'Should We Be Performing This?' Thoughts on Repertory Diversity and Inclusion for Historical Performance Programs (original) (raw)

'Should We Be Performing This?' Thoughts on Repertory Diversity and Inclusion for Historical Performance Programs

2019, 4th Annual Historical Performance Institute Conference, Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University

Concert programs by historically-informed performers often champion the obscure: we reproduce Bach’s performing forces, but also those of his little-known contemporaries. Similarly, our impulse is to present works by composers who have been neglected because of their gender, faith, or race. An even fuller picture of early modern culture emerges when we also perform musical representations of non-Christians and/or people of color in addition to performing music written by them. If the current historical canon denies the very existence of people of color, does performance of works that represent them constitute an improvement, even if such representations include stereotypes that we reject as racist? Should such works be studied only by scholars rather than heard by the public? Music audiences are particularly conditioned to view performances as celebrations not only of the composer’s creations, but of his/her mores and, by extension, the mores of the performer. This raises questions. Is any performance of music with a racist text ab initio a racist act? Do examples of such musical representations contain multiple meanings beyond their racism, including valuable ones? Does presentation of such music with sufficient regard for its original context and attention to current performance contexts lead to constructive dialogue? Can such performances and such dialogue constitute a path for inclusion of musicians who have long felt that early music is not relevant for people of color because it does not concern them? Should any music of this kind that has already been “canonized” be reexamined and perhaps “de-canonized”?