Black Lives Matter
I am extremely grateful to work for Chamber Music Tulsa, and to be affiliated with our national industry representative, Chamber Music America. Over the past few years, the CMT Board has worked to champion diverse musicians and composers. We are only in the beginning of this ongoing and vital work.
Yesterday, the Association of Performing Arts Professionals issued a statement and the excerpt below expresses how I feel.
“It is through this deep grief that we have great clarity. We embrace each other and the healing that is possible through the performing arts.
- We stand in solidarity with Black artists, Black arts professionals and the Black communities we serve. We acknowledge the daily physical and emotional risks and burdens you bear and that you are often targeted for your Blackness.
- We urge that arts organizations, arts workers and artists hold ourselves to a higher standard by examining our own practices as they pertain to racial equity, diversity and inclusion (REDI).
- We honor Black people as a vital part of our collective American identity and as inextricable contributors to the American cultural fabric, and to whom we owe a great debt.
- We believe in the sanctity of life, the promise of liberty, and the most fundamental and absolute right to personal safety regardless of race or gender. We believe in nonviolence and justice.”
Music has always had great power to heal. I miss sitting together to hear chamber music played live. In January 2019, the Kenari Saxophone Quartet performed Joel Love’s “In Memoriam” in Tulsa during a week-long residency. The third time I heard it that week, I was openly weeping. Music has that power. Here is a link to them performing it in 2018: