Are Men Dominating the Classical Music Scene?

Coming off of a year of the social media hashtag, #Oscarssowhite where white males have dominated the cultural scene, The San Francisco Chronicle studies how this relates to the area of classical music.

In their article, they show that there is a lack of ethnic and gender diversity among performers and composers of symphonies and opera companies throughout our country.

For example, the San Francisco Symphony's new season, although diverse with more than 50 different composers, only one of them, Kaija Saariaho, is a woman. The rest are white men.

Other major orchestras, such as in St. Louis, Houston and Dallas also have all-male seasons coming up. And the New York Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestra only showcase one woman in their season.

However, the Los Angeles Philharmonic will include a season of women with works by Annie Gosfield, Chen Yi and Grazyna Bacewicz, and music by the late African American composer Julius Eastman.

Read more here.