Baltimore American Musicological Society Conference

I have to give a trigger warning up front. Though we try to avoid politics in every respect except as it directly affects the music business and musicians, I am going to just wander into politics a bit in this post. I offer as an excuse that, as a Canadian, I do have quite a different perspective on American politics. Someone left a note on my desk yesterday about how every American, distraught over the election, will be alloted a "Canadian Emotional Support" person and I guess, in our office, that would be me! I have to say that Canadian election campaigns are much shorter, typically six weeks or so, and less emotionally fraught. I suspect that part of the reason is that we simply refuse to discuss the more difficult issues.

But let me back up a bit. Way back in 1996 or 97 I went to the American Musicological Society annual conference which that year was held in Baltimore. The high point for me was almost meeting Richard Taruskin who had a debate with my then-thesis advisor over neo-classicism and its connections with fascism. I don't even remember which sides they were on. Traveling to Baltimore and spending some time just wandering around the city was an unusual experience for me. I was not used to American cities as, apart from Toronto, they are quite different from Canadian cities. How is that you ask?

Let me offer up two bits of anecdotal evidence. I lived for quite a while in Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, and while I was there as an undergraduate music student, I used to usher at symphony concerts occasionally. The conductor of the orchestra then was Paul Freeman:

He is an American, born in Richmond, Virginia, and obviously black. As is his wife. I remember some of us ushers greeting his wife, who was usually sitting in row seven, saying "hi Mrs. Freeman." We had not been introduced, so how did we know that this black lady in row seven was Mrs. Freeman? Easy, in that whole 2,000 seat symphony hall there were precisely two (2), black people. The conductor and his wife. Back then many conductors in Canada, as with university professors, were imported from other countries. Not just the US, the previous conductor in Victoria was Lazlo Gati, from Hungary. I think we are finally hiring Canadian conductors now. I should mention, by way of context, that in the whole city there were probably fewer than ten black people. Victoria does have a very large population of people of Asian descent however.

Ok, back to Baltimore. At the conference there were about five hundred musicologists and graduate students in musicology from all over North American. In that whole herd there was one (1) black person, a young man in his thirties. I don't recall his specialty. As I wandered around the city I noticed something else odd: in every service job, all the employees, or nearly all, were black. The people behind the counter at the hotels, the people serving in restaurants and so on. Everywhere you went.

Now I draw no conclusions from this as I am an outsider and don't quite know what to think. In Canada, especially Quebec where I lived for over a decade, we have politicized language instead of skin color and with problematic results.

I will say this: there seem to be some profound problems in some cities in the US such as Baltimore, Detroit, and recently Portland OR, Seattle, and San Francisco. Mind you, I claim no Canadian superiority. Both Montreal and Vancouver have profound problems as well. Montreal, though few Canadians know about it and even fewer will admit it, has serious problems with corruption and the Mafia.

All I will say is that it might be time to try some new approaches to some old problems.

Some music? This is Paul Freeman conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra with Derek Han soloist in the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major: