Peabody Institute

• When it comes to achieving racial diversity, music education at the university level in the U.S. still has a long way to go.
• The focus on white, male Europeans in textbooks and music selected for study has been called into question by countless scholars and practitioners because of music education’s deep roots in anti-Blackness.
• A composer and music teacher who died in 1953, Price is considered to be one of the first Black female musicians with mainstream appeal.

Music theory textbooks

• In 2020, music theorist Megan Lyons and I did an analysis of the seven most common undergraduate music theory textbooks in the U.S. We wanted to establish a baseline of the racial and gender makeup of the composers represented in the books to see what teachers were offering to our students as the most important music to consider in the undergraduate music major.
• Music theory courses, usually spread over four or five semesters, are often considered the most crucial aspect of the major, and theory textbooks are presented as authoritative sources that outline the essentials of the discipline.
• Left out of textbooks are the many African American musicians who contributed significantly to American music, such as classical composers Nathaniel Dett, James Reese Europe, Julia Perry and Clarence Cameron White.
• Also generally excluded were nonclassical genres like jazz, blues or bluegrass, or contemporary popular music such as hip-hop, soul or punk.

Anti-Blackness in music conservatories

• Anti-Blackness was commonly accepted in all music institutions until well into the 20th century through the eugenics of music pedagogue Carl Seashore, the white supremacy of the composer-pianist John Powell and the racism of music theorist Heinrich Schenker.
• Thomas focused on the Peabody Institute, founded in 1857 in Baltimore, Maryland and the oldest U.S. music institution, and its board members’ letters about the possible admission of Black pianist Paul Brent.
• Generally considered a Black musical genre, jazz is now part of most music educational institutions, but is virtually always separate from the mainstream music major.
• But in most cases, if a student wants to major in jazz, there are very alternatives to majoring in classical music while playing jazz on the side.

Change in music education is coming

• Citing declining enrollments for music majors across the country, the College Music Society in 2014 published a manifesto for change to the undergraduate music major.
• It deemphasized music and methods of the Western canon while emphasizing the need for students to engage with music from different cultures and with new technologies.
• Musicians are rethinking their curricula to treat all music of the world on equal footing as the European standards.

• RICHMOND, Calif., Sept. 6, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- George Colligan expresses the complexities and conflicting emotions of our confusing, sometimes chaotic times with the November 11 release of "King's Dream" (PJCE).
• Though not quite a sequel, the album builds on many of the themes presented on his previous solo album, 2018's Nation Divided.
• The 11 original compositions on "King's Dream" (Colligan's 36th album as a leader) are not all new: Some of them go as far back as 2008.
• (He's the drummer on Kerry Politzer's latest CD, "In a Heartbeat," also on PJCE Records.)

• PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 23, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Today, Drexel University's Westphal College of Media Arts & Design and The Curtis Institute of Music announced their call for the first public orchestra for Rehearsing Philadelphia.
• Rehearsing Philadelphia is a citywide art-based public project created by Berlin-based composer and artist, Ari Benjamin Meyers, and jointly produced and presented by The Westphal College of Media Arts & Design and The Curtis Institute of Music.
• "We are delighted to have Drexel University's Westphal College of Media Arts & Design and The Curtis Institute of Music students participating in this landmark project."
• At Westphal, we reimagine the role of design, media, and the arts in building a better future.