As Professional and/or Volunteer Singers, we pledge to: 
 

• Interrupt racism and white supremacy when you see it, speak first if no one else speaks up

• Claim agency, your voice is not someone else's instrument

• Activate your community, participate in organizational governance, or encourage BBI singers in your organization to participate in governance/chorus leadership

• Listen deeply, observe, and analyze social systems

• Center BBI singers and community members

• Advocate, don't be a bystander—hold one another accountable

• Recognize the power of social groups to exclude and reproduce power dynamics, especially in regards to conformity/nonconformity

• Question traditions and practice so that the choices we make are intentional and mindful of inequity

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As Conductors, we pledge to:

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• Embrace idiomatic Black choral music and find ways to incorporate respectful and thoughtful arrangements in your choral program; contextualize this music with singers and audience. 

• Program non-idiomatic Black choral music, including music of pre-20th century composers (see, for example, Marques L. A. Garrett’s resource here.)

• Strive for representation across each program and concert season without tokenizing 

• Remove arrangements of racist source songs (eg. minstrel songs) from choral libraries

• Seek expertise from BBI artists and culture bearers, compensate and credit them for their labor

• Hire BBI choral artists, guest conductors, composers, clinicians, adjudicators, and collaborators for a wide range of work beyond essentialized notions of race/ethnicity (eg. hire a Black singer to perform Bach, not just spirituals)

• Question choral norms, acknowledging that whiteness is normalizing agent

 

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In Music Education Contexts, we pledge to:

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• Dedicate time to create and facilitate scaffolded anti-racism learning opportunities for students during choral rehearsals.

• Implement non-European pedagogies across the choral discipline (voice, musicianship, choral literature, conducting)

• Interrogate assessment tools, competitive contest rubrics, and colonial tour culture, which are often coded for whiteness and unfairly advantage affluent choirs

• Intentionally recruit from racially diverse student populations through all pathways 

 

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In Professional and Community Contexts, we pledge to:

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• Build reciprocal relationships with BBI communities that resist notions of white saviorism

• Research local issues of segregation, inequity, and income inequality that adversely impact BBI communities, and investigate methods of concrete support, solidarity, and investment that can be offered to those communities.

 

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In Faith-based Contexts, we pledge to:

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• Vigorously and regularly research the lives and contributions of Black musicians, musical leaders, and musical scholars from within your specific faith tradition.

• Honor the legacy of Black musicians within your faith tradition by explaining your research to your musicians and to your faith community.

• Invite Black artists, musical leaders, and musical scholars to engage in music-making with your faith community, deemphasizing performance and emphasizing connection.

 

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As Choral Composers, Arrangers, and Publishers, we pledge to:

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• Include steps taken to understand cultures with which you may not identify 

• Acknowledge positionality when considering creative opportunities that are connected to cultural identity

• Replace categorical terms that erase the specificity of geography and race (such as “World Music” and “Multicultural”) and develop language that honors the intersectional [8]  identities of composers, song traditions, and musical styles

• Remove arrangements of problematic source songs (eg. minstrel songs) from publishing catalogs

 

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As Choral Non Profit Organizations, Boards, and Administrators, we pledge to:

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• Devote financial resources annually toward Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) training for administrative and artistic staff and board, develop and renew an annual DEI plan

• Take an organizational self-assessment to evaluate organization’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (see, for example, https://www.ofbyforall.org/resources)

• Develop policies and procedures to implement and promote diversity and inclusion in hiring and in the workplace

• Elect, hire, empower, and follow Black administrative, creative, and educational choral leaders

• Assess current board diversity and reaffirm commitment to board diversity (see Board Source resources)

 

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As Professional Associations and Educational Advocacy Organizations, we pledge to:

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• Create new leadership pathways and awards for anti-racism work and community engagement

• Improve access to professional development opportunities and conferences by reducing cost and offering scholarships to BBI conductors, administrators, and students

• Develop anti-racism programming for your organization, including in conference settings

• Elect, hire, empower, and follow BBI administrative, creative, and educational choral leaders

• Interrogate evaluation and assessment tools for coded language that centers whiteness

• Using social media, publications, journals, and other print and online platforms, highlight areas of growth for the field in anti-racist work and center organizations who are taking specific anti-racist actions as an example to the field

• Foster and develop partnerships with organizations that specifically serve BBI artists, conductors, composers, teachers, businesses, and schools

• Contribute to research and evaluation that helps the choral field understand itself; who participates, who is excluded, how barriers can be dismantled, and how to improve access and equity in the field.

 

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Authored By:

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Alexander Lloyd Blake, Tonality; Emilie Amrein, University of San Diego; Dr. Melissa Dunphy, Composer; Christie McKinney; Reginald Mobley, Countertenor/Handel and Haydn Society; Dr. Zanaida Robles, Harvard-Westlake School/Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church; Jen Rogers, Phoenix Chorale; Joel Thompson, Composer; Tesfa Wondemagegnehu, St. Olaf College