Rebecca Miller: A Classical Music Change Maker

The classical music industry is in the middle of a hiatus at the moment - a significant and terrifying ‘rest’ in the middle of a magnum opus. But in music, it’s often the rests - the silences between the notes - that are the most powerful parts of a piece. It’s a place where important decisions are made, where paths are decided.

I’m an orchestral conductor. Like many professionals, women have long been a relatively novel phenomenon in the conducting world. While orchestral musicians have gradually gained gender parity over the last 30 years, change hasn’t yet reached the upper ranks. According to figures published in Bachtrack in 2019, only eight women conductors formed part of the top 100 conductors by numbers of event listings. According to research presented by the League of American Orchestras in 2016, only 9.2% of coveted music director positions were held by women, with women conductors twice as likely to be found in other conductor positions.

To give some perspective – in the US Justice system, 32% of court judges are currently women. In the Supreme Court, 3 out of 12 justices are women (would you prefer the US Supreme Court statistic where it is 3/9 are women or the UK which is 1/12?). Another profession steeped in tradition is the percentage of female vicars in the UK: that stands at 29%. In 2019, the share of female-held directorships of FTSE 100 companies in the UK stood at 32.1%.

With regards to race, the League of American Orchestras found in 2014 that 12% of US orchestral musicians were non-white, however African American musicians accounted for just 1.8% of this percentage. In 2014, boards of American orchestras hovered at just under 8% non-white. While the Association of British Orchestras (ABO) has not published equivalent figures in the UK, there are just two black board members of music conservatoires. Anyone who has been to a concert is aware of the predominant cultural background of most of the audience and players.

I’m well aware that what I do is extremely specialised, viewed by many as outdated, irrelevant, and dispensable - a distant language that few people can relate to, unrelated to every day society. But out of 7.6 billion people in the world, we are each only one. But viewing that as a positive, we are each one - each of us a percentage of a whole. We can easily see our own contributions as small and insignificant. But if we are each a percentage of a whole, then surely what we each contribute matters. Art matters. It may not save lives with medical treatment, police protection, or political will, but it saves lives by reminding us that we are human, and by reflecting society. 

I find that my motivation as a musician has evolved and broadened. I’m propelled forward now not only by music in and of itself, but also by the drive to use my artistry for social change. As a conductor my job is to make decisions - lots of them - on stage and off. And as a citizen, I find that many of my decisions are now made not only on purely musical ones, but also on socially relevant ones as well - whether that’s to do with programming, music education, gender diversity, racial diversity, climate change, politics, or mental health.

In recent years, progress has been made. Last century, you could name female conductors on one hand. But we are now blessed with a wealth of female conductors at various stages who are starting to break into the conducting world. Thanks to the efforts of many in our industry, young female conductors can now draw on a wealth of programmes - from the RPS Women Conductors and the Hart Institute for Women Conductors, to the La Maestra competition, and many more valued initiatives. And this week, the ABO announced the appointment of Leslie Kwan, a welcome representative of diversity. But the issues of gender and cultural diversity in our industry need nurturing and continued positive action, lest any progress made sink back into old habits. I think it’s first and foremost a change of mindset in every individual, and at every institution. Anthony Tommasini wrote last July in the New York Times in the wake of Black Lives Matter, calling for blind auditions to be abolished:

'A typical orchestral audition might end up attracting dozens of people who are essentially indistinguishable in their musicianship and technique. It’s like an elite college facing a sea of applicants with straight As and perfect test scores. Such a school can move past those marks, embrace diversity as a social virtue and assemble a freshman class that advances other values along with academic achievement.

'For orchestras, the qualities of an ideal player might well include talent as an educator, interest in unusual repertoire or willingness to program innovative chamber events as well as pure musicianship. American orchestras should be able to foster these values, and a diverse complement of musicians, rather than passively waiting for representation to emerge from behind the audition screen.'

We must address diversity of all kinds in our industry and make it a priority to do so in our every day decisions - even at the smallest level, with what music we know and choose to play. We in the music industry know the intrinsic value of our art. But we must work harder on the side of access, participation, and inclusion, so that more of the world can join us in our quest to keep music an integral part of our society.

As a conductor, what you do in the rests may well be the most important thing you do on stage. Rests are doorways - and doorways are places where important decisions are made. So I hope the industry will take this hiatus and make a change, forge a new path. One more diverse, more inclusive, more socially conscious, more relevant, but one that keeps its artistic integrity, without dilution. Music speaks to all of us - every culture in the world uses music to celebrate, to mourn, to express. 

I founded Beyond Borders to bring people together - to have important conversations, about our art, its relevance to society, and about current issues of today. We offer a moment to step inside the small world of conducting, learn about it, and then zoom out to view its larger context in society. I hope our series will help us all to zoom in and zoom out - to remind us all to view our own small worlds in their larger context, continually adjust our perspectives, view ourselves from the outside, and commit to making our small percentages matter, every day.

For more information on Beyond Borders, click here.