League of American Orchestras will Launch Inclusive Stages Program in Spring 2023

"Inclusive Stages," a new program aimed at increasing racial diversity among musicians in American orchestras, will launch in Spring 2023, the League of American Orchestras has announced. The program's pilot year will be supported by San Francisco-based Sakana Foundation, with additional funders to be announced.

"Inclusive Stages will enable us to do critical work supporting orchestras in making our stages more diverse, helping us advance the collective action necessary to strengthen our field," said League of American Orchestras President and CEO Simon Woods. "I'm so grateful to the League's donors and especially to Sakana Foundation trustee Sakurako Fisher for helping us build a sustainable long-term future for the orchestral art form."

The program's pilot year will focus on four main goals: to collect new orchestra field demographic and audition policy data; to build a coalition of musicians, music directors, executive directors and other orchestra staff, union representatives, and additional stakeholders to help advance change; to add capacity within the League with the addition of a new full-time Manager of Inclusion and Learning; and to create an outline roadmap for the program's future.

Institutional and individual funders interested in philanthropic partnerships with the League for Inclusive Stages, other equity, diversity, and inclusion programs, or learning about other funding opportunities to support the League's work impacting American orchestras may contact Audrey Elliott-Risbud: arisbud@americanorchestras.org or 646-822-4050.

A number of funders have supported the League's ongoing work in equity, diversity, and inclusion, including the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation, Melanie Clarke, Carole Haas Gravagno, Martha Ingram, the Mellon Foundation, the Sakana Foundation, the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, and the 25th Century Foundation.

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