Tweet 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
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