The new face in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s bass section belongs to Richard Edwards, 25, an African-American from Topeka, Kan. If you’ve noticed him, then the orchestra’s Diversity Fellowship Program has achieved its first goal. Putting musicians of color onstage, says fellowship program manager Cayenne Harris, may help the orchestra build a more diverse audience.
If Edwards now goes on to win a job with a major American orchestra, the program will achieve its second goal: training a minority musician to play symphonic music at the highest level. Edwards completes his fellowship by playing at Ravinia this summer. This fall, he will be succeeded by the program’s second fellow, Brian Fountain, 23, also an African-American bass player.
“Worrying about diversity is the smart thing to do in terms of broadening our audience, and it’s the right thing to do in terms of social justice,” says Charles A. Lewis, a life trustee of the orchestra. “My interest has always been in how to make the symphony more a part of Chicago. The very fact that for the first 111 years of its existence the orchestra did not have an African-American member — de facto, there’s a problem.”
Lewis, a retired investment banker, chairs the orchestra’s Diversity Committee, which includes trustees, musicians, administrators and representatives of the musicians union. He also funds the fellowship through the Lewis-Sebring Family Foundation, which he oversees with his wife, Penny Sebring.
Bass player and Diversity Committee member Steve Lester says the group makes all policy decisions about the fellowship to ensure the fairness of a program that uses private, targeted funds to select and support a non-member playing frequently with the orchestra.
Edwards became the first Diversity Fellow in 2003. Initially, he had to pass one of the “sub auditions” held periodically by sections of the orchestra to select qualified musicians for their substitute lists. Edwards then played for music director Daniel Barenboim.
“Richard Edwards passed the CSO’s substitute audition and, subsequently, worked privately with me as part of his audition,” Barenboim said in an e-mail. “Although young, he showed great promise. We have been delighted with his musical contributions to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.”
Edwards was chosen because of his minority status, age and suitability as an ambassador for the program, says Harris.
“There is a political aspect to the word `diversity,’ obviously,” she says. “Being chosen as a fellow comes with some responsibility. Fellows have the opportunity to share their experiences — good, bad, and ugly — with a lot of people.”
An extension
After Edwards finished his one-year fellowship, he and the orchestra agreed to extend it for an additional year. He received a $36,000 annual stipend and benefits, including health insurance and travel expenses for auditions with other orchestras. He played with the CSO for 18 of the 45-week season the first year and 25 weeks the second year. He also played in the Civic Orchestra of Chicago (the CSO’s training ensemble), lived in the Loop and took private lessons from members of the bass section.
“I noticed Richard’s progress right away,” says Joseph Guastafeste, the orchestra’s principal bassist and Edwards’ first teacher in the program. “At his level, he picks things up fast.”
Edwards moved around the section, sitting with different players during rehearsals and concerts. “I learned there are a lot of different ways to play the bass well,” says Edwards.
Like Guastafeste, he took up the unwieldy instrument at the age of 15. “It was the old story,” he says. “My school orchestra needed a bass, and I was tall.”
During kindergarten he began to sing in the Sunshine Band, a children’s choir at St. Kimball Church in Topeka, Kan. “I think being in church and singing in the choir when you’re small, clapping your hands and moving, helps your rhythm a lot,” he says.
He credits a high school music teacher, Carolyn Young, for engaging him in classical music, and St. Louis Symphony Orchestra pricipal bassist Eric Harris for encouraging him to become a professional musician. When Edwards was in 10th grade, he was part of a group that Young prepared to play for members of the St. Louis Symphony. After the performance, the high school group received coaching from the professionals and, in the evening, attended one of their concerts.
“For me,” says Edwards, “the biggest part of the experience was the concert.” It was the first time he had heard a live concert by a professional orchestra, and he was transfixed by the sound of the bass section playing Wagner’s “Tannheuser” Overture and Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique.” Edwards practiced hard and was eventually admitted to the Peabody Institute, a Baltimore music conservatory.
Brian Fountain, the new Lewis-Sebring fellow, has more than instrument and race in common with Edwards. For three years, they read music from the same stand in the orchestra of the Peabody Institute.
“I think the reason you don’t see a lot of us onstage,” says Edwards, “is that classical music is not a popular form of music in the African-American lifestyle. If you look at the schools where most of us go, there aren’t music programs, there aren’t instruments. Parents don’t have money for lessons.”
Edwards was raised by his mother and grandmother in Topeka. Fountain grew up in a biracial home in Saginaw, Mich.
Answering the critics
Objections to the fellowship program have been expressed by some people, says Harris. “When Richard encounters the occasional musician or member of the public who says, `You’re here just because of the color of your skin,’ he can say, `Actually, I took a blind audition, and I qualified that way.’ He’s armed with that.”
Auditions for the CSO are both open and blind, she says. At an open audition, the committee hears anyone who wants to try out. When the audition is blind, each applicant plays behind a screen, speaks only through a proctor, is known only by a number, and walks to the audition chair across a carpet that disguises the clicks of high heels and the uneven rhythm of a limp.
“The proctor told us only a small number of minorities were trying out,” says Lester. “The orchestra is more diverse than it looks, but not with respect to African-Americans. We have tremendous faith in the music we make, and we want as many people as possible to have access to it. If any barriers exist, either because of a misperception or because of some honest barriers we’re not aware of, we want to work to change that.”
Tage Larsen, 34, an African-American, joined the trumpet section in 2002 as a full member of the orchestra without any special consideration. He enthusiastically supports the fellowship program because it enlarges the pool of minority musicians, and he contrasts it with an experience he had with the New York Philharmonic.
“When I tried out for the New York Phil, the audition committee offered to advance me to the finals just because I was a minority,” he says. “I didn’t want to participate in that. I wanted to make it on my own merit.”
In praise of blind auditions
The CSO’s fellowship is one of only two in the United States. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra established the first, strictly for young African-Americans. It does not require its applicants to pass a blind audition. The CSO’s blind auditions are central to its personnel policy.
“We have a fair audition process,” says Lewis, “but not everyone knows it. You can see it in the number of women, Jews, and Asians who have joined the orchestra in the last 30 to 40 years, when blind auditions began. We’re the CSO. Wouldn’t it be appropriate for us to reflect the demographics of the city whose name we bear?”
Harris wonders whether faces of color onstage will affect the audience. “I think there can be an initial draw,” she says, “as there was when Tai Murray, an African-American [violin] soloist from Chicago, played at a subscription concert last season. But if we want to create more diverse audiences here, we need to make the impact of that experience so great that people will come back because of the music.”
Edwards also maintains his focus on music, despite occasional controversies about his position and misperceptions about how he obtained it. Before winning the fellowship, he worked the 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift at a Wal-Mart. One of his favorite perks as a fellow has been spending those late hours practicing in Orchestra Hall. He lets himself into the building, greets the security guards, removes his bass from a locker and carries it to the center of the dimly lit stage. From 11 p.m. to 2 a.m., he refines a sound that can soar to the upper balcony or whisper through the mezzanine.
“What it comes down to,” says Edwards, “is either you can play it, or you can’t.”
