Season 3, Episode 11

In 2018, Douglas Shadle tweeted about systemic discrimination in American orchestral programming. His thread went viral, and he soon found himself doing what became known, around then, as public musicology. In this conversation, he talks about presenting his work outside the academy through advocating for marginalized composers, and what the Florence Price revival has meant for his scholarship (and, more troublingly, how Schirmer’s acquisition of her music may actually prevent it from being heard).

Douglas Shadle is associate professor of musicology at Vanderbilt University.

If you’re interested in learning more about Professor Shadle (@DougShadle)’s scholarship, check out:

• The book Orchestrating the Nation: The Nineteenth-Century American Symphonic Enterprise
• The book Antonín Dvořák’s New World Symphony
• The article “Capitalism and the Future of American Classical Music Scholarship” in American Music (which addresses the issues of Florence Price’s publications, as discussed in the episode)
• A 2023 New York Times article on Price, co-authored with Samantha Ege
• A 2018 article on systemic discrimination in orchestral music for I Care If You Listen

Sound Expertise is hosted by Will Robin (@seatedovation), and produced by D. Edward Davis (@warmsilence). Please subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and/or Spotify. Questions or comments? Email soundexpertise00 @ gmail

A written transcript of this episode is available here; thanks to Andrew Dell’Antonio for volunteering to prepare transcripts for the show!