SPECIAL – Juneteenth: “The Black Experience in the Concert Hall”

Classical New York

To celebrate Juneteenth, WQXR hosted a live call-in special – “The Black Experience in the Concert Hall” – with WQXR's Evening Host Terrance McKnight. Terrance spoke with leading figures in the world of classical music, including Wynton Marsalis, virtuoso trumpeter and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center; Martina Arroyo, legendary soprano and founder of the Martina Arroyo Foundation; Jesse Rosen, CEO and President of the League of American Orchestras; and Khalil Gibran Muhammad, professor of History, Race, and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and author of The Condemnation of Blackness. They discussed the ways in which the classical concert hall has historically excluded the black aesthetic, and in doing so, has been devoid of the American ethos that results from the nation’s diversity and the experience of black musicians on classical stages.