Roughly 25 years ago, a gifted young conductor from Philadelphia had to pick up stakes and settle in Europe because he had two strikes against him: he was American and he was black.
So when maestro James DePreist steps onto the Orchestra Hall podium Thursday evening, opening this week`s Chicago Symphony subscription concerts, he will be marking a personal milestone, as well as a public one.
”When I took up conducting in the early `60s, there simply were no serious opportunities in the United States for conductors such as myself,”
says DePreist, music director of the up-and-coming Oregon Symphony and a busy guest conductor around the world-as well as a pioneer in breaking barriers for black classical musicians.
”Oh, sure, there were plenty of opportunities to conduct pops concerts and other light fare, but I refused to do it, even if it meant getting virtually no work in the U.S.
”You have to remember, this was before American orchestras had really begun to acknowledge American conductors of any race. It was before Jimmy Levine had become a star, before Michael Tilson Thomas became famous, before Lenny Slatkin had taken over in St. Louis.”
And while Levine, Tilson Thomas, Slatkin and the like were prying open doors long shut to American conductors (doors that first had been wedged ajar by Leonard Bernstein and Lorin Maazel), DePreist was retracing the steps of black Americans who had sought recognition in Europe`s more racially tolerant environment.
In recent years, however, the tables have begun to turn. DePreist, who built on his European successes in the `60s by becoming associate conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra in 1971 and music director of the Quebec Symphony in 1976, now is one of several black maestros who have begun to prosper back home in the U.S. Though the black conductors acknowledge there still is much work to be done, they agree the situation has never been as promising.
”There certainly is a higher percentage of black conductors in front of American orchestras than black players in those orchestras,” says Paul Freeman, founder-music director of the Chicago Sinfonietta and a prolific recording artist.
”In fact, there are plenty of black conductors working quite busily today-Isaiah Jackson (conductor of the Dayton, Ohio, Symphony), Raymond Harvey (Springfield, Mass., Symphony), and so on,” says Freeman, pointing to a list that includes Leslie Dunner, assistant conductor of the Detroit Symphony; Denis de Coteau, music director of the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra; Willie Anthony Waters, artistic director of Greater Miami Opera; and Tania Leon, founder of Dance Theatre of Harlem Orchestra.
”As for the older guys like DePreist and myself (DePreist is 53, Freeman 54), we were lucky. We came along just at the moment when the barriers were just starting to crumble, when the civil rights movement was beginning to make people aware of the need for equal opportunities.
”Talent and determination weren`t always enough, if you were the wrong color-just look at what happened to Dean Dixon (who died in 1976 at age 61).” The first black to guest-conduct the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Dixon suffered discrimination through most of his career. And though he was able to overcome mistreatment to enjoy a high international profile, the experience ”made him a sad, bitter man,” says Freeman, who knew Dixon for years.
”He always used to tell the story about the time he was interviewed by a major agent in Sweden,” recalls Freeman. ”The agent told Dixon: `I would be eager to represent you-but only on the condition that you wear white gloves during all performances.`
”That comment was devastating to Dixon, and he never forgot it.”
Freeman, too, felt the sting of such remarks, even as a child.
”When anyone used to ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always would say: `a musician,”` says Freeman, who has long divided his career among ensembles in the United States, Canada and Europe.
”And they would always say: `Ah yes, like Louis Armstrong.`
”Now, at that point in my life, I didn`t know how important Louis Armstrong and jazz music were. But I did know that I had no desire to be the next Louis Armstrong or anything like it.
”At the time, I couldn`t understand why nobody said to me: `Ah yes, like Arturo Toscanini.` The implied message was that my role was to be Armstrong, not Toscanini, and that hurt.”
Yet such implicit prejudice did not stop conducting aspirants such as Freeman and DePreist from pursuing their dreams.
In DePreist`s case, the challenge was particularly formidable, for just as he had decided to devote his energies to conducting-during a 1962 Asian tour arranged by the State Department-he contracted polio. Laid up in a U. S. hospital for months, DePreist knew that he would face a triple bias against race, nationality and the handicapped.
Nevertheless, ”I am not grandstanding when I say that contracting polio- painful though it was-actually intensified my desire to become a conductor,” says DePreist, who conducts from a sitting position.
”I had made the decision to pursue conducting just weeks before contracting polio. And just before the Asian tour ended, I had gone into a bookstore and bought every single pocket score they had, which filled up an entire suitcase.
”So most of the time I spent recovering from polio, I spent studying scores. I was never more focused in my life, and the personal discovery that I wanted to become a conductor was much more significant than the temporary disruption of polio.”
Perhaps DePreist drew courage from having been close to his aunt, the preeminent champion of black rights in the arts-Marian Anderson.
”The first scores I ever read were given to me by Aunt Marian,” says DePreist of the contralto, who was the first black to join the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
”I attended all her performances in Philadelphia, and she always made a profound impression on me.
”It wasn`t until I was an adult, however, that I realized her greatest influence on me was in the nature of her artistry and her humanity. She started the process of breaking down the walls.”
Without the likes of Anderson, tenor Roland Hayes, bass Paul Robeson, soprano Leontyne Price, bass-baritone William Warfield and many others, today`s new wave of black conductors might not exist. Yet some barriers still stand.
”I find that, occasionally, orchestras are still reluctant to hire a black conductor as music director, especially in smaller, less sophisticated towns,” says Michael Morgan, the Chicago Symphony`s assistant conductor.
”It`s one thing to hire a black musician as guest conductor-it`s another to hire a black or woman or other minority member as the No. 1 figure in charge of the organization. With arts funding as precarious as it is these days, many groups seem afraid of putting a minority member in charge.
”They`re eager to get black players into the orchestra, and they`re truly doing everything they can to achieve it. But black music directors-that`s another question.”
Few of America`s major orchestras, in fact, are led by Americans. The exceptions include Slatkin in St. Louis; Andre Previn, who recently announced his resignation from the Los Angeles Philharmonic (the post will be taken over by Finland`s Esa-Pekka Salonen); Maazel, music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra; and the indefatigable Bernstein, conductor emeritus of the New York Philharmonic.
But the question persists-do we even need to consider the question of a conductor`s race? Isn`t musical ability enough?
On this issue, black conductors are divided.
”My Aunt Marian spent her life trying to prove that race was irrelevant to music-and that`s how we should approach the business today,” says DePreist.
”Of course, no one should be excluded because of race. But you can do a real disservice by `ghetto-izing` music, by insisting there be so many black conductors, so many black players, so many pieces by black composers and so on.”
But Freeman, who has devoted much of his career to opening up classical music to minorities, fiercely disagrees.
”Some people criticized me when we released the `Black Composers Series` (a landmark set of Columbia recordings featuring music by black composers, now available on the College Music Society label),” says Freeman, whose Chicago Sinfonietta similarly was fashioned to open doors for minority players.
”Some people said: `Why do we have to ghetto-ize music?`
”The reason is that some issues must be ghetto-ized to get noticed, before they become part of the mainstream.
”When I recorded the `Black Composers Series` in the `60s, most people hadn`t even heard of the music on the set. Today, many of those pieces have become part of the standard repertoire.
”That`s how it is with conductors, too. First you have to correct the problem-only then can you forget about it.”
