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“SHUT UP
AND
PLAY”—
MUSICIANS
AS
ACTIVISTS
IN THE 21ST
CENTURY
THE REFUGEE ORCHESTRA PROJECT PERFORMING FOR THE 2018 UNITED NATIONS DAY CONCERT DURING THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY AT UN HEADQUARTERS IN NEW
YORK CITY ON OCTOBER 24, 2018 (PHOTO BY STEVE PHILIP, COURTESY VERISMO COMMUNICATIONS)

“SHUT UP AND PLAY”—

MUSICIANS AS ACTIVISTS
IN THE 21ST CENTURY
BY LIDIYA YANKOVSKAYA
ON AUGUST 29, 2019
“Shut up and dribble.” On February 16, 2018, Fox
News host Laura Ingraham criticized NBA players
Lebron James and Kevin Durant for being “political”
after seeing footage of the two expressing the view
that the President “doesn’t understand the people”
and that many of the President’s comments are
“laughable and scary.” Ingraham’s commentary
created something of a firestorm, and a talking-head
debate ensued about whether or not sports figures
should be advocating certain “political” positions.

Few would deny the power sports figures can wield in

conveying social justice messages, whether in the
form of a raised fist or the seemingly simple act of
kneeling during a football game. But what about the
role of classical musicians in this context? Is it
appropriate for us to convey “activist” positions
beyond, say, describing the inherent value of a music
education? When we see discrimination in the world,
when we see injustice, who are we to be the ones to
speak out? Should we just “shut up and play”?

Amid the current proliferation of nativism across the IS IT

APPROPRIATE
industrialized world, musicians are uniquely FOR US TO
positioned to convey the following simple message CONVEY
“ACTIVIST”
that we should all, as artists, understand: no matter POSITIONS
BEYOND, SAY,
who you are, where you are from, how much money DESCRIBING
you have, or what language you speak, you have THE
INHERENT
inherent worth. VALUE OF A
 MUSIC
We know this because we live it, every day. EDUCATION?
Musicians come from, and interact with, people from
all walks of life. In our career trajectories, we often
start at the very bottom of the economic ladder,
barely able to make ends meet. Gradually, most
move into the middle class and a small number go
well beyond and join higher economic brackets. We
go to dinners with donors who are the richest of the
rich and then partake in outreach programs with the
most at-need in our communities. Our work crosses
linguistic barriers and we regularly interact with
people from myriad cultures. We often travel to
remote corners of the world to share our craft. We
find ourselves performing at symposiums thrown by
the intellectuals of academia as well as crossover
pop-culture events. We work in schools, and most of
us have taught people from across the cultural
spectrum. We are given a unique window into the
world and are provided the opportunity to escape our
own echo chambers, whatever those may be.

And we work together. In a single concert, we may

have a 10-year-old treble singer making music with a
conductor or instrumentalist who is well past 80;
they perform as equals. We delve into work written by
people from around the world, during a span of many
hundreds of years—through this music, we get to
know those who have long been dead and those
whose voices are just coming to the fore. We find
ways to empathize with and interpret the work of
people we will never meet. We create, and hope that,
long after we are gone, someone will see our world
through the music we leave behind for posterity.

Consider opera: stage crews, academically minded

dramaturges, white-collar administrators, and
superstar artists all work intimately together, in the
moment, to create a single organism. Each
contributor is absolutely essential to the process,
and to the product, that we deliver to our audiences.

In this way, music is enlightening: It allows us to have

a wide, kaleidoscopic view of the world, and to see
beauty in every corner.

Today, perhaps more than ever, it is the musician’s

responsibility to remind the world of this beauty.
Exclusionary politics and the demonization of the
other are utterly contrary to what musicians do on a
day-to-day basis, and we must make an effort to fight
this hatred. It is the duty that comes with the
incredible gift of music.

Of course, most of us are not policy experts, and EXCLUSIONARY

POLITICS AND
many specific political matters are outside our THE
purview. Yet, when it comes to matters of inclusion,
DEMONIZATION
OF THE
collaboration and cultural understanding, musicians OTHER ARE
UTTERLY
are better positioned than people in just about any CONTRARY TO
other field. More importantly, there are some matters WHAT
MUSICIANS
that are purely political and others that—in a
democratic context—should never become political DO ON A DAY-
TO-DAY BASIS.
at all.

In spring 2016, when the Refugee Orchestra Project

had its first concert showcasing the contributions of
refugees to American culture, the performance was
an activist, but not politically divisive, undertaking.
While anti-immigrant sentiment toward particular
groups seemed to be growing, it was still typically
accepted that the United States had been built as a
country of immigrants and could reasonably be
expected to continue accepting refugees and other
groups. Over the last three years, the political climate
changed dramatically, and any positive attitude
toward immigrant—especially refugee—communities
is now viewed as an incendiary political statement.
Our programming choices—featuring refugee
performers and composers—were suddenly seen by
some as contentious, even antagonistic. We received
both hate mail and accusations of questionable
patriotism. (Never mind that ROP concerts typically
end with a performance of “God Bless America,”
written by refugee Irving Berlin.)

I formed the Refugee Orchestra Project because the

divisiveness that was taking shape in our country had
a direct relationship to my own life. I then used my
experience, together with my professional
connections, to create a platform for change. But we
do not need to have personal history with specific
kinds of hatred to fight it. Yes, it can be challenging to
speak genuinely and authoritatively about the
experience of an underrepresented group to which
you do not belong, but every one of us can be an ally
by supporting organizations that promote
acceptance and plurality within our world. And the
value of this plurality is something we, as classical
musicians, actually understand.

Organizations currently fighting for positive change WE DO NOT

NEED TO
include those promoting diversity, like Sphinx HAVE
Organization and Castle of Our Skins in the U.S. and
PERSONAL
HISTORY
Chineke! Ensemble in the U.K. All three of these WITH
SPECIFIC
organizations use music to increase the plurality of KINDS OF
voices in our field (see last week’s article for more on HATRED TO
FIGHT IT.
this topic). There are also many organizations
working to support a very specific marginalized group
within a given community—like Eureka Ensemble,
which provides a musical experience for homeless
women, or the numerous musical initiatives that work
within prison systems. Large-scale programs like
Barenboim’s East-West Divan Orchestra and André
de Quadros’s choral projects in the Middle East help
foster peace on an international scale. Chicago
Sinfonietta has recently gone the direction of
impacting social change more widely within its
mission, and has dubbed itself “an activist
orchestra,” with programs that address inclusion,
diversity, and environmentalism, among others.
The very first concert of the Refugee Orchestra Project took place at First Church Cambridge in Cambridge, MA on May 10, 2016 (Photo by Scott Bump,
courtesy Verismo Communications)

All of these organizations have been built by

musician-activists—artists who wanted to see a
better world and were willing to work to make it
happen. All of us can make a difference by seeking
out organizations that promote causes that matter to
us, taking part in their performances, and
volunteering our time to spread the message. We all
have personal resources – time, money, expertise,
connections. I have chosen to invest mine in ROP.
This includes everything from covering my own travel
to/from performances, drafting press releases,
seeking potential partners, and spending hours
organizing parts and marking in bowings. The ROP
staff are highly qualified arts leaders who have
decided to volunteer large swaths of time outside of
our primary careers to this undertaking because we
want to make a difference. Many of the musicians
who play with us have given the organization extra
time on the administrative or marketing side, and
some, who have the flexibility, have donated their
concert fees to the refugee aid organizations which
our performances support.

Organizations that do not have a specific activist

mission also can and should do more. Those of us in
a position of power can use our musical experience,
connections, and public position to promote a
message of inclusion and acceptance. It can be as
easy as taking a moment to reiterate a simple and
powerful message that is inherently a part of our art:
we all matter. Some organizations are doing this by
ensuring that their programs are inclusive of many
voices or by organizing new initiatives within their
organizations. An example is the Oregon Symphony’s
“Sounds of Home” series, which brought attention
issues such as homelessness, immigration, and the
environment.

Of course, many of our musical experiences will not IF WE FOCUS

SOLELY ON
be activist in their primary mission—and that explicit OVERT
intent is not required to make an impact. Music for its
ACTIVISM, WE
MAY LOSE
own sake is immensely valuable and has the SOME OF THE
TRANSFORMATIVE
capacity to move people on an individual level. If we POWER THAT
ART CAN
focus solely on art as a means to overt activism, we HAVE ON
EACH
may lose some of the transformative power that art
LISTENER.
can have on each listener. Last week, I sat on a lawn
with hundreds of people, listening to a free
performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 at
Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival. It was powerful
to simply experience the massive forces of Mahler 2
together with the many families and individuals—
music lovers and those who just happened to
stumble onto the lawn of the public park.

That being said, when we see the society around us

moving in the direction of hatred, we can and should
—at least occasionally—look outside our regular
programming and use our skills to do more. We can
join in the ceaseless fight to make our world more
interconnected through mutual understanding (for
more on conductors’ role in affecting change, see
“The Catalyst-Conductor: Conductors as musical
leaders for the 21st century”).

Last fall, the Refugee Orchestra Project performed a

feature concert at the United Nations as part of the
annual U.N. Day. As I sat in the small green room just
behind U.N.’s Assembly Hall, I felt the weight of the
many people who have sat in that very room, likely
on that very chair: national leaders both revered and
hated, cultural icons, makers of peace and of war,
artists, politicians, scientists, and more. On stage
that day, we brought together the classical music
tradition of India with that of Europe, in THE American
City, to a truly international audience. Next week, I
have an opportunity to perform with ROP again—this
time in the country of origin of North America’s first
European settlers, in London. When I perform with
the musicians of Refugee Orchestra Project, the
deeper meaning behind the music-making gives
great focus and intensity to the musical experience,
often rendering it more meaningful to all involved.
There is nothing more exhilarating than sharing this
experience with audiences across the world,
hopefully making a difference in the minds of some,
and helping others feel a sense of community as they
partake in our music-making.

If the recognition of every human being’s inherent

value is political, then the creation and performance
of classical music is irrevocably political. It is
important for all of us to remember this, and to
remind others—the next time we are presented with
the opportunity to do so. We should never just “shut
up and play.”

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Russian-American conductor Lidiya

Yankovskaya is a champion of
Russian masterpieces, operatic
rarities, and contemporary works
on the leading edge of classical
music. As Music Director of Chicago Opera Theater,
Lidiya is the only woman to hold that title in a
multimillion-dollar opera company in the United
States. In the 2019/20 season, Ms. Yankovskaya
leads the world premiere of Dan Shore’s Freedom
Ride and the Chicago premieres of Joby Talbot’s
Everest, Rachmaninoff’s Aleko, and David T. Little’s
Soldier Songs at Chicago Opera Theater. She
conducts Ricky Ian Gordon’s Ellen West at... Read
more »

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