated hearsay account of something he clearly knows nothing about.
Doubt this was said, in either case. If it was, my assumption is that it was said by a white person in a room full of other white people, which is usually the echo chamber in which this rhetoric has any traction. And is the point!
Why do you doubt it was said? Surely it’s not because you’re alleging it (DEI programming) isn’t happening. There’s no denying that. So why is it so unlikely that someone would acknowledge what we all know is happening? What is your point?
If anything will be our downfall, DEI will be it. We’re telling unqualified people they are qualified *just because* of their skin color. Insane.
Diversity, equity and inclusion is a term used to describe policies and programs that promote the representation and participation of different groups of individuals. DEI encompasses people of different ages, races, ethnicities, abilities, disabilities, genders, religions, cultures and sexual orientations.
… but not of different talents.
A look at the people who benefit from DEI will show that this is completely incorrect. Sure, it benefits people from underrepresented ages, abilities, disabilities, religions, sexual orientations and cultures as long as they are from ONE particular ethnicity. Look at the people in charge of these programs. What do you notice?
Simply a definition I found on the internet uploaded for your delectation, which ultimately means close on nothing!
Let’s be real. This means black. It doesn’t mean any of the things you mentioned. We are told it does. But the reality is, it means black. Only black.
When we see diversity in black centric niches, hell will have frozen over.
Ergo, DEI encompasses EVERYBODY and NOT just whom these powers that be deem worthy!
It is very hard, if not impossible, to tell whether someone has been excluded because of lack of qualities or talents, or on nonsensical grounds. If the latter is the case, it can always be covered-up by the first and since in music almost everything is subjective, a misunderstood democratic mindset can destroy any quality that may be there.
Rhetorically, yes. In reality, not at all.
If it is a ‘DEI’ themed festival then it is perfectly appropriate that only ‘DEI’ pieces are programmed. You wouldn’t program Prokofiev at a Bach festival would you?
When the Beethoven Festival in Bonn includes DJ’s and hiphop in its programs, why not Prokofiev at a Bach festival? Audiences come for the title and are then pleasantly enlightened about the best music of their own time they had never heard about before.
Being gay is no longer worth much in DEI hierarchy. Need to be transgender black midget to get to top of charts.
You forgot lesbian. With cats. Black cats.
Now I finally understand what Opus DEI means.
I am just wondering who the unspecified “they” are? Arts organizations? Publishers? Canadian Music Centre? Since they are being directly quoted it would be nice if the writer could identify them.
“they” are the funding organizations such as Canada Council, and the Provincial arts councils. Presenting arts organizations are dependent on basic operating funds. They dictate, although unqualified, to the presenters. They mean well but it hasn’t worked. Audiences know to arrive late so they miss the ‘new’ works which usually begin the programs.
These are initiatives that you people desperately supported and voted into existence. Congratulations, you got what you wanted, and now you’re seeing gore your personal ox. Of course, it was ok when it was other people’s industries and lively hoods, but now that it’s on your front porch, you don’t want any part of ’cause it doesn’t represent achievement through merit. Am I right?
My favorite part is where the composer states, “but I’m gay”. Not arguing that the composer’s work should be evaluated on merit, but because the composer still felt entitled to favorable DEI treatment.
NIMBY much?
DEI is definitely a thing in the arts world but this whole thing reeks of something.
The best solution is mandatory anonymous submission and selection (i.e.: all scores/parts/&c. to be submitted and reviewed without the composer’s name mentioned anywhere)… in other words, the equivalent to blind auditions as practised by many orchestras. Anonymity has the advantage of forcing panels to review the work itself, without allowing themselves to be swayed by the CV or background of the composer (far too many panels are influenced unduly by whether the composer studied with the “right” teacher at the “right” conservatoire and has had performances from the “right” organisations… or, more egregiously, whether one of the judges happens to know the composer). Just over a century ago, Rebecca Clarke’s fame as a composer was launched by coming a very close 2nd (the composer ranked 1st was Ernest Bloch) in a composition competition that operated on anonymous selection — the judges were extremely impressed with the work, and extremely surprised that Clarke was a woman.
Anonymous submission is a win-win both for excellence and for diversity. Having said that, it presupposes that one is reviewing a completed work in the context of a clearly defined brief or competition, and the model becomes more problematic if fishing for works casually (i.e.: without any commitment to a performance), considering works that already have a substantial performance history (e.g.: taking interest in a work after hearing someone else do it, or on word-of-mouth recommendation), or making commissioning decisions (because the work does not yet exist!). And of course, a performer or ensemble will, upon being particularly impressed by one work, want to explore or commission other works by the same composer (as a performer of new music myself, I have occasionally found a particular work speaks to me so compellingly that I invite the composer to send anything else he/she has for my instrument… not that composers need an invitation!). Indeed, composer-performer collaborations, when they thrive, can result in composers writing with the sound and technique of a particular performer in mind…
It is much easier to decide about whether a piece is DEI than to try to get an impression of its qualities.
So, a field day for the dummies and nitwits.
The pendulum has swung to one side (left). It will recenter eventually once enough stuff falls apart.
Quality is timeless. Some people that don’t deserve opportunities are certainly getting them; likely some people that have potential but might have gone unnoticed save DEI opportunities will benefit.
RIP, meritocracy. Oh no Canada.
It doesn’t help anyone. When are orchestras going to get it that DEI programming doesn’t attract minorities and if enough of it is crap alienate the subscriber base. Ever since the 90’s this has been going on and the audiences are as white and middle aged as they have ever been.
In Europe (W-Europe, that is), luring diverse potential audiences to a diverse concert program does not work because diverse Europeans don’t want to be considered diverse, but simply European.
Yes, I’ve been harping on about this for years.
A brief scan of the audience of any major concert hall in Europe confirms this. I am usually just one of, at most, two or three black people in the audience as far as I can tell. It hasn’t changed in years. The only clear change is the increase in people from E Asia – in the audience and on the platform.
And that’s just fine. I’m not being discriminated against. I am, however, being patronised by those who think we can be lured into the concert hall by transparent DEI stunts. Stop it.
I beg to differ. In my 50-year career spanning activities in many countries, I have never had to face intolerance quite like what I am witnessing in Canada. I speak as a musician with disabilities and a member of a racial minority (latino). Canada has a few miles to go before they can claim DEI status.
I recently learned of a super talented young lady from latinamerica who wanted to attend the TafelMusik Festival in Toronto, received scholarships, a grant from Early Music America, bought her (expensive) airline ticket, paid for unreasonable biometric exams and visa fees, and after a FOUR MONTHS wait time had her visa denied because “there are already too many latinos in Canada”. Oh, c’mon. This is for a music festival lasting a couple of weeks.
As the Ontario Supreme Court stated, intolerance today is measures through micro-aggressions, like the one I mention above. We can only hope that Canada will grow to be truly inclusive, and not merely bank on appearances. For that we aim and work.
Alex, my application earlier this year for a work permit to enter Canada was also denied, presumably because there are already too many “white males” even though I have a long history of working there in the past and had a solid employment offer.
That is easily provable nonsense.
Since when two wrongs make a right?
I find it extremely hard to believe that Canada, or any other country, would deny a visa with the statement “there are already too many latinos in Canada”. For one thing, there aren’t — as a frequent traveller in Latin America, I always lament the paucity of Latin presence in Canada.
Must be true since a white guy said it.
A message to our conservative friends: since some liberal organizations have gone nuts, please don’t assume that we ordinary liberal mortals identify with them, even if some conservative news sources (some of which have also gone nuts) tell you so.
You got that right. There are plenty of nutjobs on both sides of the isle. And they seem to be acquiring more and more power.
Alas.
You “ordinary liberal[s]” ushered in this nonsense, so you’re just as much to blame. Go beg your pardons elsewhere.
Broadway pit jobs are going to people “because of DEI” too. Fact.
Disconnect, egalitarian but intolerant
New music is dead. Long live Brahms.
But Brahms has always been a contemporary composer, even now, actually now more than ever. How come?
Dear JB;
Brahms is a contemporary composer in the same way as Beethoven, Bach, Monteverdi and Guillaume de Machault are contemporary: their music lives at the time it is played. Most new music (i.e. newly composed music) is born dead, as it is not played or is “executed” ( 🙂 ) at the première. This probably is the future of those works commissioned in Vancouver or elsewhere from DEI-only composers – no matter the quality of those works, they are stamped “DEI-certified”, or politically sellected music – with such a provenience it cannot compete with Brahms et al. in the classical public’s taste.
By the way, I would like to listen to more of your music.
More is coming-up…. as soon as DEI and modernist mental obstacles are overcome.
Says it all, really.
How many years now have I warned you ideologues here on Slippedisc that Leftism will come to devour classical music? Going on at least 15 years.
Well then they should play more Beethoven because he was an ethnic minority from Holland and also had hearing impairment handicap.
1) hearing impairment
2) coming from impoverished family in provincial area
3) having to look after his siblings from teenage years onwards
4) lacking in manners
5) lacking in general education
6) descendent from black moors in Antwerp
7) alcohol addiction
8) borderline personality
L v Beethoven is, also apart from the music he wrote, the perfect candidate for DEI selection.
Ya, those totally sound like real situations that definitely happened in real life. “we are only doing DEI pieces” is definitely not something somebody made up.
Just look at 2024-2025 schedule for Carnegie Hall.
Previously, there were subscription series for 1) Pianists 2) Violinists 3) Ineternational Orchestras Series 1&2. No more. Just a succession of DEI programs that beg the question “Is this Anything?”
i thought classical listeners knew better and didn’t think world music to be inferior! i guess not
Perhaps unwisely, I took the bait and looked up the schedule in question. Will you kindly explain what is “DEI” about each offering? Let’s go through them one by one. I’m serious. I really want to know.
I suppose it’s a small dent in all the years when women and composers of colour were excluded. But only a small one.
Paraphrasing Boulez, politically approved music is useless.
… as he himself amply proved by trying to lay down PC music laws.
I think in the future we will see those DEI works in the same light that we now see Stalin-ordered Soviet propaganda music. It was desired at that time that such music/art be performed, but nobody really wanted to hear it apart from the most fervent regime supporters. So it was sort of a payment for performing proper music in the same concert.
I think we are trying to artificially create something: instead of exploring traditional music and art of all the cultures around, we are pushing them into Western classical music environment. Why? Who knows. It’s not like there is huge money in it.