Music Diversity Policy

Adopted in 2024

  1. QUMS commits to increasing its repertoire and performance of music by diverse composers. Here, “diverse composers” is taken to mean composers or arrangers who are not white cisgender European (including European American and European Australian) males (i.e., composers who are female, gender-diverse, or BIPOC persons).
  2. To achieve the aims of clause 1, QUMS targets performing in its two major Semester performances: 
    1. a minimum of 40% diverse composers based on minutes performed, in a year where QUMS does not perform a large work/s. 
    2. a minimum of 20% diverse composers based on minutes performed, in a year where QUMS performs large work/s.
  3. Each year, QUMS must compile the data of the music performed in its two major Semester performances; 
    1. make those statistics publicly available on the QUMS website by the date of the Annual General Meeting (AGM), showing the percentages of diverse composers performed per year based on minutes performed (from 2019 to present); and 
    2. report this data to the general membership at the AGM, during the President’s Report, or elsewhere as the Executive Committee sees fit.
  4. The data described in clause 3 may also be distributed on relevant social media accounts as QUMS sees fit.
  5. Other data about the music performed (such as the composer’s names and the number of works performed) may also be included in AGM or public reports as QUMS sees fit.
  6. This policy and targets must be reviewed by the general membership at each AGM, and amendments to increase or strengthen targets may be proposed as the members see fit.

Rationale

In the Meanjin/Brisbane choral scene and more broadly the classical music scene, there is an overwhelming prevalence of music from the Western canon. This music is almost exclusively composed by long-deceased white European men and a few deceased white American composers (e.g. Barber, Copland). There is a strong presence of Australian composers in musical programming in this country; however, the focus is still on compositions by white men (e.g. Jarman, Twist) and little consideration is given to music composed by diverse composers. For example, Chineke! Foundation found that 98.8% of repertoire for ABRSM exams across 93 countries were by white composers, and only 10.39% of pieces were composed by women[1]. Our definition of diversity is thus very broad, and does include female composers, with the intention of excluding only the most over-represented demographic. This definition could be viewed as a ‘bare minimum’. It is our hope that in future, when there is improved gender equality in the broader choral sphere, our definition of diversity may be updated to be more selective.

Talented composers and their exciting works are often overlooked in favour of overperformed white male composers such as Mozart and Beethoven. This policy by no means seeks to eliminate those types of works from the QUMS repertoire, but rather to expand our repertoire to also include composers from groups underrepresented in classic music and choral performances, as above. 

QUMS Performance History

The above graph depicts the percentage of performance time spent singing works by diverse composers at the QUMS end of semester concerts. Some semesters record 0 minutes spent singing diverse compositions; these semesters are typically those in which we performed one or two large choral works that fall within the Western canon - for instance, Orff’s Carmina Burana in semester 2, 2021, or semester 2 2022 where we performed the Faure Requiem and the Vaughan Williams Donna Nobis Pacem. As previously stated, we are not seeking to eliminate these rightfully lauded composers from our repertoire, only to celebrate the underrepresented but equally talented composers alongside them. Hence, the above policy 2b allows for a total percentage of 20% in a year with large works performed, to ensure diverse composers are represented fairly - so, for example, the year 2022 would have been compliant with this Music Diversity Policy, but the year 2021 would not.

Acknowledgement of Limitations

QUMS acknowledges that by nature, “diversity” is a concept that is difficult to define and measure. Placing composers into boxes “diverse” and “not diverse” is a crude way to represent the human experience, that will necessarily be flawed. Even using our simplistic definition, it is not possible to neatly allocate every person into one of these boxes. For instance, Russian composer Tchaikovsky is clearly a member of the overperformed Western canon; however, there is evidence that he was a gay man living in times of great oppression. Classifying him as “not diverse’” may be disingenuous. Another composer may be publicly known to be cisgender while privately belonging to the gender diverse spectrum, in which case, QUMS would misclassify them.

Despite these clear limitations in our framework, we feel that this Music Diversity Policy remains a useful tool for creating genuine social change within our capacity to do so. It is not possible to create a perfect definition of “diverse”, nor to classify people with absolute accuracy by that definition even if we did have one. Therefore we can only commit to being respectful and thoughtful as we use our (necessarily imperfect) policy to strive for better and fairer representation for us all.

[1] Full table of composer representation for ABRSM exams on page 5 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c1ccfe22487fdb965b0544d/t/5f11cbf505e46f03df5ef1fd/1595001847122/The+ABRSM+Syllabus+interim+report+July+2020.pdf