Tuning Up Together
Gateways Music Festival celebrates
African-American classical musicians

The first time trumpeter Herbert Smith played in the Gateways Music Festival -- one of the only music festivals in the country featuring all African-American classical musicians -- it was one of the few times he has been able to connect with his culture through classical music.

"This is completely new to me," he remembers thinking at the time. "I've never been on  stage with all African-American musicians playing music."

The Gateways Music Festival, a biennial event which will return to Rochester later this week, has given musicians like Smith a place to make a statement about the importance of inclusion and give African-American musicians a place to convene.

Smith is the only African-American among the 100 musicians who play in the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.

"Most of the people that are going to be here," says Smith of this year's Gateways Music Festival, "are the one or two (African-Americans) in their respected orchestras."

Fewer than 2 percent of musicians in member groups of the League of American Orchestras are African-American.

The problem stems from a lack of exposure and training opportunities for students where minority populations are higher, says Polly Kahn, vice president of leadership and development for the league. Arts education in big city school districts is erratic at best.

Orchestras are advocating for more dollars toward arts education, while at the same time providing programs to bridge gaps, she says.

While progress is not as fast as they would like, the membership among junior orchestras in the league is now 4 percent.

Gateways, too, is taking an outreach approach this year, partly to expose more people to classical music and partly because of the grassroots spirit influenced by the election of the country's first African-American president. The festival will travel the city performing free concerts in venues from museums to churches.

"There are audiences that are not reached unless they are in the place where they are most comfortable listening to music," says Artistic Director Armenta Hummings, who dubbed this year the "Yes We Can Festival."

"You build the foundation on which music can be made," she says Hummings, who believes that Gateways can be a foundation for the black community to be involved with classical music.

The foundation, it seems, is packed solid for the festival musicians. With funding short supply this year (it has been dwindling for several years), the festival takes on a labor of love feeling from its participants, many who are returning for the mere experience and not any financial gain.

For Hummings, 73, who retired from the festival after this summer, being inclusive has been a life-long battle.

"When I came out of school, I noticed what was happening in terms of inclusiveness in classical music," says Hummings, a concert pianist and Juilliard graduate from Cleveland. "I was very often the only (African-American) on the stage or in the audience."

She thought, "I can go along with that or change it."

Her dream job came in the form of a community teaching position at Eastman School of Music, where she was able to offer lessons to underprivileged youth at little or no cost.

With the move to Rochester, she also relocated her all-African-American music festival here from North Carolina. It has taken place biennially since 1995.

In addition to performing, trumpeter Herbert Smith will also have a chance to have an original composition performed by the festival orchestra, a work he calls "Attitudes of Being." The work is based around the two notes that are the hardest and the easiest to play on the trumpet - a B flat and a B. The notes can be played together harmoniously or with a strong dissonance depending on placement.

Smith, a graduate of Eastman, also moonlights as a jazz trumpeter and teaches at the Eastman Community Music School in addition to his third trumpet position at the RPO. He says his background never held him back from becoming a professional musician.

"I'm a lucky one," he says, "because I'm sure there are a lot of people who would have a different story."