Why is it important to you to be doing this kind of work? And why should it be you doing this work, and not someone else?

OLIVIA J.P. HARRIS: [Something] that was really important for us is being people of color doing this work. It’s a little bit of a “trend” right now to make “woke classical” music—if that’s even a thing. But we noticed that there’s a lot of ensembles out there… who are hopping on with these causes, and on one hand that’s cool; on the other hand, they might be all cis men, or they might be all white or something. And sometimes those ensembles engage in something that’s really performative or tokenizing. They might say “oh—it’s March, so all our concerts this month are just going to be women composers.” Or February now—I can’t wait for the inevitable trot-out of black composers. Everyone’s going to play a Florence Price piece and then put it in the drawer until next year.

And so, we do still react very strongly to that and to the performative aspects of that, whether it’s just for the pat on the back or it’s for grant money or street cred, whatever it is, there’s a number of ensembles and organizations doing it. And there’s a number of them who are trying to do genuine good work, but still don’t have any people of color on board. And so, it’s really important for us to be out there both as the face of the ensemble and the behind-the-scenes work all being POC-led.

BRIN SOLOMON: I think there are a lot of cis people out there who are very well-meaning and they want to help trans people somehow by making operas about us, or other kinds of arts… That’s a laudable sentiment and like, thanks, but it often comes from this savior mentality of “ah, trans people, they’re so downtrodden! Someone needs to tell their story, so I will come in and do it for them.” And no: we have really talented trans librettists, we have some pretty kick-ass trans composers. Trans people have been out here making art for as long as we’ve been around, and that’s a long-ass time. And so, the idea that we need cis people to come in and tell our stories for us? Questionable.

CHEN: In terms of identity-based music, I believe that there needs to be a direct human connection. We talk a lot about cultural appropriation in music, but also cause appropriation… If you don’t have that personal connection, it’s not your cause to claim.

INTI FIGGIS-VIZUETA: I say “QPOC contemporary classical music” and white folks show up for it. But my audience isn’t a part of a dialogue of audience-building—it’s all white men. There’s this idea that by engaging with social justice, we can make new music and contemporary classical music relevant to society at large. I don’t want my queer POC siblings to go to a concert of all white dudes and one white woman. That’s not the point. The point is that we show up to our own.

Identity is such a nuanced and not only multi-faceted but infinitely-faceted concept. How do you even begin to tackle that complexity within your music? How do you engage artistically with your identity?

FIGGIS-VIZUETA: All music is about identity. All music from composers is pursuing the development of a voice, and that voice is representative of an intersectional self. Specifically, identity-based music for me means that there needs to be an exploration… programming “women’s” concerts or “Black” concerts, for example, can often feel othering, and fails to holistically integrate marginalized groups into year-round repertoire… and I think that otherness beats itself into the public perception of those composers. That in itself feeds into racism, feeds into classism, and does nothing to empower.

I feel like my initial career success was so defined by initial forays into social-justice programming, that I’m really actually trying to escape it now. I don’t want all my [pieces] to just be consumed as if they’re Testimonies of A Real Live Queer Indian.

JOACHIM: I’m just letting myself create things that feel like the right things for me in this moment.

It’s a big relief to be able to truly be myself in creative spaces. So much of classical training is about the erasure of self. But why is it like that? Why am I here if I’m not a part of it? I’ve become way less interested in being a perfect performer, and more about being as honest as I can be in performance, no matter the context. And I feel like even if some of those performances aren’t perfect, they feel way better. I feel better as a person.

HARRIS: There’s this association that high art is white art.

I think about that a lot—the significance and impact that kind of association has. To speak to personal experience, and to something that I still very much am overcoming, I definitely had this resistance for a number of years in my early 20s of leaning into incorporating improvisation into my work, and part of that was because I was always always always asked, as a black femme, if I was a jazz musician—specifically a jazz singer. It was such a normal thing that I leaned really hard into difficult contemporary music because I was trying to separate myself from that perception. I realize now how weighted that is. My reaction to this racist thing was also laden with white supremacy in trying to negate a part of myself. I’m still doing a lot of work around that.

Engaging in this practice has become more meaningful to me because, through [Mazumal] especially, I have been able to take up space and be fully everything that I want to be, without feeling as though I had to try to negate something that I enjoy doing (improvising) to try to avoid this kind of racist idea of who I was as a performer.