Photos by Dana J. Quigley Photography (Conyers), Stephanie Eley (Hairston)

BU Tanglewood Institute

Conversation

Bassist Joseph Conyers and harpist Angelica Hairston on their pivotal experiences at Boston University Tanglewood Institute and their passion for promoting diversity in classical music

Joseph Conyers and Angelica Hairston attended Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI) a decade apart. But they are quick to use the same phrase to describe their experiences there: life-changing.

“To experience the camaraderie at BUTI was remarkable,” says Conyers (BUTI’98), assistant principal bassist of the Philadelphia Orchestra. “There are folks I met who I am still friends with now, 24 years later. That speaks to the power of BUTI and the memories that come from those hallowed grounds. Just being around a lot of people your age who are as passionate about music as you are—it was heaven.”

Hairston (BUTI’08,’09), an Atlanta-based harpist, says studying under Ann Hobson Pilot, former principal harpist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) and former director of BUTI’s Young Artists Harp Program, was especially inspiring. “To work with Ann, and to see her perform with the BSO—to see this Black woman up there just nailing her parts, to see myself represented on that kind of stage—was so significant and it totally changed the trajectory of my life,” she says. “I know I wouldn’t have ended up where I am now. Even though orchestra isn’t my primary line of work today, Ann just represented to me the ability to show up as yourself, regardless of the space you’re in.”

Drawing from their experiences at BUTI and in their careers, Conyers and Hairston each created a nonprofit aimed at promoting diversity in classical music and empowering young musicians. In 2010, Conyers founded Project 440 in Philadelphia, Pa., which shows high schoolers interested in music how to do good in their communities and helps them with college and career preparedness. Since 2020, Conyers has also been the artistic advisor for BUTI’s Young Artists Orchestra.

Hairston runs her own nonprofit, Challenge the Stats, which strives to empower BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) musicians through concerts, events, and workshops. The name of the organization refers to statistics that show the lack of diversity in orchestras.

Conyers and Hairston spoke over Zoom in October 2022 about their BUTI experiences and their passion for promoting diversity in classical music.

Joseph Conyers: Angelica, I find your work with Challenge the Stats really interesting. I’d love to hear why you started it. I find it ironic that the two of us, who are both Black, felt the need and the urge to do something beyond what the profession technically calls of us.

Angelica Hairston: Growing up, I always had this vision of playing in an orchestra. That was presented as the ideal route for me. I didn’t know that there were other ways that I could have a viable, exciting career outside of that.

I did my undergrad [at The Royal Conservatory] in Toronto. I remember I was working on Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp in a practice room there. That same day, I had learned about the murder of Trayvon Martin. I remember thinking, I love classical music—I love it—and yet, I also started feeling this friction between this path that I’m taking and addressing the fact that my people are being targeted and murdered. I was like, wait, these are two things that I’m deeply passionate about. But how do I find an intersection?

I finished my undergrad, and I did a master’s at Northeastern in music business. That was when I started to learn about the Sphinx Organization [dedicated to promoting diversity in the arts]. I started to find ways that music intersects in this world of social justice, and I put on a concert to celebrate African American musicians and artists as part of my master’s degree and call it Challenge the Stats. I remember after the concert there was this buzz of people saying, “Wait, where’s more? What else is happening? How can we continue to support this?” I decided to make Challenge the Stats a nonprofit and promote music as a tool for conversation, as a tool of justice, and as a tool to elevate communities of color.

JC: I love that you said “music as a tool” because I say that all the time. I literally just said that this morning. It’s something we as musicians and as artists don’t think about enough. As a musician in an orchestra, you play your notes, you do your job. But we aren’t forced to actually think about music outside of the box. With my nonprofit, Project 440, it really is a matter of using music as a tool. We’re doing music education differently—in that we don’t actually teach music lessons. We use music as a lens for high school students to explore the world. Their passion for music ignites them and inspires them to not only find success for themselves, but help others along the way. It’s not that we are just going to develop these new, fantastic musicians. We’re going to develop better people, so we’ll have fantastic musicians who are also great people who know how to use music as a tool for good.

AH: I love that. I think that’s so powerful. There’s so much creativity that can be shared and celebrated outside of the concert halls. I think we’re both motivated by these questions of how do we create space for people to tell their stories, to bring every single piece of who they are to the table regardless of the music that they are playing? What does it look like to commission new voices, who say, “This is who I am and, regardless of the audience, I’m going to show up as me and say something”?

JC: When people say classical music is dying, I’ve always said, “If that’s true, it’s because we’re the ones killing it,” just because there are so many opportunities for it to be inclusive that we should be taking. Seeing more people of color in orchestras is a barometer of equity in our society. Who is there versus who is absent shows us who has gotten the opportunity, who has gotten the resources needed to get there, and who hasn’t. Music belongs to no one person—it belongs to everyone. I would love to see our industry continue to embrace that notion.

AH: Since you work with young musicians, I’m curious: What’s your hope for them?

JC: That it’s just easier for them. We were talking about Ann Hobson Pilot—I’ve heard stories of some of her experiences. She paved the way for future musicians, like yourself, so that they have it better and easier. I feel like that’s what we’re doing too. I hope that the next generation is doing the same, so then it’s not special. It’s just how it is and who we are.

Something we’re missing in the profession is the embracing of the whole individual in our art form, so much so that I would even caution the classical music industry from leaning into itself too much. That has, for some, created a space where people don’t feel comfortable. I know folks who had full-time jobs in orchestras who left because they don’t have the agency to grow. They don’t have the encouragement to be better and do better for the world because there’s no part of the job that acknowledges it or embraces it. So, what is being done so that these folks who can make the industry and the organizations better want to stay and be part of these institutions instead of running away from them?

AH: Absolutely. We have a roster of musicians who perform with Challenge the Stats, and so many of them maybe play in the opera or with an orchestra, but also find this other space in Challenge the Stats performances where they can bring all of themselves—and not necessarily just during Black History Month or on specific days. We can perform music of all backgrounds, of all styles, by composers of color, in conversation with things that may have been more “traditionally” performed. We question who “the greats” are. How can we redefine what great really is or what it means to be a musician, an artist, a composer?

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We question who ‘the greats’ are. How can we redefine what great really is or what it means to be a musician, an artist, a composer?

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JC: I am a big fan of that because I think there is a little bit of gatekeeping in our industry around what a certain type of musical excellence is. Some of the young people I work with through Project 440 will go into music, some will not, but what they are all doing is making a difference in the world—most of the time with instrument in hand, which I think is important.

We were talking about the diversity of performances and diversity of people onstage. Equally important is diversity of thought and of experience. As you bring those into the fold, it’s just going to make the ultimate product fuller and better. Yo-Yo Ma gave a lecture where he talked about this thing called the edge effect, when two ecosystems come together, and that place where those two ecosystems meet is where you find the most diversity, resilience, and creativity. That’s the opportunity we have with music. We should not be afraid of this or that thing, but we should take our circles and bring them together to make this beautiful Venn diagram of sorts.

AH: We should make a collage, with jagged edges and different colors. Joe, you are such an incredible role model for the next generation to look up to and say, “Well, maybe I can do it too.” I think that by having more leaders of color who look like these young musicians, we are opening those doors big and wide. Our responsibility is to keep them open.

JC: It’s important. Last summer was my first summer in person at BUTI in my role, and it was great to be able to observe that the program that I love so much—and that has been a part of my life for so long—is still going strong. That same spirit of community and musicianship between the students and the faculty and staff remains. I’m excited about what the future might hold and what we’ll be able to do.

AH: I think it’s also such a unique time, when orchestras are finally realizing, okay, we have to do things differently. We have to change.

JC: All without sacrificing what the art is. I think that’s what scares people. They have this feeling of, “Oh, you’re going to water it down.” Change can only make it better, and I think audiences will pick up on that right away. The programming at BUTI this summer was really fantastic. I think the students got a whole lot out of it. Talking to the students about leadership and having guest artists like yourself coming in to talk about their experiences, to get them thinking outside the box, was really important. We train these young people to be open-minded, and I just hope the institutions beyond BUTI start to embrace that more as well. If they start doing that, everyone has to follow. 

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