As Black History Month begins, the Fine Arts Series at SUNY Brockport honors the commemoration with a concert entitled Representation Matters on Friday, February 3, at 7:30 p.m. The concert, featuring ensembles from the Eastman School of Music in which the personnel are all BIPOC musicians playing music by BIPOC composers, will take place at the Tower Fine Arts Center, 180 Holley Street, Brockport. Tickets are $17/general, $12/senior citizens, Brockport alumni, faculty and staff, and $9/students, and are available online at http://fineartstix.brockport.edu, by phone at 585-395-2787, or in person at the Tower Box Office (once it reopens on Thursday, January 19).
Audiences at the Brockport concert can expect to hear works by familiar composers, such as Miles Davis and Duke Ellington, as well as those a little less familiar, such as Rochester native Adolphus Hailstork, Black female musical pioneer Florence Price, and 18th-century, Guadaloupe-born Joseph Bologne.
Founded in 2020, when Eastman alumnus Travon Walker was a junior, the plan was to gather students of color to tour schools in the Rochester region so that they might highlight their performing talents as well as a repertoire of music by composers of color, as well. Then – of course – the pandemic hit and touring plans were squashed. The momentum to share this concept, and this music, with the public was still there, now helmed by graduate student Brianna Garçon.
Walker told the Democrat and Chronicle “Classical music is for everyone, and so is the music created by BIPOC composers… In order to elevate it, more people need to be aware of it, perform these works, and advocate and showcase these pieces and their composers.”
It is not only Walker or Garçon’s cross to bear when it comes to opening audiences’ eyes to the lack of a BIPOC perspective in classical music. In The New Yorker, Alex Ross has stated that “the undertaking is complex; the field must acknowledge a history of systemic racism while also honoring the individual experiences of Black composers, musicians, and listeners.”
Last spring, when commenting about the hiring of Eastman’s first Associate Dean of Equity and Inclusion, Garçon commented to City Newspaper that “in order for Black musicians to achieve success in classical music, they are typically expected to change the way they talk, what they wear, or the music to which they listen,” which sometimes might be rap or hip-hop rather than standard-issue classical. She adds “I feel as if I have to convert – to assimilate in a way – to the culture at Eastman in order to not be perceived as ‘other.’ And if you go outside of that grain and try to truly be your full Black self, it is perceived as dangerous.”
Stuart Ira Soloway, manager of SUNY Brockport’s Fine Arts Series feels that “music should entertain, certainly, but it can also inform. People’s eyes – and ears – should be open to aspects of classical music that are not the purview of long-dead long-haired white men. When I came across Representation Matters, it seemed like something that made sense to present on the series.”
The Representation Matters concert is sponsored in part by WDKX-FM.
SUNY Brockport’s up-to-date COVID-19 prevention guidelines can be found on the ticketing website, the Fine Arts Series Facebook page, and at https://brockport.edu/coronavirus. Compliance with campus protocols is required in order to attend any performances or events.
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