Dear Guardian, On Saturday, November 14th throngs of pro-Trump protesters filled the streets of downtown Washington, D.C. Convinced of massive voter fraud and emboldened by now-dismissed lawsuits brought by the president’s legal team, the crowds descending on the U.S. capital included a large presence of the hate group “The Proud Boys”. Footage of one proud boy initiation in a D.C. park shows a group of white men pummelling an initiate who shouts popular cereal brands in response. An initiator prompts him to declare, “ I am a western chauvinist and I refuse to apologize for creating the modern world ,”. I wish that I could say I was surprised by this myopic ideology so proudly and publicly expressed. As a Washington D.C. resident, I was alarmed. As a music educator and consumer of classical music journalism, however, this unabashed declaration was all too familiar. While incidents of this kind appear extreme and spark outrage in liberal media such as The Guardian, they are connected wi
What is a composer? What does a composer look like? Where do they come from? These are some questions a teacher might ask their students in any K-5 general music classroom. But what picture do we paint for students about composer identity with the listening repertoire we expose them to? photo credit: Lucas Lenzi So many people still picture a white man in a puffy wig and maybe a ruffled shirt when they think of a ‘composer’. Are we as music educators doing enough to counteract this image? If not, what resources can help us to do so? Often, elementary listening resources are exclusively devoted to male composers or include only one or two token women composers. Our elementary learners (future musicians and arts supporters) are left to assume that there are few if any women composers in our collective canon. Many of us grew up believing this myth as well, but the good news is- it is untrue! There are many, many outstanding women composers, past and present, that we can and sh