06/11/2020
Change starts with us.
We are calling on the NYU Steinhardt Music and Performing Arts Program to evaluate and rework the current core music history, theory, and aural comprehension classes. The current curricula is dominated by white musicians and composers within the Western Music tradition, thereby minimizing and perpetuating the erasure of non-white voices in collegiate musical study.
As a school that is training future sharers of music, whether it be through performance, business, production, or education, this is unacceptable.
Of course, this is not just about us and our education but also about changing the narrative of musical study at the collegiate level. This is about the centuries of erasure of marginalized voices in music. This is about making the choice to finally include, uplift, and normalize an education that tells the broader story of music history, and not just the music history of white people.
This is just a tiny movement in the broader context of societal changes that should be happening right now, but it is a change that can positively affect generations of musicians and music listeners. We hope that it will inspire the changing of curriculum not only at NYU, but at other schools of music as well.
If you would like to sign, go to change.org/anti-racist-mpap
Feel free to share out and let us know if you have any questions!
