COMMITMENT
TO
EQUITY
What We're Working On
The International Contemporary Ensemble is a music performance organization undergoing a process of reimagining its policies and practices with racial equity, gender diversity, cultural responsiveness, and belonging for all artists, collaborators, and audience members.The International Contemporary Ensemble is a music performance organization undergoing a process of reimagining its policies and practices through a lens of racial equity, gender diversity, cultural responsiveness, and belonging for all artists, collaborators, and audience members.
Making change requires us to identify what practices in our organization work and which need to be improved.
Since the Ensemble's founding, a core programmatic principle has been a commitment to developing, commissioning, and amplifying the work of artists of many different backgrounds, identities, and life experiences. Today, we continue to strive for a comprehensive and generative approach of building intentional spaces of belonging for everyone involved in the process of music creation. has always worked with composers from many different backgrounds and has been committed to developing, commissioning, and amplifying many diverse voices. We take a comprehensive and generative approach across our whole organization to build spaces of belonging for everyone involved in the process of developing new music.
As part of our ongoing commitment to advancing equity, racial justice, and creative positive workplace environments, we are taking the following actions as a way to create long-standing changes for the future.
(This list is ever-evolving).
LEADERSHIP
Announced George Lewis as new Artistic Director. Announcing new Executive Producer position in June 2022
Shifting culture on leadership in 2021:
We grew the board to include six new board members, Marcos Balter, Du Yun, Oscar Gerardo, Rebekah Heller, Chiwoniso Kaitano, David Byrd-Marrow
Launched a Musician’s Committee from the Ensemble to work with artistic staff leadership
Invited new members to join the Ensemble
Created succession plans and/or new organizational structures for staff leadership to center more diverse voices
Completed a Curation Task Force in June 2021, with 17 artists from diverse backgrounds to address decision-making and new structures around programming, producing, community-building, and adjudication with a focus on equity and justice
Recommendations include hiring new artistic leadership and creating collaborative spaces for artists to explore projects without an expectation to produce a performance
Curation Task Force 2021:
Ross Karre***
Eddy Kwon***
* International Contemporary Ensemble Board Member
** International Contemporary Ensemble Musicians Committee
*** International Contemporary Ensemble Staff Member
COMMUNICATIONS/COLLABORATIONS
Rebranding/Re-Visioning: assessing our name, mission, and overall brand to ensure that all branding fits with our values (Beginning Fall 2021)
Created and shared a values statement from the whole organization (March 2021)
Hone the future artistic vision to include being more of a resource to and collaborator with younger generations of musicians and others in the field through digital platforms and productions (Ongoing)
Participating in New Music Equity Action meetings with over 70 peer organizations and taking shared actions to advance equity in our field
Engaging in continued check-ins with our peers, collaborators, and colleagues about what we can do to become a more equitable organization (Ongoing)
Hosting Town Halls and panel discussions to share processes of advancing equity in different organizations
PROGRAMMING
Continued investment in artistic projects that develop and amplify Black and Afro-Diasporic artists (Ongoing – see Opera Forum from Spring 2021 and upcoming events)
Invited guest curator eddy kwon to program a performance series featuring composer-performers with dynamic and varied connections to diaspora, and whose work creates, expands, and reframes spaces for home, transformation, and transgression
This series is an extension of the themes in Du Yun’s transformational opera Zolle that the Ensemble presented in April 2022
Interrogated our submission-based initiatives such as our open calls and Ensemble Evolution program through open, public forums and info sessions, and made changes to the application processes (January 2021)
OPERATIONS
Creating a culture of belonging and setting expectations for a positive, inclusive workplace culture
Changing Ensemble member nomination, employee job descriptions, hiring practices, employee handbook, benefits, communication strategies, and codes of conduct to increase racial and gender equity in our organization
Identifying fundraising partners whose priorities align with our values
LEARNING
Training in Black liberation, anti-oppression/anti-racism, and restorative justice for staff, musicians, and board, including Brave Conversation training with Tania Clerisme, and re-thinking organizational structures through an anti-racist lens with Dr. Derrell Acon
Launched an anti-racist book club on the staff (reading books and articles monthly)
Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by adrienne maree brown
Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation by adrienne maree brown
Learning from Indigenous Studies about the land we inhabit, and to untangle our thinking from a colonialist, capitalist, eurocentric framework that is embedded in Western classical music
Check out our community resources at https://www.iceorg.org/resources.
We welcome questions at icicle@iceorg.org
Page Last Updated: October 20, 2021