***Definitions of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion below drawn in part from the Ford Foundation.

Our nation is enriched and illuminated by a panoply of different cultures, ideas, and ways of making music. For us, a major focus is the diversity of the composers whose music we commission, premiere, perform, and record. So, we have set a new goal for ourselves: to have our programming reflect the diversity of our nation, which currently equates to a 50% non-male, 40% ALAANA* population.

We have looked closely at the programming in our past few seasons, and determined the amount of time we have spent on stage each year performing the music of ALAANA composers and non-male composers.

We have also examined our history of commissions and premieres of new work and our recorded output, through a similar lens.

This information is below, and we plan to look back at our programming each year and continue to make this information public so that we can both reflect and hold ourselves accountable to our goals.

*ALAANA stands for African, Latinx, Asian, Arab and Native American individuals and communities.

For years, Third Coast Percussion performed almost exclusively music composed by White men of European and North American descent. This was not by design—our programming was the product of a legacy of implicit and explicit exclusion of non-White non-males in classical music.

In recent years, we’ve started to bring an awareness of our own blind spots and limited worldview to every discussion we have about programming. We are constantly searching for composers and collaborators who inspire us, and we deliberately seek out composers and collaborators who are from historically disenfranchised populations so that we can help lift up their voices and their creative work.