Underrepresented

I went to a terrific concert at a huge Presbyterian Church just outside our flagship State University.  Immense sanctuary, filled with a blend of concert lovers who wouldn't miss it and relatives of the volunteer musicians, including a high school contribution of singers who support their household members, if not fine music.  My wife loves choral music, currently serving as President of a local ensemble.  I always enjoy her concerts, though only go to hers.

My own fondness, though never developing into an expensive passion, are our National Parks and my state parks.  As a senior, I purchased lifetime passes to each.  On visit to Florida a year ago I reserved an afternoon to tour the Everglades.  In the past I've allotted vacation time for Zion, Bryce, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and Volcanoes National Parks, all quite crowded with fellow tourists on each of my visits.  My regional Osher Institute has offered a course on the National Parks predating my own post-retirement enrollment.  Friday morning is reserved for the current National Parks presentation by one of the finest lecturers in the program, now an octogenarian.

Fine music, often Sacred pieces inspired by a Deity but still mostly created by musical masters and presented by dedicated performers with more of a spectrum of talent, does not easily connect to the wonders of nature, themselves studied and packaged by experts. The link may be the mostly unconditional offer for the public to elevate their minds and spirits from we offered, whether by non-profits that promote music or government that preserves and manages land.  Each are for presentation. 

Some major symphonies, operas, and theatrical agencies charge a substantial sum to partake.  Their attendance would reflect that, an audience dominated by moguls and elite professionals, with a subset of maybe student discounts or people of ordinary means who saved up all year for this personal treat.  Not so with our local productions, from High School annual musicals to church or community sponsored musical concerts.  Tickets are within the means of most wage earners.  The performers mostly need and have cars to get to rehearsals, while working people, at least in my locale, need and have cars to get to work.  The availability of these concerts would seem nearly universal, though in competition with what each person might be doing instead.

The National Parks, while more spectacular, are not as universally accessible.  I always see tour buses, some directed to foreign countries where vacation time exceeds what American employers allot.  Parking lots have plates from all over America and parts of Canada and Mexico, suggesting that people planned their visits to capture multiple places and allow substantial travel time.  More typically, tourists fly to the nearest major airport, then rent a car.  And hotel accommodations, often tied to the pleasures of a resort, make this a considerable expense for most visitors, though working people customarily allot for travel during their vacation weeks.  One can go overseas on a tour, take a cruise, visit a National Park, explore the magic of Disney, all for comparable expense.  And vacation has become a priority for Americans.  I have actually done all of these things over many years.

At the concert, the paucity of African-Americans, countable on fingers amidst a few hundred people caught my attentions.  Asians were also under-represented.  Ages of those in attendance perhaps trended toward older people, though not dramatically so.  And this is with parents supporting their participating kids.  The performers had some people colors, but not the audience.  Has concert music, unlike Spirituals or popular music, become a haven of the elite?  Those people who played in the school orchestra or took courses from the Music Department in college?   Travel or expense would not be an impediment, interest and preferences might be.

I make a parallel observation about my National Park visits, though slightly different.  Asians, whether by Japanese tour buses or visitors to the Western Parks are rather common.  African-Americans seemed few, even in Florida where the only people of color seemed to be those on class trips.  The nearest airport to the Utah parks is Las Vegas which has among the most cosmopolitan collection of visitors as anyplace.  Hotels in the towns surrounding the parks are not extravagantly priced.  Nobody is turned away.  I assume the National Park Service keeps some visitor data so perhaps my visual impression is in error, but I don't think so.  And the Parks are as likely to attract people of all political persuasions, so I don't suspect their enjoyment is top-heavy with the wealthiest most educated Americans.  

We have DEI as a political flash point, as it focuses on employment and blending of students.  But there are other opportunities for having a broader representation of the population than we seem to have now.  Nobody is turned away from a cultural event.  Nobody is refused entry to our public lands to enjoy the best nature can create.  Nothing controversial about this.  Yet there seems to be ethnically, economically, or perhaps geographic preferences.  Or perhaps the desire to bring the kids to the Everglades in competition with Disney reflects a parental perspective.  The concert and the parks each seem to have diversity shortfalls.  And each unrelated to any sense of entitlement or preference.  I think it would be better to make an effort to attract some of the portions of the population not currently seeking out these public treasures, so some may think me an overeducated snob for thinking that way.  

Listened to the Sounds

Delaware Choral Arts presents some of the finest choral concerts in my area.  Yet there's something bothersome to me about choral music or opera or oratorios.  Even when sung in my native language, not only can I rarely discern the words, but often I cannot figure out that the group or soloist is singing in English.  The organizers are well aware of this, so they provide a transcript of the text which the usher distributes at the entry to the auditorium or sanctuary along with the program.  I picked mine up, found a seat in the pew, read over some of the program, then made a key decision.  I would not follow the program, just listen.  I clapped when everyone else clapped.  I knew how many pieces were on each side of intermission.  I knew how many movements each of the two long pieces contained but not when each ended, until everyone clapped at the end.  And the transcript of the text just stayed on the coarse red cushion that the church offers as its pew's seating surface.  And I listened.

My 8th Grade music teacher, Mr. Nasser, once challenged us to rank the relative importance of the words and the music.  He insisted that language has to take priority, as we think verbally and the composer depends on the texts to create the music.  I bought into his instruction at the time, but as I attend more concerts where the language never captures my pretty decent comprehension of English, I've become more of a skeptic.

So yesterday I put the text transcription aside and just listened to the sounds.  Polyphonic voices.  Keyboard accompaniment.  Soloists merging with instruments.  A bassist and percussionist for one of the pieces on the program, with the composer offering a plethora of percussion sounds.  Singers of various vocal registers.  Entry and silence directed by the conductor.  The text really didn't matter to my auditory experience.  Probably a great disappointment to the composer, and maybe an even bigger one to the author of the texts, as yesterday's concert was largely adapted from African-American literature and Spirituals.  The author created ideas.  I missed them to get the composer's sounds instead.