Prism Music Collective was founded out of a desire to create a more accepting and welcoming musical community.

Many of the founding members in Prism were formerly members of the Community Women’s Orchestra, and left as the result of a series of events that unfolded over several years at that organization.

Below is an open letter we wrote to members of that orchestra, to provide context of where we come from and how we choose to grow as an organization from those experiences.

Dear Members of the Community Women’s Orchestra,

Events of the past couple years have resulted in the authors of this letter deciding to leave CWO. We are writing this letter to share our reasons why, because we believe the members of the orchestra deserve to know.

History

Season 34 (Fall 2018 - Spring 2019)

The CWO handbook currently only makes membership available to those who are explicitly female-identified. In November 2018, one member of the CWO board was approached by a then-current member who had come to identify not as female but as nonbinary. This individual was unable to bring the topic to the full board until the April 2019 board meeting. The desire was to spur deeper conversation about what it means to be a women’s organization given evolving understandings of gender identity. Unfortunately, the board was not prepared to present the question to the CWO membership, and so tabled the topic for the next board term.

Season 35 (Fall 2019 - Spring 2020)

The 2019 board created a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) committee to spearhead the board’s efforts in tackling a number of issues including racial diversity in the CWO membership, accessibility around dues and ticket pricing, and gender inclusivity. The board refused to take a stance in favor of supporting the nonbinary member of the orchestra. In consultation with an outside content expert, the DEI committee circulated a survey in January 2020 to gain a sense of how CWO members understand gender identity, particularly as it relates to participation in CWO. The goal of this survey was to gather background information before a facilitated group discussion around gender and CWO. This attempt to start the conversation resulted in a large number of angry emails (from a small number of CWO members) spreading misinformation, questioning the board’s motivations, and accusing the DEI committee of attempting to destroy the orchestra. The board’s response was to vote against sharing the survey’s results (attached to this email) with the membership, to dictate what the DEI committee was allowed to communicate to CWO members, and to demand the shutdown of the volunteer-led Skills Clinic unless it restricted participation to individuals who strictly identify as female. Without the board’s support to continue a membership-wide conversation, and not wanting to alienate the small number of members who strongly opposed these efforts, the DEI committee resigned from the board and from CWO.

Season 36 (Summer and Fall 2020)

Three new members joined the 2020 CWO board hoping to heal divides and retain membership, given that seven members had already left CWO and many others were questioning their place in CWO. The focus of these three was to engage all CWO members who wanted to be heard, with the hope that through listening and caring, the orchestra could begin to heal and find a path forward. After engaging the membership through one-on-one conversations, it became clear that many strong feelings remained. A few members wanted to move past this topic, but most wanted to continue conversations and reach some resolution. This support for continued conversation was not received well by some, and led to another slew of angry emails, false accusations, attempts to manipulate other members, gatekeeping of meetings, and disregard for board protocol. Eventually, the three board members were instructed that the only path forward was to immediately poll the membership on amendments to the bylaws, without providing any context. These three board members drafted a letter and poll that included additional options: to temporarily table discussions, and to open up the conversation about amending bylaws to include other gender identities. These drafts were then inappropriately and purposefully leaked with the intention to further stoke flames. At this point, the three board members could not find a good path forward and decided to resign.

All authors of this letter have now resigned from this orchestra, to many of our great sadness, in the face of this final proof that open discussion of and healing around this issue would never be allowed to take place. 

Summary of Why We Chose to Leave

We believe that the topic of gender inclusivity is one that all members of CWO need to discuss together as a community with openness and compassion. However, our efforts over the past three years have shown that this kind of dialogue is an impossibility under current CWO board leadership. It was never our goal to divide this community, to change this organization, or to make CWO members feel unsafe. At the same time, we cannot put our time, energy, or money into an organization that cannot empathetically listen, hold transparent discussions, or support its own members as they go through a gender transition. We cannot participate in an organization whose values and actions do not align with our own.

Moving Forward

With all this said, we hope to move forward and to begin healing while continuing to hold the values that brought us together at CWO. We hope to build a new musical community that is a microcosm of the world we want to see, one that actively welcomes everyone as they are and values in their presence. We will foster an abundance mindset that recognizes all that we have to share with one another and with the world around us. We will commit to centering, uplifting, and supporting historically marginalized individuals and their communities. We will work towards creating a space that emphasizes freedom from systems of oppression (ex. white supremacy, toxic masculinity, cis-heteronormativity) while also allowing for constructive resolution when conflicts arise, understanding that discomfort is at the root of all growth and learning. We will embrace open dialogue that stems from clear communication of our core shared values and allows for clarity for all who come in contact with our space.

What can these values look like in action? It looks like a commitment to performing works by a wide range of underrepresented composers who are less well-known in the repertoire. It looks like a fair and equitable compensation and salary structures for artistic and music directors and anyone providing their services to our organization. It looks like encouraging collaborations among musicians and distributing parts so that everyone has a chance to play. It looks like nurturing our bodies through sharing food, and nurturing our minds through sharing knowledge and experiences. It looks like drawing concert audiences into experiential education, like guest conducting and instrument petting zoos. It looks like actively reaching out and forging partnerships to become a resource for our local communities. The possibilities are endless, and we are working on finding new ways to make music in an environment that centers the values we’ve laid out above.
If anything we’ve written here speaks to you and you want to stay connected, please reach out to us at prismmusiccollective@gmail.com. While we do not anticipate returning to CWO ourselves, we encourage current members to shape the orchestra in a way that aligns with their values, and to connect with us as we create a new musical community.