During the decade just past, we have gotten used to seeing the world divided into two parts-the developed and the underdeveloped. To bring this closer, the ghetto and suburbia have become America’s two worlds. Each can be characterized as developed and underdeveloped.
“The central issue of our time remains the fact that the rich are getting richer and the poor-poorer,” says Ivan Illich.
In the United States, for all its gargantuan prosperity, real poverty levels rise faster than the median income. In the capital-starved countries, median incomes move rapidly away from rising averages. Most goods now produced for rich and poor alike in the United States are beyond the reach of all but a few in other areas. This is not a message of doom, but a desperate plea for a change of direction. I am convinced that Music can do it.
During the decade now beginning, we must learn a new language, a language that speaks not of development and underdevelopment, but of true and false ideas about man, his deeds, and his potential. There must be a growing awareness of the cultural contributions of all men; a utilization of the history of blacks, chicanos and other minorities; an inclusion of compositions by indigenous native composers in all programs; an insistence that centers like the Black Music and Latin-American Centers at Indiana University, Bloomington, be readily accessible in more strategic locations in the United States; that conductors read seriously John Hope Franklin, Cesar Chavez’s story; The L. A. Times’ story on the life of reporter, Ruben Salazar; Black Music in Our Culture, a complication of discussions at the June 1969 Black Music Seminar, Indiana University, by Dr. T. J. Anderson (artist in residence, Atlanta Symphony), Oily Wilson (University of California, Berkeley), Hale Smith, Dave Baker, Dr. William Grant Still – all well-known black composers currently listed in the Schwann Catalogue; Black Americans and Their Music, a magnificent 300-year history of music making by blacks, written by the eminently qualified black musicologist. Dr. Aileen Suthern, Queens College, New York: Blues People and Black Music bv Leroi Jones, must be included to get a complete picture. Read the article about America’s great black choral conductor, Hall Johnson, appearing in the January 1971 ACDA Journal.
Carla Strandberg says