美国国家公共电台 NPR Why This High School Band Is Only Buying Music From Composers Of Color

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Students at one high school outside of St. Paul, Minn., are getting ready for their next big band concert. They're busy studying the music, of course, but also the composers. And this year, those composers don't look like they have in years past. Solvejg Wastvedt from Minnesota Public Radio has the story.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SOLVEJG WASTVEDT, BYLINE¹: A bulletin board at the front of the band room is covered with photos of composers, the composers the Spring Lake Park High School bands are playing this year.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

WASTVEDT: Kia Muleta plays clarinet She's a junior, and she's been playing since fifth grade. She says in band, the students sitting around her are usually white. Kia is black. And she says the composers they play are also usually white, and they're usually men.

KIA MULETA: There's a kind of, like, ideological² segregation³ of who can and cannot be in band based on who the composers are and what the music is like and what the experiences of those composers are like.

WASTVEDT: But this year, some of that changed. The bulletin board has several pictures of composers of color and women. Brian Lukkasson, one of the school's band directors, says it's an intentional⁴ pledge - include at least one piece by a female composer and one by a composer of color in each concert. And when ordering new music...

BRIAN LUKKASSON: Yeah, we made a commitment this year to only buy music from composers of color.

WASTVEDT: How's it going?

LUKKASSON: It's hard. It's really hard to find music because there's just not a lot of composers of color that are being published.

WASTVEDT: But that's not because those composers aren't writing for band.

YOLANDA WILLIAMS: In the United States, there's a very tight hold over who are the accepted composers.

WASTVEDT: Yolanda Williams teaches at the University of Minnesota, and she says that composers of color and women are shut out of the canon. They're also often stereotyped⁵.

WILLIAMS: Rather than assuming black people wrote spirituals and wrote jazz pieces, they also wrote operas and symphonies and string quartets.

WASTVEDT: The Spring Lake Park selections defied those assumptions. Lukkasson's group is learning a piece called "Diamond Tide" by Vietnamese-American composer Viet Cuong. By their March concert, it should sound something like this recording⁶ Cuong provided of the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor Wind Ensemble⁷.

(SOUNDBITE OF UNIVERSITY OF MARY HARDIN-BAYLOR WIND ENSEMBLE'S PERFORMANCE OF VIET CUONG'S "DIAMOND TIDE")

WASTVEDT: Lukkasson networks with his colleagues to find these new composers.

LUKKASSON: They're not being forced to write music that sounds like their own culture or their own history. They're able to just use that culture and that history as a lens to interpret the way the art is going.

(SOUNDBITE OF UNIVERSITY OF MARY HARDIN-BAYLOR WIND ENSEMBLE'S PERFORMANCE OF VIET CUONG'S "DIAMOND TIDE")

WASTVEDT: Nora Tycast, the other band director, raises her baton⁸ for a song called "Of Honor And Valor⁹ Eternal." It's by Ayatey Shabazz, a black composer from Mississippi.

(SOUNDBITE OF SPRING LAKE PARK HIGH SCHOOL BAND'S PERFORMANCE OF AYATEY SHABAZZ'S "OF HONOR AND VALOR ETERNAL")

WASTVEDT: The piece is a tribute to the Tuskegee Airmen. And Tycast takes the chance to educate her students about that history.

NORA TYCAST: Think those triplets through di dah di (ph).

The more you practice talking about race and culture and ethnicity, the more comfortable you are. And we have this platform in ninth, 10th and 11th grade and 12th grade in order to allow students to practice those conversations.

WASTVEDT: Kia Muleta says the mix of composers on the class bulletin board may seem like a small thing, but to her it's clearly not.

MULETA: I really, really want students of color to just feel like they are welcomed and appreciated anywhere, that they don't have to check themselves at the door wherever they go. And I'm sorry, I don't mean to get emotional, but I feel like that's what happens everywhere, like whether - even in a place like band where it doesn't seem like a big deal, it feels like a big deal.

WASTVEDT: She says new faces up front are a signal that difference is welcome here. For NPR News, I'm Solvejg Wastvedt.

(SOUNDBITE OF SPRING LAKE PARK HIGH SCHOOL BAND'S PERFORMANCE OF AYATEY SHABAZZ'S "OF HONOR AND VALOR ETERNAL")

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 ideological   

a.意识形态的

参考例句：

• He always tries to link his study with his ideological problems. 他总是把学习和自己的思想问题联系起来。
• He helped me enormously with advice on how to do ideological work. 他告诉我怎样做思想工作，对我有很大帮助。

3 segregation   

n.隔离，种族隔离

参考例句：

• Many school boards found segregation a hot potato in the early 1960s.在60年代初，许多学校部门都觉得按水平分班是一个棘手的问题。
• They were tired to death of segregation and of being kicked around.他们十分厌恶种族隔离和总是被人踢来踢去。

4 intentional   

adj.故意的，有意（识）的

参考例句：

• Let me assure you that it was not intentional.我向你保证那不是故意的。
• His insult was intentional.他的侮辱是有意的。

5 stereotyped   

adj.(指形象、思想、人物等)模式化的

参考例句：

• There is a sameness about all these tales. They're so stereotyped -- all about talented scholars and lovely ladies. 这些书就是一套子，左不过是些才子佳人，最没趣儿。
• He is the stereotyped monster of the horror films and the adventure books, and an obvious (though not perhaps strictly scientific) link with our ancestral past. 它们是恐怖电影和惊险小说中的老一套的怪物，并且与我们的祖先有着明显的（虽然可能没有科学的）联系。

6 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

7 ensemble   

n.合奏(唱)组；全套服装；整体，总效果

参考例句：

• We should consider the buildings as an ensemble.我们应把那些建筑物视作一个整体。
• It is ensemble music for up to about ten players,with one player to a part.它是最多十人演奏的合奏音乐，每人担任一部分。

8 baton   

n.乐队用指挥杖

参考例句：

• With the baton the conductor was beating time.乐队指挥用指挥棒打拍子。
• The conductor waved his baton,and the band started up.指挥挥动指挥棒，乐队开始演奏起来。

9 valor   

n.勇气，英勇

参考例句：

• Fortitude is distinct from valor.坚韧不拔有别于勇猛。
• Frequently banality is the better parts of valor.老生常谈往往比大胆打破常规更为人称道。