“Choral music is all about relationships,” someone recently told me. He was right; singing is something that we rarely do in isolation. We often make music within a community of singers and musicians. Likewise, the art we create never exists in in a vacuum; it is always made within the context of history, culture, and social truths.
In Canada, the world in which choirs find themselves making music is vastly different than it was fifty years ago. The information revolution and the rise of the digital age have made it easier to seek out new music and discover new repertoire than ever before. At the same time, cultural influences previously not a part of the country’s mainstream are creeping into the fabric of our artistic vocabulary. In Canada, the face of our country is changing; in my home of metro Vancouver, people of European descent, after being an overwhelming majority in the region until the 1980s, are predicted to become a distinct visible minority in less than twenty years, with Chinese, South Asians (such as Indians and Pakistanis), Filipinos, Koreans, and West Asians (such as a Iranians) set to become a greater part of the region’s population.[1]
It is both an exciting and scary time to be a choral singer. The variety of creative material available to choirs is unprecedented. At the same time there are concerns about shrinking and aging audiences for classical and choral music,[2] and arts groups are actively seeking out ways to connect with new people and emerging audiences. This often means trying to engage young people absent from traditional choral circles, or reaching out to the increasing number of people of non-western heritage who make Canada their home. Some choral groups are trying to do this by seeking new repertoire and programming from cultures and influences outside of the traditional choral canon, which is often Euro-centric and drawn from Judeo-Christian religious traditions.
Working with non-western or indigenous music, however, can be a real challenge for Canadian choral directors. Most have dedicated years of their lives and huge amounts of education to studying and thinking about choral music, yet the overwhelming focus in schools of music is on the music of Europe, oftentimes resulting in gaps in even basic knowledge of the music of Asian, African, South American, or Indigenous traditions. This issue is compounded by the fact that overwhelmingly, people in positions of influence and power in Canada’s choral world (including, but not limited to conductors,[3] board members,[4] and major donors) come from predominantly white backgrounds and therefore don’t really reflect the cultural and ethnic diversity of the country. This demographic makeup is also echoed within singer membership.[5] This is not a criticism of the people who have dedicated countless hours and given so much of themselves to the people and art that they love. It is however a statement of fact that affects both the artistic decisions and diversity of musical knowledge within Canadian choirs.
At the same time that vocal groups seek to diversify the music that they share and perform, discussions about cultural appropriation are more and more common in the cultural mainstream.[6] Prominent pop artists are even exploring the topic lyrically in the music they create.[7] For those new to the concept, cultural appropriation happens when people from a more powerful culture adopt the art, symbols, or elements of a less powerful culture without understanding or respecting the context or history of that material. One negative result of this can be that elements of an appropriated culture are (intentionally or unintentionally) distorted and/or used as a gimmick or a costume when normally they would be treated with some respect or reverence. As opposed to cultural exchange, where there is a sense of reciprocity or mutual respect, cultural appropriation reproduces or exacerbates an exploitative power dynamic that already exists between groups of people in society. Since this is a topic of great depth and nuance, three sentences don’t really do it justice. If it is a topic that is new to you, some great resources for understanding what it is, what it isn’t and why people care about it are “The Difference Between Cultural Exchange and Cultural Appropriation”[8] and “Defining and Identifying Cultural Appropriation.”[9]
One would think that discussions about cultural appropriation would be an engaging and relevant one for choral groups. After all, working with music from different cultures is a central part of the choral music experience; a deficit of knowledge about some of the new music being explored exists; and study after study shows that inequity connected to ethnicity and race continues to be a pressing issue both in Canada and around the world.[10] However, more often than not, this topic is talked about in hushed tones (yes, choir pun intended) if it is even discussed at all.
But cultural appropriation can be an uncomfortable subject, especially for people who traditionally have benefited from cultural or racial power and privilege. They may feel that the topic places their artistic choices under scrutiny, even when they are driven more by a love of music and a desire to explore new things than anything else. Some may feel singled out on this topic because of a legacy of advantage over which they have no control. Others question whether this is worth discussing in the first place, as they don’t recognize that different power dynamics exist between cultures, despite consistent evidence to the contrary.[11] Because of these factors, there is a kind of tacit understanding among established choirs that if you bring this subject up, you do so at your own risk.
Most people in our choral communities have big hearts and good intentions; this is true even when cultural appropriation issues arise. Likewise, when their friends or fellow singers voice concerns about appropriative actions or choices, it usually isn’t about criticizing a specific person or group, but asking people to recognize “…a centuries’ old pattern of taking, stealing, exploiting, and misunderstanding the history and symbols that are meaningful to people of marginalized cultures”[12] that may be invisible to them (privilege is hard to see for those who have it) and then to try charting a better way forward.
But by not talking about this, we’ve lost opportunities to deepen our understanding of the music we sing, and we hold ourselves back from the benefits of deep cultural exchanges that broaden our communities and strengthen our relationships. We’ve also perpetuated misunderstandings about something in our practice that affects our choral communities whether we talk about it or not.
For me, there is no question that this is a subject worth talking about. I’ve been a singer, teacher/conductor, and organizer involved in BC choral music for almost two decades. Throughout that time, I’ve had friends quietly leave arts organizations over this issue. I’ve had private conversations with fellow singers of colour who wanted to discuss this topic as it emerged from the music they were exploring, but who hesitated to speak for fear of being misunderstood because of their status as one of only a few ethnic minorities in their group. I’ve struggled with this issue in my own choral leadership; as a second generation Chinese Canadian I’ve programmed arrangements of traditional Coast-Salish songs for my choirs, not realizing at the time that in local Indigenous traditions, such songs belong to the person or tribe that inherits them, and therefore must be gifted to someone in order to be shared.
Exploring the music of different cultures is a valuable part of what choirs do, and it should continue to be so. Not all cultural music demands the same kind of care to address appropriation issues (e.g. a folk song has different demands of decorum than a religious piece), and many choral groups do their due diligence when attempting to perform music from a legacy with which they are not familiar. Because we live in a multicultural world rich in the fruits of cultural cross-pollination, seeking out greater diversity in repertoire is something that choirs in Canada should actively pursue. I want people to push the boundaries of their artistic comfort levels; safe art is often not great art. However, the challenge of modern multiculturalism is to consider how to do this in ways that are responsible and honor the sources.
Fortunately, there are things choral groups can do that not only help to address these issues, but also foster new relationships and make their music better.
- Make sure that you know the history and context of the music that you sing and the elements that you mix into it. For many musicians, this may seem obvious (just good artistic practice), but this can get lost in the excitement of actually singing or working with new music in rehearsal. People often venture into issues of appropriation though a mixture of unseen privilege and neglecting to have a meaningful relationship with the music beyond its surface esthetics. Paying special attention to this as part of the artistic process will not only help to identify possible appropriation issues early on and fill in gaps in knowledge, but also enable you to perform the piece at a higher musical level.
- If you are uncertain about the performance practice for a piece, or question if it is appropriate for you to perform, ask the community from which it comes for their opinion. This is not only an opportunity to deepen your understanding of the music you want to perform, but also a chance to have a dialogue with members of that community in a way that honors the wealth of knowledge that they have on the topic, and that approaches their culture from a place of respect. For those cultural groups that are consistently disrespected or marginalized in things like the traditional media or mainstream art and film, having a organization from outside of their ethnic circles seek out their opinion in a way that values and respects their heritage could be something that they seldom experience, and therefore can be very powerful. At its core, addressing cultural appropriation is not about cultural “sensitivity”; it is about cultural respect. This kind of authentic conversation can also engage people with your music who wouldn’t normally be a part of your audience in a way that hearing a single piece from their childhood never could.
- Don’t use culture as a gimmick. Recognize that you don’t have the same right to someone else’s culture that you do to your own. When you borrow a piece of someone else’s identity, you have the luxury of interacting only with parts of it that suit your needs for only as long as it benefits you. For the people whose culture you are borrowing, they do not have this option and must live with both the positive and negative aspects associated with their ethnicity, which may include things like systemic discrimination and racialized oppression. If you are exploring cultural music that isn’t yours, remember that the draw should be that you are doing that music well, not just that you are doing that music.
- Recognize and acknowledge your relative privilege and realize that your group may have a greater responsibility to show respect when borrowing elements of a less powerful culture than they have when exploring yours. Power is relative, and with greater power comes greater responsibility (Spiderman sang in a barbershop quartet, right?). Likewise, if you are an arts organization with a lot of prestige, influence and resources, you have a greater responsibility for diligence than if you are a smaller community choir with fewer resources and less power. Recognizing this will make it easier to build bridges between cultural communities if exploring non-western music is something that you want to continue to pursue in the long term.
- Make a point to support the cultural communities from which you borrow when they need support. Wouldn’t it be amazing if every church or choir in the US that sang African-American spirituals or gospel music made a point of offering support to the black community and/or engaging in meaningful dialogue about the state of racial inequity in their country?
- Commit to performing the music well (or as well as you can). This is one of the best ways to honor the culture from which you are borrowing. Invest the time and intention to give it the respect it deserves.
There is no magic bullet to guarantee that appropriation issues won’t arise when you experiment with new cultural repertoire. Cultural communities are diverse in their opinions and what is or isn’t cultural appropriation is not cut and dry. You may do your best to address these topics in the music that you sing and people may still both raise concerns about your choices and praise your efforts. Other choirs may totally ignore this as an issue when they perform cultural music and also hear the same. You are never going to please everyone. At the end of the day, the most compelling reason to reflect on cultural appropriation in your practice is not fear of criticism, but to know that you have pursued musical excellence in ways that build meaningful relationships and stewards respect among cultural communities.
After all, choral music is all about relationships.
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Ryan Cho is a high school music and special education teacher on the unceded Coast-Salish territories, also called metro Vancouver. He has a music degree from the University of Victoria and is a baritone singer with the Chor Leoni Men’s Choir. He would also love to hear your thoughts / opinions on this topic. Reach him at ryanacho@gmail.com
This piece has been picked up for publication as a part of both the May 2015 (Vol. 55 Issue 10) edition of the American Choral Directors Association Journal, as well as the Winter 2015 (Vol. 33 Issue #2) edition of Anacrusis, the official journal of the Association of Canadian Choral Communities. Thank you to all of the amazing people who gave me feedback, offered to help with editing, and were generally just very supportive of the piece and the conversations I hope that it inspires. Many thanks to Erick Lichte, Connie Foss More, Jose Rivera, Scott Dorsey, and Amanda Bumgarner, as well as the numerous people who have approached me since the piece was published to share their own stories about this topic.
ENDNOTES
[1]Douglas Todd, “Whites to become Minority in Metro Vancouver by 2013,” Global News BC, (2013, April 1). Retrieved from http://globalnews.ca/news/443517/whites-to-become-minority-in-metro-vancouver-by-2031/.
[2] Mark Vanhoenacker, “Requiem: Classical Music in America is Dead,” Slate Magazine, (2014, January 21). Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2014/01/classical_music_sales_decline_is_classical_on_death_s_door.html.
[3] Podium 2014 conductor and presenter biographies. Retrieved from http://www.podium2014.ca/conductorspresenters/.
[4] Bob Romsay, “Where Multiculturalism Fears to Tread,” The Toronto Star Newspaper, (2013, June 23). Retrieved from http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2013/06/23/where_multiculturalism_fears_to_tread.html.
[5] Rachel Rensink-Hoff, “Singing or Life: Leisure & Learning in the Adult Community Choir,” Anacrusis, (2011, October). Retrieved from http://www.choralcanada.org/Sample_Citation_Format.pdf.
[6] Jessica Goldstein, “Katy Perry should Talk to Questlove about Cultural Appropriation,” Thingprogress.org, (2014, July 30). Retrieved from http://thinkprogress.org/culture/2014/07/30/3465849/katy-perry-questlove-cultural-appropriation/ .
[7] “White Privilege by Macklemore.” Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INNCxVpGpyU
[8] Jarune Uwujaren, “The Difference between Cultural Exchange and Cultural Appropriation,” Everyday Feminism Magazine, (2013, September 30). Retrieved from http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/09/cultural-exchange-and-cultural-appropriation/
[9] Clara Light, “Defining and Identifying Cultural Appropriation,” (2009, January 15). Retrieved from http://clairelight.typepad.com/seelight/2009/01/defining-cultural-appropriation.html.
[10] Grace Edward Galabuzi, “The Persistence of Racial Inequity in Canada,” The Toronto Star Newspaper, (2012, March 20). Retrieved from http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/2012/03/20/the_persistence_of_racial_inequality_in_canada.html.
[11]Peter Li, “Cultural Diversity in Canada: The Social Construction of Racial Differences,” Department of Justice Strategic Issues Series rp02-8e, (2000). Retrieved from http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/csj-sjc/jsp-sjp/rp02_8-dr02_8/rp02_8.pdf
[12]Jarune Uwujaren, “The Difference between Cultural Exchange and Cultural Appropriation.”
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