There are myriad reasons why people start Substacks. Some start them to find an audience for a niche topic. A friend tells me that one writer on the platform makes a living entirely by writing about dumplings. Others look to Substack for shelter from capricious or imperious editors. And still others—led by such enfants terribles as Bari Weiss, Glenn Greenwald, or Matt Taibbi—find in Substack the opportunity traditional media never gave them to write about what they want, when they want. Substack has allowed them to hand discretion over which stories matter and which don’t to the intelligent reading public, rather than a small group of media elites.
I have some kinship with this latter group. I look to this platform as a place to say things that I know to be true, but that the traditional media (in music or otherwise) won’t publish. But there’s another reason I’ve chosen to post my writing on this platform: anonymity.
I come from the classical music profession. As such, my livelihood depends on publicly holding to (or at least not opposing) a very specific line in the culture wars, particularly as they interact with our art.
To the outside world, today’s classical music industry seems to speak with a single corporate voice. The days in which our profession romanticized singular figures like Beethoven, who once defiantly wrote to a royal benefactor that “There are and will be thousands of princes, but there is only one Beethoven,” are largely over. The days in which one could publicly have principled disagreements about the purpose of concert music and the nature of a meaningful musical career, are also largely over.
Many musicians have lost faith in the musical tradition we have built together over the centuries. We have lost faith in the power of our greatest artworks to speak to the fundamental humanity in all of us. We have lost faith in music as a vehicle for bringing listeners to heightened self-awareness, for healing, and for uniting people across boundaries of time, experience and culture.
In place of those ideals, leaders in our industry have embraced the idea that the value of our art should be judged on the extent to which it advances certain political priorities fashionable in the larger culture, such as “equity” or “antiracism.” The principal preoccupation of today’s classical music industry is to circle the wagons and to make whatever changes we must to prevent the larger culture from rejecting us as too old, too white, too male, or too elite. The leading emotions of this new classical music culture are fear and guilt.
I believe that this culture of guilt not only does our art a disservice, but that it represents an existential threat. There is a lot of truth to the old adage that “he who marries the times will be a widower tomorrow.” But more critically, no institution that believes that its own history (let alone its present) is harmful to the world or “perpetuates systems of oppression,” can endure for long.
I love being a conductor, and I believe that I have something important to contribute to music. But at the same time, I feel the need to speak in order to play what little role I can in solving these huge problems. So, I am starting this Substack to have a place to speak the truth, when doing so under my real name would jeopardize my career.
Which brings us to the question of who I am. I am an American orchestra conductor based on the East Coast with access to many of this country’s top artistic institutions and artists. I will avoid saying more in part to protect my identity. But there is another reason, too.
I am regularly in contact with conductors, composers, orchestra musicians, and orchestra administrators around the country. And I can state unequivocally that I am far from the only person in this industry to hold many of the commonsense opinions I will express here. I may be one of the few willing to express them publicly, even under the cloak of anonymity, but I know that I am speaking here for many musicians who lack a place to speak for themselves. I owe many of the arguments I will make to the great conversations I have had with smart people in the music business. And I could be any of them.
On this Substack, I plan to post once every few weeks. For the first several months, my posts will deal with the myriad ways in which America’s culture wars are perverting the classical music (and particularly orchestral) industry. But I may later veer into more purely musical topics, of interest to musicians and music lovers alike. Since I will maintain an active conducting career while writing these posts, I hope you will consider subscribing or donating to help me continue writing over the months to come.
-DB