Supported By The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The National Alliance for Audition Support Looks to Increase Diversity in Orchestras
Orchestras are among America’s least racially diverse institutions. African-American musicians accounted for only 1.8 percent of the nation’s orchestra players in 2014, according to an industry study, which found that the figure had not grown in over a decade.
Three national organizations aim to change that, announcing on Wednesday that they are joining forces to try to help more African-American and Hispanic musicians audition for and land coveted orchestra jobs.
The new initiative — created by the Sphinx Organization, the New World Symphony and the League of American Orchestras — will train musicians for auditions, pair them with mentors, showcase their work in concerts and give them stipends to travel to auditions.
It is the latest effort to diversify American classical music, which has lagged behind other fields. Women have made great gains in orchestras in recent decades, especially since the advent of blind auditions, in which job applicants try out behind screens. But racial diversity has been slow to come to American orchestras, which are looking less and less like the cities in which they play.
Orchestras remained 85 percent white in 2014, according to the league, and most of their modest rise in racial diversity in recent years was driven by an increase in the number of musicians of Asian or Pacific Islander heritage. Hispanic musicians made up only 2.5 percent of orchestra players in 2014, up from 1.8 percent in 2002. Small orchestras were more racially diverse than large ones.
Many factors have been cited as contributing to the problem, from the lack of diversity at the conservatories that make up the pipeline of trained musicians to blind auditions, which helped with gender equity but make it harder for orchestras to choose talented players of color. The new initiative, supported by a four-year, $1.8 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, aims to help black and Hispanic musicians navigate the challenging audition process — where it is not uncommon for hundreds of talented, well-trained candidates to find themselves competing for a single opening...