With Fortissima, Young Women of Color Are Reminded They Are Not Alone in Classical Music

Ask a few industry veterans about why diversity in classical music has been largely stagnant for decades and you’ll probably get some iteration of the same answer: the pipeline problem. The “pipeline” refers to the many developmental stages a musician must pass through to get to a sustainable career. Over the years, there have been several initiatives aimed at various points in the pipeline, with some stages receiving more attention than others.

Getting instruments in the hands of children from underrepresented backgrounds can be valuable in its own right, but statistics show that it has done little to impact diversity in professional orchestras. Orchestral fellowships cater to musicians who’ve already been through one or two degree programs, skipping critical years of their development. And even further down the pipeline, at a point where people have seemingly “made it,” personal accounts from professional musicians reveal there are deeper issues impacting their mental health and wellbeing, sometimes causing them to leave the field altogether.

Enter Fortissima: the Colburn School’s artistic and leadership development program for high school-aged women from racial minorities in classical music. Established by Colburn’s Center for Innovation and Community Impact in 2017, Fortissima started off as a local pilot program in Los Angeles. Now, it attracts young musicians from all over the United States for virtual one-on-one mentorship and a week-long intensive on the Colburn campus.

The program is led by Music Director Jannina Norpoth, a GRAMMY-nominated violinist and member of the improvising ensemble PUBLIQuartet. Each year, Norpoth recruits a team of accomplished women of color in classical music to mentor the cohort, and the 2024 mentors include cellist Titilayo Ayangade, composer and multi-instrumentalist Chanell Crichlow, violinist Karla Donehew Perez, and violinist, arranger, and recording artist Lady Jess.

Fortissima tackles classical music’s diversity problem from a unique angle, catching musicians at the pivotal pre-college level and fortifying them with the means to be successful both on and offstage. “This program is helping give the tools to students – not to make up for whatever is lacking in the institutions where they are currently studying – but tools for them to go back to those spaces and take the best advantage of what they can,” Norpoth told me in our recent Zoom interview. “We designed this program not only to create a safe space for women of color, but also to try to incorporate as many of the things that we wish that we learned during our studies.”

As the initiative’s Music Director, Norpoth is tasked with designing the curriculum, and Fortissima’s focus on mental health and wellbeing sets it apart from other programs offered to high school-aged musicians. “They’re journaling and they’re role playing… you’re doing this self-work away from the instrument. You’re learning to communicate differently and to think differently, and I think that challenges them,” Norpoth said.

In order to fit everything into the week-long residency, the program demands a high standard of preparation. While she says the students don’t necessarily believe her at first, Norpoth insists that Fortissima is a professional development program – not a music program. “Music is at the core of it, but it’s not like the camps you’ll go to where you’re going to be playing your instrument eight hours a day. You have to come here with your music learned,” Norpoth explained.

For Tess Reed, a 17-year-old violinist in the current cohort, the focus on wellness and professional development came as a pleasant surprise. “I barely practiced that week [at Colburn], but that is the best thing that could’ve happened to me,” she told me via Zoom. “I still had in my mind, ‘Oh, I’m still going to practice a whole bunch,’ but I didn’t have time to, and it wasn’t about that.”

Raised in Manvel, Texas, Reed started playing the violin at age three. While she grew up in a musical family, being a Fortissima fellow offered her a precious opportunity to connect with a like-minded peer group. “Within our cohort, we bonded immediately,” Reed said. “We had our serious moments where we were making music together, but we also had fun experiences where we got to know each other on a deeper level. What I really want in the near future is for us to continue that connection and bring it to other people.”

This sentiment underscores how a strong mentor can be a gift that keeps on giving. For Karla Donehew Perez, a member of the GRAMMY-winning Catalyst Quartet, this is what inspired her to become a Fortissima mentor. “I would like to give people what I had growing up,” she wrote via email. “I had the most incredible mentors… these people supported me, advocated for me, and gave me the confidence to keep going.”

Fortissima’s recent success comes at a time when diversity, equity, and inclusion resources in the United States are under deliberate attack, and legislation implemented to help marginalized groups is being used to strip them of much-needed resources. The 2023 lawsuits by the conservative advocacy organization Students for Fair Admissions against the University of North Carolina and Harvard University led to a landmark Supreme Court decision that effectively rolled back decades of progress for affirmative action. Even more closely related to Fortissima’s focus is Fearless Fund, a company that provides business grants to Black women. Fearless Fund is currently facing a lawsuit from American Alliance for Equal Rights, and has been blocked from awarding grants pending litigation, foreshadowing a potential ruling in the plaintiff’s favor.

In the midst of these high profile challenges to DEI initiatives, the safety of similar programs in classical music is not guaranteed. But mentor Chanell Crichlow shared via phone how important it is to protect these experiences. “If you check into so many people of colors’ stories, you’ll hear a program like Fortissima in their storyline. And that’s the beauty of it. We’re losing opportunities to make the world a better place if we don’t have these programs.”

But Fortissima’s one-on-one mentorship and cohort experience form lasting, meaningful relationships that legal attacks cannot threaten. In the months leading up to the residency in Los Angeles, the fellows met with their mentors for virtual sessions. Norpoth explained, “I like to try to pair students with mentors that I really think they have something in common with, or will challenge them in a certain way or help them achieve their goals.”

This year, Reed and Crichlow were paired together, and the mentorship experience helped Reed think about her future. “We were talking about how it’s okay to not know,” Reed shared. “Where I’m at right now, I’m transitioning into college. I’m very scared about what’s next after that, because there’s a lot of pressure on what’s next. [Chanell] was telling me that she didn’t expect to be doing what she does, and it just really opened my eyes on how things change and you should accept and embrace those changes.”

In the seven years since it welcomed its first cohort, Fortissima has grown to a national scale and seen its alumni pursue degrees in music and other disciplines at Stanford, Oberlin, UCLA, and more. Through its intentional and rigorous curriculum, the innovative program is shaping a new generation of young women of color to become well-rounded musicians and citizens. When asked what they might change or add to the experience going forward, the same answer echoed from fellows and faculty alike: a desire to make the program last longer.

 

I CARE IF YOU LISTEN is an editorially-independent program of the American Composers Forum, funded with generous donor and institutional support. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author and may not represent the views of ICIYL or ACF. 

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