Arts & International Affairs Volume 5, Number 1, Summer 2020 | Page 12

EQUITABLE GRANTMAKING IN PRACTICE
Mandela organized the African National Congress, where 60 of his colleagues were all
shot to death ... the Minnesota Orchestra plays there.” That the leader of the League was
oblivious to the colonial legacy of symphonic orchestras, proselytizing forces of cultural
imperialism in these former colonies, provoked a social media furor, exposing the music
community’s fragile tolerance for the League’s failure at diversifying the field despite
being allocated a disproportionate amount of arts funding. Additionally, Rosen missed
the forty-five year ascendancy of El Sistema, a more authentic, hybrid and transformative
adoption of Western Classical music in Venezuela. Through direct calls for Rosen’s
resignation, the League’s position in the American cultural imagination for a moment
became destabilized.
The fact that Rosen’s tenure has lasted twenty-two years at the League was provided as
further evidence that his leadership alone should be held responsible for the bureaucratic
inertia. One Twitter post in particular seemed to align itself with Rosen’s position.
Dutch musicologist and artistic director of the NTR ZaterdagMatinee, Netherlands
Public Broadcasting Company’s concert series, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic
Orchestra, and the Netherlands Radio Choir, Kees Vlaardingerbroek (2019a), tweeted,
In the 30s Nazi musicologist Heinrich Besseler fought against the Great
Evil: ‘The Jew’. Nowadays some American musicologists likewise want
to purge the world of music. Their Great Enemy: ‘The White Male’. So
their approach is not just racist, but sexist as well. Progress indeed.
Vlaardingerbroek was as oblivious to Rosen’s Jewish American identity as was Rosen, in
his misappropriated proximity to the South African apartheid, in defending western symphonic
orchestras in Soweto. Vlaardingerbroek (2019b) is also the author of “Bach was
geen vrouw en westers. Nou en? Identiteitspolitiek rukt op in de muziekwereld” (Bach
was not a woman and [is] western. So what? Identity policy is advancing in the music
world). In this deVolkskrant article, Vlaardingerbroek warns the reader of the threat of
identity politics imported from the US, and that “The dangers of this assault on heritage
should not be underestimated .... A forced replacement of the great masters by female
contemporaries or composers with non-European roots will irrevocably lead to destruction
of public interest, to empty concert halls and eventually even their closure,” a direct
contrast to Walker Kuhne’s optimism in the opportunity to revitalize an aging orchestra
audience demographic by programming prominent Black composers. “Coleman’s identity
is an important factor to many, but especially to children all over who may never have
this world was open to them�as composers and as listeners .... cultural organizations
with the foresight to perform these works are being handed a wonderful opportunity to
extend a welcoming invitation to communities of color ....” Whether the reverberations of
equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility (EDIA) efforts are reviving old tropes of reverse
racism in Holland or Minnesota, where a 1863 law still makes it illegal for the native
Dakota people to live in the state, the US “melting pot” paradox is its greatest advantage in
progressing the conversation toward a more equitable cultural ecology, while also actively
unraveling the effects of structural racism in artistic production and reception.
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