LAURA: Hello, everyone. And welcome to the third day of the 76th annual League of American Orchestras Conference. I'm Laura Reynolds, Executive Director of the Boise Phil, and I'll be your MC today, as we explore our theme: Better Together. This week, we've heard wise words from Wynton Marsalis to speak about the responsibilities we have as orchestra leaders. And yesterday, we explored our new relationships with technology. Today, we're going to think deeply and share strategies around building relationships with our local communities. Before we get started with today's session, on behalf of the League, I want to gratefully acknowledge our sponsor for today's session, Fisher Dachs Associates. The consultants at Fisher Dachs have a great appreciation for and sophisticated understanding of concert halls, with over 50 completed venues for Symphonies worldwide. FDA looks forward to the opportunity to meet you in person and to hear live music again. Thank you to Fisher Dachs for their support, and we urge you to go and visit them and all of the other sponsors and exhibitors who have set up shop in the virtual exhibit hall. So what does it mean to be an orchestra? More importantly, what could it mean to be an orchestra? Together with our community, orchestras have more power and potential to shape the future of our society than ever before. After over a year of living with the coronavirus pandemic, a large scale reckoning with racial injustice, the climate crisis, and economic uncertainty, the importance of learning about, connecting deeply with, and trusting our communities couldn't be more urgent or possibly more complex.

I believe an orchestra's purpose is to be in service to its community through art. That means everything from curating stories that are meaningful to the specific place where you live, which is why we need orchestras in every single corner of this country, but also to share those stories outside of the concert hall, in the places where we all actually live, work, and play. It means moving community engagement from a siloed department into the DNA of our institutions, and to witness how we can uniquely embrace the broad range of human experience. It also means that we have the responsibility to act, to engage, and to no longer be by-standers in our society. Musicians, administrators, board members -- we are all part of this world. And if we have learned anything this year, it is that we are part of an ecosystem that requires us to care for, empathize with, and support one another.

Today's keynote, panel, and facilitated chats will be our opportunity as a field to explore these big questions and dive deeply into the strategies and tools that we need to take action. With that, let me introduce our keynote speaker, Marc Bamuthi Joseph. Bamuthi currently serves as Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact at the Kennedy Center. He co-founded the Life is Living festival for Youth Speaks and created the installation Black Joy and the Hour of Chaos. His opera libretto, We Shall Not Be Moved, was named one of the best classical music performances by the The New York Times. His work has toured broadly. He has received commissions from the Washington Opera, participated in HBO's Performance of Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me, and is an inaugural recipient of the Guggenheim Social Practice Artist program award. Please join me in giving a warm welcome to Marc Bamuthi Joseph.

BAMUTHI: Hey, family! I hope everybody is doing well. It is... Literally an honor to be with you today. I'm so excited. I've been excited to engage with you all for some time. Thank you to Simon Woods for inviting me. Yeah. So... I am here in unceded Piscataway and Anacostian territory. What is conventionally known as Washington, DC, the capital of this great country. I am a man of Haitian descent with chocolate brown skin, a bald head, and a full beard that is mostly black, except all the hair on my chin, which is gray. I'm wearing glasses and a pink button-down shirt. I'm standing in a well lit room, facing East. I'm standing in front of my kitchen, which has flowers hanging from the ceiling. And my living room, which has large format photographs mounted on the crimson-painted wall behind me.

I'm going to share my screen! We've gotten so good at doing this, in this time. Great. So before I worked at the Kennedy Center, as a Vice President, I worked there as a commissioned artist. This is me in the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater in 2009, performing a show called The Breaks. My body doesn't really do stuff like this anymore. So I would like to think how I administer is how I do this. I would like to think that the way I administer is clean, is gyroscopic, it's dynamic. The Kennedy Center has commissioned four evening length works of mine, since 2009. And that is really where we begin. My relationship with my institution is born out of artistic belief.

But I think I got the gig because while I was performing onstage, I was organizing communities offstage, around issues ranging from environment to immigration, using my art as a lever to include folks who historically had been segregated out of the institutional experience. What you're looking at is a still from a social practice module I first made for the Guggenheim Museum, called Moving and Passing. We were in a heightened moment of xenophobia, a moment of assault on immigrant identity in the United States. And I wanted to think through how soccer could serve as an affirmational tool for first generation Americans and African American kids to think of movements on the fields as migratory patterns across borders. I wanted them to recontextualize soccer strategy as cultural strategy for marginalized youth. So this is my context for greeting you today. I am a working artist, making opera, theater, and dance, for proscenium and specific sites. And I'm an organizer, who uses art for non-art outcomes. That's who the Kennedy Center hired in the position that used to be the Vice President of Community Engagement. We'll talk about that later. And that's who was leading the efforts to programmatically respond, when George Floyd was killed in May of 2020.

Like every organization in America, the Kennedy Center made a statement of solidarity in the first week of June, 2020. But working across the institution, I was able to lead my colleagues towards a plan of action, by July of 2020. A plan that built on the legacy that we'd been building over decades. Here's what the announcement of that plan looked like, when we first shared it on social media, in July of 2020.

So there are some key pieces of vocabulary to extract from that moment. This idea of system. More than symbol. This idea of being privileged and hunted. This idea of an arc of three to five years, in terms of financial commitment and programmatic focus. What I want to share with you today is what we did after that statement. And why the coexisting realities of being privileged and hunted, why the experience of privilege and vulnerability shapes what I think is the way to attack the question of equity.

In the classical music business. And to do this work, we have to question our institutional aesthetics. My mentor, the great Liz Lerman, says that aesthetics are what a people believe to be good, beautiful, and true. So before we go any further, I would like to ask you to ask yourself: Who are your people? And maybe answer that question for yourself, or on behalf of your organization. Who are your people? What do your people believe? What do your people believe to be good? To be beautiful? What do your people believe to be true? Classical music is a genre whose aesthetics are duly concerned with a centuries old canon. My aesthetics are duly concerned with a centuries old canon as well. And the ethos of beauty. And overcome is present throughout it.

When we, the assembled body of artists and administrators, that steward classical music in this country, when we are talking about community, who are we talking about, when we use the phrase "the community"? What did we say to them? And to ourselves, a year ago? When the doors of the concert hall were shut over the last year, what did we imagine could be true? If we're in industry, whose aesthetics force us to constantly look back for beauty, how do we move our industry socially forward? Well, among my 39 jobs, I host a podcast with Paola Prestini, the co-founder of National Sawdust, and Kamilah Forbes, the executive producer of the Apollo Theater. The podcast is called Active Hope, and it's so named because that's where all our creative conversations kept landing. Hope. All of us parents, all of us in our 40s, all of us within one generation of our families immigrating to the United States. All of us practicing artists. All of us leading really different arts institutions. All of us actively stuck on hope.

I am in my artist body. I am a citizen. My job is social impact. I don't have time to not be hopeful. So how does a hopeful person frame an equitable future? Well, I have a podcast! So I interviewed a futurist. What you're about to see is an excerpt from the most recent episode of Active Hope. You'll hear from Marina Gorbis, the Executive Director of the Institute for the Future, in Palo Alto.

Let's take the question of community and spin it around, a little bit. Think of these versions of the future. And imagine ourselves at our most optimized. Are we constrained? At our most optimized, are we collapsing? Are we growing? At our most optimized, are we transformative? What does a culturally transformative organization think about diversity, equity, and inclusion? What does it mean to presently invest in a transformational cultural future? What's the relationship between present solvency and social justice? DEI work has become a game of numbers and shame. Many of us are working on diversity of staff and canon. And I think many of us get that to be inclusive means that we're conscious of welcoming disparate cultures and cultural literacies with an aim towards tolerance, balance, and safety.

Equity... Equity is a little more elusive. What I like to say is that equity doesn't mean everybody is in the house. Equity is what you have when you own your house. If we're serious about DEI work, our North star has to be equity. Which means we invest in creating shared stakes with historically marginalized communities, creating more than symbolic reasons to connect. We are creating symbiosis. In the last two years, I've helped to guide the Kennedy Center in a transition from a community engagement paradigm to a social impact framework.

Engagement work builds diversity by making place for underrepresented communities. Social impact builds on this work to also make cultural equity and creative home for those same communities. Social impact cannot work through disparate programs. Impact requires intention, humility, discipline, fiscal accountability, a compelling narrative, and organizational coherence. We don't want to be an institution that itinerantly responds to tragedy. We want to be a cultural center, actively and consistently walking on a pathway forward.

Now, I should note that I have all these highfalutin ideas, but I have to make them make sense at the Kennedy Center, okay? Which is freaking hard, because the Kennedy Center has an adjacency to the federal government, as a living memorial to the 35th President. So I have to advocate for doing this work in a way that is fiscally appropriate and diplomatically sound. By necessity, I have to take an approach to leadership that is centered in the capital of creativity and in the marketplace of American ideals.

Artistic disruption in the context of federal bureaucracy. Co-joined practices, funneled through the lever of a $250 million arts business, federally tied to some version of the American social contract. Art is oxygen for the lungs of the body politic. And the Kennedy Center is rare air. Our job is to remember that some of us can't breathe. Symbols and gestures are cool, but if we use the term "structural racism", then antiracism also must be structural. Symbols and gestures are cool, but if we use the term "systemic racism", then we must also be systemically antiracist. I actually don't think our country can be systemically antiracist, because of the inextricable relationship of race to labor and to wealth. But I do think it is possible for schools and government and cultural places like the Kennedy Center to aspire to a position of systemic allyship or systemic solidarity.

And in order to get there, I've started to ask myself different questions. Instead of asking: How can I be antiracist? I ask: Is it possible to choreograph social justice? I've been asking how we break this cycle, where some horrific injustice happens, and we're shocked and confused, and we have this emotional response, and then perform allyship. Until we get tired. Or feel guilty, because we're not moving fast enough, which leads to inaction and passivity, and eventually apathy, until another horrific injustice happens. How do we cultivate an alternative cycle, so that when a horrific injustice takes place, we're not overtaken by shock and confusion, as if the fruit of systemic oppression is surprising?

Instead, our emotional response is marked by empathy. And compassion. Which leads to a rejection of performative allyship, in exchange for the real, vigorous work. And if guilt and fatigue should try to settle in, we re-center those yearning for justice, remembering that inaction and passivity are detrimental to justice, and that apathy is the antithesis of unconditional love.

Let's say that an image that we all hold in our heads, that image of that man walking through the Capitol on January 6, with a confederate flag, let's say that that is symbolically or overtly racist. Let's say Nancy Pelosi and them, kneeling with their kente cloth in the Capitol, after George Floyd was killed, let's say that's a demonstration or act of symbolic or overt antiracism. Let's say we want to go deeper. And say there's a pyramid of behaviors that we can name as manifestations of White Supremacy.

What is the pyramid of behaviors that we can name as practices and manifestations of systemic solidarity? As we're in our practice as administrators, as educators, and as artists, how do we shape careers and institutions that are a reflection of a desire to support the world's greatest art, while also making the world a better place? Well... I try to use this pyramid to think about gestures of White Supremacy. And the mountain of behaviors that are more convert, but just as damaging. And I try to flip that on its head. I say... If these are gestures of White Supremacy, but we're seeking to be systemically counter to that, then we also have to build a systemic that makes sense.

It begins with a pipeline. A pipeline of folks that hold us ethically and financially responsible. From that pipeline emerges a pedagogy, a modality, a structure, an organizational culture, a theory of change. So we're not building programs that respond to the moment. We're building a pedagogy out of which our programs emanate. Our repertoire. Our canon. Our education. And if we do those things right, if we have a community of folks that's holding us responsible, if we have a social vision that's tied to a theory of change, and a replicable practice of facilitating and performance, then our programs earn us a profile of community trust. Of systemic allyship. All this work has led to the Cartography Project. How do we map trauma, so as to heal from it?

If music or sculpture represent a commitment to cultural memory, exactly what are we choosing to remember, and perhaps more poignantly, what are we choosing to forget? The Cartography Project is an attempt by the National Symphony Orchestra and the Washington National Opera to intentionally expand the radius of their own cultural memories. It's a curatorial project that evolves beyond the paradigm of equity as a numbers game, and embraces a more sophisticated and compassionate practice of equity as a function of solidarity. It surfaces the talent of diverse backgrounds, while also challenging both organizations and audiences to engage new sources of inspiration and discourse, as we collaboratively bring classical music into the American future.

The premise of the Cartography Project begins with a desire to acknowledge trespass or trauma. And a further desire to heal from it. We began our journey by thinking about extrajudicial violence. We drew a map of these incidents, focusing on geographical variation. We committed to commissioning nine creative teams of composers and librettists who are under 45 years of age, from those geographical locations, who also come from historically marginalized or underrepresented communities.

We initiated a new pipeline of composers into mainstream presentational space, and we were inspired to work with other organizations across geography, to identify composers from across the country who work within the classical realm, but are also highly informed by the social contract. Pivotally, the Cartography Project doesn't ask composers or audiences to stay in the place of trauma. It asks of all parties: What is our collective role in recovering from struggle? What is the specific role of music in initiating conversations of healing? Can we curate support systems, as well as curate musical programs?

And because we were asking all those questions, we were further moved to do a little bit better than Black trauma. We kept the composers, but we changed the prompt. The Cartography Project now takes Black Dignity as its central tenet and point of creative departure. While the murder of George Floyd compelled millions of people to protest the reality of race-based extrajudicial violence, there remains another side of the coin that is as important and germane to our cultural discourse. Beyond memorializing the trauma of death, we seek to honor the enduring occasion of a dignified life. The Cartography Project asks its creative teams to consider the timeline of seven individuals before their chaotic and tragic demise. We afford to those same individuals the dignity of considering them as daughters, fathers, voters, coaches, health care workers, and musicians.

The aspects of their lives that made them human and were ignored by assailants who could only read them as tropes, and not beings. Through musical composition and poetry, the NSO and the WNO repositioned the conversation about the matter of Black life and descend our gaze down from the macro horizon to focus on the intimacy and simplicity of the matter of Black dignity. It is a basic, humane, and yet elusive request that we make through music. Map the humanity of those who are gone too soon, through soaring tone and dignified embrace.

I haven't lived in the nation's capital for long. But I am no stranger to art and ritual. On the night of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's transition, I got on my bicycle and pedaled down to the Supreme Court, listening to her favorite opera, Marriage of Figaro, on the way. That night, the monument was a magnet, drawing hopeful Americans together in grief and trepidation. A woman had passed, and it felt that maybe with her, the endurance of equitable law had passed as well. The monument was thus activated in its imbued symbolic power. If the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice, as Dr. King opined, then the Supreme Court is the American site where that moral arc comes to be codified. Borrowing from Mozart and Motown -- I'm not exactly sure if Justice Ginsburg would have dug the operas that I make, but I'm pretty sure she would have appreciated the spirit of my newest one, It All Falls Down, which is a commission from the Washington National Opera. It's an American story, a Black Love Matters sermon, a coming-out narrative in defense of a future norm. It's an opera living between the guardian of law and the contemplation of justice, where, in the end, love overrules.

In the opera, I quote from the Supreme Court's landmark decision on marriage equality. Justice Kennedy wrote: The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times. The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter, protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty, as we learn its meaning. I'm so moved by those words. I'm so moved.

They didn't know, they didn't presume to know, the extent of freedom in all its dimensions. So they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning. League of American Orchestras, family, let's be the future. Let's continue to learn liberty and protect the right of all persons to enjoy it. Let's be culturally transformative, committed to freedom in all its dimensions.

I thank you so much for your time. We have about 20 minutes left, and I would love to be in conversation with you and with Laura in our remaining time. Thank you so much for listening.

LAURA: Wow. Thank you so much, Bamuthi. And please, let's show some love in the chat. Because that was just so incredible. And we're going to continue this conversation now. So if you have questions, thoughts, things you would like to add to this conversation, please include it in the chat. There's also a Q and A, which the moderators can see. But not necessarily everyone else. So please... Add that there. And yes, I hope you're seeing all this love. Because it is... I think everyone is feeling this right now.

BAMUTHI: Thanks, y'all. Can I do a shameless plug?

LAURA: Please, please.

BAMUTHI: Is that okay? I feel a little weird about it.

LAURA: Do it.

BAMUTHI: Okay. Cool. So if any of that made any sense to y'all, if that felt... If that felt worthwhile, I just want to share that I'm hosting a three-day virtual retreat. Next week. It's called Healing Forward. You can go to healforward.org. A lot of the ideas that I shared just now are... We really dig into them. We really dig into this idea particularly of pipeline pedagogy, program, and profile. As it says, we're here to bolster organizations, as we move forward, and a lot of the spirit, a lot of the energy, a lot of the ideas get fleshed out in community.

Folks from all over the country have registered thus far. Large organizations like BAM, or the Lucas Museum of Narrative are present. Smaller organizations. University presenters. University professors. Media organizations. Youth literacy organizations. It's a really great group of people that have registered thus far. Dozens and dozens of folks. And I would love for you to join us too, if any of that, that you just saw, made any kind of sense, and you're curious about taking your organization further. So that's my commercial!

LAURA: Well, thanks for sharing that. I can already tell that there are some people -- I think you're gonna get some extra registrants today. Because I think... You've shared so much in this keynote, and there's a lot to unpack. And there are some things that... You know, I imagine that there are maybe some questions from folks about... You know, how do you even... Where do you start? How do you even begin to really kind of move this conversation forward?

Because I think so much of what you're talking about, and some of the things you said about how so often we see people by their circumstance, or the stereotype, or what's happening right in that moment... But we don't see beyond that. And see the person and find that empathy in the humanity. So tell us a little bit more about how we dig into that, maybe as an individual, but then also in leading that change in thinking, in our organizations.

BAMUTHI: Yeah. I mean... I try to frame ethics in economic terms. I tried intentionally to talk about being a culturally transformative organization, because the truth is: Is that if we're not better to one another, we're all gonna collapse. That we can proceed as we have been doing, and that's worthwhile, I think. But there's a trajectory shift that I think is afoot, that also corresponds to the sustainability of our organizations.

So I think most of us have a great moral center and moral core. I think most of us have been confronted with a kind of segregation of that extraordinary moral core, from the thinking about our financial stability. This relationship between, like I said, present solvency and social justice. So I think one of the ways that we do this work is just to think about it in terms of... Tying our organizational growth to the cultural growth and stability of historically marginalized communities. In our midst, in our region. There are several questions we'll be asking during the retreat next week. That are about tying our fortunes to the fortunes of folks that have been historically segregated from our program and our institution. So, you know, as far as: How do we individually do it? I'm not a rabbi. I don't even play one on TV. I can't tell you exactly how you get there personally.

Being in the body that I'm in, having children that look like I do, I have a particular stake in a cultural future, in part because a lot of my cultural past is marked by historical trauma. So I don't want to go back, necessarily. I have to move forward. And a question for our organizations is: What is the cost of not moving forward? You know? And to whom? It goes back to like: Who are our people?

LAURA: And just building on that, some of the questions that are coming in, in the Q and A, are really centered around that idea of taking this idea of equity or empathy as equity, reframing the idea of diversity, social justice -- DEI -- how do you take those big ideas that you've shared and turn those into action? Because I think that's where so many of us struggle. Is... You know, we can talk all day long, but then I think what's been incredible and remarkable about the work that you've shared is that there's action. There is... You know, something moving forward. Tell us more about that.

BAMUTHI: Well... I believe... First of all, I think I saw Susan Federer present. You know, the Mellon Foundation has been incredible in supporting us. There are tons and tons of folks that have supported this work, individual donors, corporations, foundations. Like this. So... I think it's important to say that there's a world of folks in philanthropy that believe in this work and support this work. I think it's important to say -- and I hate to be so crass about the bottom line. But I do believe that budgets are moral documents.

So... A lot of us are like... How do I do it? Well... What would happen if you did one less concert? What are the financial stakes of expanding the programmatic radius, so that you can just go ahead and do it? I think a lot of us say: I don't know how! Well, I would say that the first step is, again, the pipeline. Who is holding you ethically responsible? Who is holding you financially responsible? The second thing I would say is: As of June 2020, there's like... A billion dollars, a billion new dollars, in the economy, from corporations ranging from Sony to Air Jordan, where folks are like: I got $50 million over five years for organizations that are working on social justice and equity.

So there is money available to do this work. If you have a plan. Which is the second thing. Have a plan. What is your five-year plan? Not just like your five-year strategic plan. But does your organization's current five-year plan include projections about the socio-economic and cultural equity growth of historically marginalized communities in your region? And if you have a plan that ties your organizational growth to your region's cultural growth, then you have what I call a social vision.

Now you develop a program that's in service of a social vision. And you define it according to what works for your organization. Then it's a matter of political will. And this is where -- and thank you, Simon, for highlighting the idea of a budget as a moral document. You have $5. What are you spending on social justice? Like... 10 cents? Because that's what you'll get on your return. You know? A quarter? Because that's what you'll get as your return. And the reason why I think it's important to have a five-year plan is because you don't have to spend millions of dollars today. You can plan to spend an appropriate amount of resources over the course of five years. This is why this session is called the arc of systemic solidarity. Because as much as I've tried, I've never written the poem that, like, undid patriarchy. I've never, like, made a dance, you know what I mean, and then White Supremacy was over. Heterosexism was over. Like... That doesn't happen.

So it's not going to happen in a concert. But this is why we live in the culturally transformative future. We build towards that. We budget accordingly. We hire accordingly. Like this.

LAURA: That's a beautiful arc. And to recap what you just said -- that budget as a moral compass, having that five-year plan that is based around your social vision, and having the political will to move it forward and get that return on investment that you're making in those other areas... That's a really incredible road map for us to take action around these ideas that you've shared. So... You know, I think one of the other things that you've shared in today's talk that's just, I think, so powerful is this vision of American orchestras being part of the construction of the American future.

BAMUTHI: Yes, yes.

LAURA: Tell us more about -- let's dig into that. Because that is just one of the most powerful ideas, I think, as we... You know, again, kind of reframe this idea of what it means to be in relationship to our communities. I think the thesis you're sharing is so much more powerful than that.

BAMUTHI: Yeah. So... I have kids who go... You know, when they were in elementary school, during February, we had an African American History Night at their school. And I remember sitting in the audience. My kids now are 19 and 16. But I remember sitting in the audience, and my daughter's class performed a Bob Marley song as part of this Black History event. And I was like... How is Bob Marley history?! Because I don't think of Bob Marley as a historical figure. But there I was, sitting in 2010. I was like... Oh yeah. He's kind of been... Gone for a minute.

I used to think of history as like... Black and white material. Speeches by Dr. King. Or... Images of Eleanor Roosevelt. But... History is not finite and fixed. We make history. Similarly, the future doesn't have to happen to us. We make the future. So in my institutional work, in my administrative work, and I mentioned this very briefly -- I changed my way of thinking in terms of -- instead of curating, I thought of this as like -- I thought of this work as cultural design. So the example that I like to give is: This country has a great system for deporting people.

This country has a great system for... A great design for incarcerating people. So can we design freedom? And what is the role of the arts institution or of the orchestra in terms of designing the future? This means a complete rejection of what The New York Times used to call Art and Leisure. Our work is not just for leisure. It is part of the fabric of a social design. And we, who are marketers, who work in development, are conductors, are musicians, are executive directors, we have the power to design the future.

This is part of what I mean by: Does your organization have a pedagogy? Are you committed to a kind of theory of change? And can you state it? Can the musicians in your orchestra, besides being world class and extraordinary, can the musicians in your orchestra also state, as part of their onboarding, what your organizational theory of change is? So this is just about accountability. That we don't have to be passive. We provide a great service to the world in being excellent as the aesthetic sublime. We do.

But as Marina Gorbis says: Where else is transformation gonna come from, if it's not from art and artists? My best friend graduated from a school in Louisville this past weekend. And because I fly all the freaking time, I have mad frequent flyer miles, which as many of you know -- you know, sometimes that means you get upgraded. So I got upgraded to first class. And I got upgraded to seat 2A. The person who was sitting in seat 3A was the Republican Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell. Who... You know... Is the Senator from Kentucky. So it made total sense that he was on a flight from Louisville to DC.

I'm not looking for a transformational future from Mitch McConnell. I'm not looking for a transformational future from our elected officials. I'm looking for a transformational future from our artists. And those of you who steward art in America -- it's your frikking job, yo. It's part of the gig.

LAURA: Well, I don't think that there's any other way to just express what your challenge is to all of us. As leaders of American orchestras, it's that stewardship of American art, of creating the future of our country. Any last words or advice or challenges or actions that you wish for us, as leaders of American orchestras, to take forward into the future?

BAMUTHI: I would just say... First of all... Thank you so much for having me. Thank you, Simon, for inviting me. Thank you, everybody, for listening, for paying attention. Please register for the retreat. I think it's good stuff. The core message maybe that I would leave you with today is: Let's not go back to normal. Let's not go back. Let's start again. Let's start again. But let's not go back.

LAURA: Thank you so much, Bamuthi. Thank you, everyone that's here today, for this conversation and participating. Let's just give one last big collective chat round of applause from all of us. Yes, thank you. Before we break, I have just a few more announcements to share, just to let you know about what's coming up next for today. A quick reminder. There's an evaluation that's in Boomset. Please fill that out, to let us know your feedback about today's session.

And the conversation. At 2:15 pm Eastern time, you'll have the opportunity to listen in on a panel conversation called Survive to Thrive, why community is central to our collective success. And the speakers in that will be Maria Araujo from the San Diego Symphony, Asa Armstrong from the National Repertory Orchestra, Michael Frisco from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and Janna Walters-Gidseg from the Pioneer Valley Symphony. I look forward to seeing you all there. Thank you so much. Thank you to all The League staff that supported this, and thank you again to Marc Bamuthi Joseph. Have a great day, everyone. Take care.