COMPOSER SABRINA PENA YOUNG | MUSIC TECHNOLOGY | FILM | CLASSICAL | OPERA

Changing the Culture: The Death of Classical Music Elitism? I am a member of the International Alliance for Women in Music , a music advocacy group open to all individuals that promotes contemporary music and scholarly research. We often have heartfelt discussions regarding gender, age, race/culture, and more in classical music, from celebrating when young students win a composition competition to frustrations with systems set in place that perpetuate elitism that plagues and sometimes kills classical music organizations today, as is evidenced by the high number of large classical music organizations folding.  We recently chatted about the high cost of arts competitions, the reasoning behind high entry fees, the validity of some festivals, the criminality of others, and how this affects gender, age, and the realities of women in music. I won't go into the details of the conversation, though if any of you are interested in these topics (male or female), I encourage you to joi...

Mother and baby (Photo credit: ECohen ) Like most working moms (which is pretty much every mom in the world unless you happen to be part of the .000000000045 % that gets to enjoy bon bons while a dozen staff members do all your mommily duties, including changing diapers, managing the bills, and kissing booboos), I find that I don't have enough hours in the day to accomplish both mom duties and paid work (notice the distinction, "paid work" involves monetary recompense for my toil). Things like organizing the sock drawer fall to the wayside. And to be honest, I hate cleaning and do more of a maintenance type of cleaning to my home, which really means that I keep extra Clorox wipes in key areas of the house for a quick wipe down instead of dedicating a whole day to housecleaning like my studious Cuban mom and abuela did.  (DING! Momentary pause as I get my daughter her "chicken nuggets" for lunch, which is really flattened falafel.) Between the economy...