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Creating a Diverse Program

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CREATING A DIVERSE PROGRAM 

 

in partnership with

Institute for Composer Diversity logo

To ensure that all concerts and reading sessions at The Midwest Clinic showcase composers from many different demographic groups and meet Clinic programming requirements, the Institute of Composer Diversity has curated this list of resources to aid conductors in creating a diverse program, both at this year's conference and at their home institutions.

THREADING THE NEEDLE

The programming rules for The Midwest Clinic are robust. These include availability (published/manuscript), age of the work, diversity of publishers, recentness of Midwest performance, diversity of difficulty levels, length of work, and diversity of composer demographic groups. In addition, you have your own thoughts on the variety of style, tempo, dynamics, and a myriad of other compositional aspects that you’ll want to balance throughout the concert.  With so many limitations, programming a concert with ten or so works can feel like you have to “thread a needle”—which is why ICD would like to help you make the process a little easier. 

IT’S A PROCESS

The process by which a program is created can have an enormous impact on the ability to diversify the repertoire in that program. To this end, we recommend reserving a minimum number of slots in your program for composers from historically excluded groups before you begin looking for works.

The current Midwest Clinic programming rules require that each performing ensemble’s program must include the following:

  • Availability: all music must be published and currently available for purchase, with the exception of one, which may be a manuscript.

  • New Music: 50% of your program must be music that was published in the last 18 months (with some variance based on your ensemble area: band, orchestra, jazz, or chamber music).

  • Variety: 2 publishers may appear twice on your program; the rest may only appear once (with some variances for chamber and percussion ensembles).

  • Frequency: music performed at The Midwest Clinic in the prior 3 years is not eligible 2025 INELIGIBLE PIECES

  • Balance: your program must have a grade 1, 2, or 3 piece for every grade 4, 5,  or 6 piece performed.

  • Length: the majority of your program should comprise works under 10 minutes.

  • Diversity: your program must include at least two compositions from historically excluded groups (including but not limited to women, Indigenous/Native, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latinx, Asian American, and/or Pacific Islander). 

For the full programming requirements for performing groups, please visit the  PROGRAMMING RULES in the Performer Handbook.

GOING BEYOND THE REQUIREMENTS: 3-2-1

Most concerts at The Midwest Clinic have had ten works. We suggest reserving at least three of those works for composers from historically excluded groups. In addition, at least two of those reserved works should be composed by women or non-binary composers. Finally, at least one of those works by women or non-binary composers should be by an Indigenous/Native, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latinx, Asian American, and/or Pacific Islander woman or non-binary composer. Our programming analysis over the last few years has shown that women and non-binary composers tend to get programmed less than other groups; hence these suggested minimums.

RESOURCES

While it will be easy—and tempting—to program works by well-known composers, there are thousands of composers from historically excluded groups from which to find music for your concert. Luckily, resources are out there to help you find such music.

The  INSTITUTE FOR COMPOSER DIVERSITY has several resources you can use to find works by composers from historically excluded groups.