Inclusive Stages

The League is gathering a group of member orchestras that are poised to take action and want to work collectively and collaboratively. In the continuation of Inclusive Stages, the coalition will be expanding to welcome youth orchestras, educational partners, and additional professional and community orchestras. Recruitment for the expanded National Coalition begins on Tuesday, October 1 and ends on Thursday, December 5.

The coalition will include a mix of in-person and virtual facilitated meetings for musicians, music directors, executive directors, board chairs, other orchestra staff, union representatives and other key stakeholders. Group 3-8 orchestra administrators and individual musicians may apply for travel support. There is no fee for participation in the coalition.

Not yet a League member? Learn more and join today.

View the Pilot Year Coalition List.

View a summary of the commitments and benefits of joining the Coalition.

Over the next three years of the program, there will be a variety of data projects taking place. For the first year (October 2024 through June 2025), orchestras can participate in the following two data projects:

Audition Applicant Demographics Survey

Offered through a partnership with Acceptd and the National Alliance for Audition Support, the Audition Applicant Demographics Survey is an electronic voluntary self-identification form that will provide demographic data about the current musician applicant pool, both now and on an ongoing basis.

Watch an instructional video from Acceptd.

View NAAS’ new Participant Toolkit for this survey.

Orchestra Demographics Survey

The Orchestra Demographics Survey seeks to track changes in racial/ethnic and gender diversity within orchestras’ musicians, staff, conductors and board members. For more information about this survey, visit the website.

Future Research Projects

As of October, 31, 2024, the Audition & Tenure Practices Survey is tentatively scheduled to take place in late Summer of 2025 and the Inclusion Index is tentatively scheduled to take place in the Fall of 2026.

How will the working groups function?

Working groups will be constituent-led groups, providing peer-to-peer support focused on specific themes. Themes will be identified early in Year 1 based on the goals specified by Coalition members and will be maintained during Years 2 and 3. The frequency of each working group’s meetings will be decided by each group during Year 1 but will meet virtually a minimum of four times annually. Individual musicians, orchestras, and institutions will have the opportunity to take leadership roles in working groups.

We are currently in a transition between music directors – can we still participate in the coalition?

Yes, you can still join the coalition even if you are in a transition period.

We will be asking each orchestra to work on their MD Engagement Plan shortly after the first coalition convening in January. Below are some guidelines for how we recommend approaching the MD engagement plan:

• If your current MD will be continuing to make any hiring or tenure decisions, then they should be involved in at least some aspects of your Inclusive Stages work.
• If your next MD has not yet been selected, you can outline how your Inclusive Stages goals will inform the search process and the onboarding process for the new MD.
• If your next MD has already been selected, then you can outline at what point and in which ways you intend to involve them in your Inclusive Stages work.
• If at any point, there will be a different person, group of people, or entity who will be making the hiring, selection, and retention decisions that are typically made by an MD, you can outline how they will be involved.

The League is not requiring or prescribing any specific actions for your MD, but we will expect your orchestra to clearly state how your MD will be directly involved in and contributing to your Inclusive Stages work.

Our organization has both an adult orchestra and a youth orchestra – can both orchestras be part of the coalition?

Yes, both orchestras can join the coalition.

It will be up to your staff to decide whether it makes more sense to join as one joint organization with one point person for Inclusive Stages, or two separate orchestras with one point person for each orchestra. Below are some guidelines for how we recommend approaching this decision:

• If both orchestras will be working on the same goals, then we recommend joining the coalition as one joint organization.
• If each orchestra will be working on different, but aligned goals, then we recommend joining the coalition as two separate orchestras.

Our orchestra is part of a larger umbrella organization – can we participate in the coalition?

Yes, your orchestra can join the coalition.

For the Letter of Agreement and all coalition activity, we ask that the person who oversees the orchestra-specific operations would participate in lieu of the overall organization’s Executive Director or CEO.

Can we see which orchestras were part of the Pilot Year Coalition?

Please see the Pilot Year Coalition List.

Do you have examples of actions that our orchestra can work toward or include in our goals?

Please see the list of Sample Orchestra Actions.

Do you have examples of Music Director and/or Conductor engagement?

Please see our guide to Music Director and Conductor Engagement.

Do you have examples of musician engagement?

Please see our guide to Musician Engagement.

• Read the latest press release
• View the Model Standards and Procedures for Probationary Process by the AFM and the Black Orchestral Network
• View the Ten Steps Toward Equity in the Tenure Process from the Black Orchestral Network’s letter to American orchestras
• View the NAAS Recommendations on Audition and Tenure
• Read the pilot year press release
• Visit Sphinx’s website for the National Alliance for Audition Support (NAAS)