“A Man Is Practically the General Norm” – A Case Study of Gender Inequality and Whiteness in the Classical Music Scene in Finland

Improvisational Inqueery Inclusion, Intercorporeality, and the Classical Music Institution

“…This changed as I started to engage with queer and feminist musicological literature. I read essays that eloquently married authors' queer identities with their musical and academic ones (Cusick 2006;Brett 2006); accounts of inequality in classical music performance, composition, and education (Tucker 2008;Ewell 2020;Ramstedt 2022;Devenish et al 2020;Kajikawa 2019); critical analysis of inclusion and diversity efforts in both jazz and classical music institutions (McMullen 2021;Kajikawa 2019Kajikawa , 2021Ramstedt 2022;Devenish et al 2020); and how an anti-racist approach can be applied to counter the spread of white supremacy (Lipsitz 2019;Ewell 2020;Hess 2021). Through all this I was starting to see how my passion for racial and gender justice that manifest so readily outside my musical pursuits could become integrated with and alongside them.…”

“…This is the space of institutionalized whiteness, a system established by and for white people (Ahmed 2006(Ahmed , 2007Ewell 2020;Kajikawa 2019Kajikawa , 2021Ayerst 2021). In the context of classical music this means a canon of works composed by white people and selected for preservation and reverence by educational institutions and societies founded to propagate that canon and the ideals it represents (Kajikawa 2019;Hess 2021;Ramstedt 2022;Goehr 1994;Griffiths 2020); domination of these educational spaces by white students and teachers (Ewell 2020;Ramstedt 2022;Griffiths 2020); textbooks and exemplary works written by and about white people (Ewell 2020;Kajikawa 2019); curriculum and learning outcomes shaped by the ideals of white people (Ayerst 2021;Hess 2021); concert audiences, critics, and orchestras (including their conductors) comprised of majority white people (Devinish et al 2020;Flagg 2020;Ramstedt 2022); and idealized performers and composers exemplified by white people (Ewell 2020;Ramstedt 2022). The institution, dominated by the proximity of white bodies and voices, is shaped in the image of those bodies and voices making the institution a white space, hostile to bodies and voices that do not conform to its shape.…”

“…It is important to be aware of and take into account these differing identities when assessing the extent to which an individual will suffer oppression under an institution. For my thesis I will, primarily, be focused on intersections of race, gender, and sexuality and how they are marginalized under the institutionalized whiteness and cis-heteronormativity of the classical music institution (Ramstedt 2022;Reardon-Smith 2021;Brett et al 2006;Devenish et al 2020;McCarthy 2022;McMullen 2008). However, I take other identity factors into account under a general "queerness" that deviates from institutional norms.…”

“…The classical music institution is an amalgamation of cultural and educational forces concerned with the preservation, propagation, and reverence of a canonized set of works composed by white, cisgender, European men 16 in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the ideals and values that they embody (Kajikawa 2019;Hess 2021;Ramstedt 2022;Goehr 1994). Or, framed through the lens of Ahmed's work, a space shaped by the orientation, proximity, and habitual action of white, cisgender men that allows for congruent bodies to exist in a state of ease while excluding those who do not adhere to the contours of the space.…”

“…I wanted to know why classical musicians I knew seemed to be averse to improvisation, so the beginnings of my research were focused on individuals and their experiences of creativity, musicality, and improvisation. But as I started to read feminist and queer discourses (Ahmed 2006(Ahmed , 2007Brett et al 2006;McClary 1991;McMullen 2008McMullen , 2021Ramstedt 2022;Reardon-Smith 2021;Tucker 1998Tucker , 1999Tucker , 2008Hess 2021;Kajikawa 2019Kajikawa , 2021 my perspective changed, and my focus began to shift toward institutional issues. Rather than looking at the individuals and how they might start to improvise I instead turned to how institutional spaces were shaped by the habitual action of those operating within them and, in turn, how those spaces shape and exclude bodies, ideals, and practices that exist incongruent to them.…”