Classical music is a big part of Western civilization and thus a target for the “woke” mob. Sadly, like so many other institutions, classical music has been widely infiltrated by the “diversity” mania. If you want to preserve it, you need to target your support carefully.
In this City Journal article, Heather Mac Donald sets forth her case for strategic giving (and non-giving).
She writes, “After that initial new-repertoire cut, my giving to classical music organizations is inversely proportional to those organizations’ embrace of racial-justice rhetoric. I am all for racial justice, as it once was defined. But classical music does not at present have a racism problem. It is colorblind in its pursuit of musical excellence, or was until the post-George Floyd meltdown. No black or Hispanic musician is being denied opportunities today because of his skin color. To the contrary. (The same can no longer be said with confidence regarding white male performers.)”
Correct. Classical music is all about talent. Nobody cares about race or anything else. But meritocratic institutions are bad! They must be brought to heel and made to embrace “equity.” That’s why we now hear demands that blind auditions be ended so that musicians can be judged not just on their playing but on whether they add to the ensemble’s “diversity.”
Mac Donald continues, “To the extent that a classical music organization does parrot antiracism bromides and accuses itself or the profession of bias, that organization is accelerating classical music’s demise. Classical music’s presence in the culture at large is already marginal. For most young people it is an alien, if not repellent, idiom. Teaching young people to see this sublime tradition through the trivializing lens of race and sex will provide the coup de grâce.”
Please read the whole article and take it to heart.