by Nina Cherry
Josh Jones. Photo: Greg MacKay
In September 2020, percussionist Josh Jones became the first Black tenure-track musician in the Kansas City Symphony’s history, founded in 1982. Jones was denied tenure earlier this spring, sparking outrage not only among Kansas City’s local music scene but the orchestral community on a national level. Jones sat down with The Pitch to speak about his encounters working with the organisation.
Upon winning the highly competitive audition process for the Kansas City Symphony’s (KCS) new principal percussionist, Josh Jones moved to the metro during the height of the pandemic for the orchestra’s 2020-2021 season. His first season was an unprecedented one, consisting of socially-distanced outdoor chamber performances and creating online content.
In June 2021, Jones received an invitation to an organisation-wide party. Hosted by music director and conductor Michael Stern, the gathering was one of Jones’ first with the orchestra to celebrate the previous season’s accomplishments.
After Jones’ partner looked up the venue’s website, they learned the party would be held on a former plantation outside of Liberty. In 1860, 33 enslaved people lived at Everglades Plantation, now known as Ever Glades Farm, according to Clay County Federal Census records. The property is now the home of a prominent donor.
Jones expressed his discomfort to the orchestra committee and requested that musicians and staff be notified of the venue’s background. The committee left it to Jones to decide whether or not to notify the administration. New to the organization and early into his tenure process, Jones ultimately declined to bring the matter up to upper management.
Instead, he heeded the advice of several teachers to lay low during the probationary period: Do your job, make friends, and go home.
“You don’t want to be seen as the troublemaker or the whistleblower or hard to work with,” Jones says. “It was extremely uncomfortable to be present at this celebration with no acknowledgment of or respect for the venue’s history.”
Nevertheless, Jones remained excited about his new role.
“I’m an optimist. I was hoping it was just one thing—nothing else could happen, probably,” Jones says. “But I guess when people show you who they are, you should believe them.”
Security struggles
On multiple occasions, Jones had difficulty getting through security for performances at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.
“It’s always expected that we perform at a high level,” Jones says. “But it’s never taken into account what we have to do to weed out distractions.”
Still unfamiliar to many security guards, Jones followed a strict routine for performances, entering from the same stage door. According to Jones, one evening, security asked him if he had entered through a different door. Jones replied no.
“They then showed me a photo of a Black person wearing a hoodie and jeans at the parking lot entrance and said, ‘This isn’t you?’ And I again said, ‘No, I don’t even drive,’” Jones says.
On another evening, Jones arrived with his partner and instead used the box office entrance to retrieve her ticket. Despite showing his official ID and being in concert black attire with a stick bag in hand, Jones says the ushers insisted he was not an employee of the orchestra and that he went through the metal detector.
“Musicians never have to go through metal detectors. That’s not a thing,” Jones says.
After several back-and-forths, a staff member recognised Jones and confirmed he was a member of the Symphony.
“I had to get myself back into a state where I could play calmly and be emotionally available,” Jones says.
In contrast, when Jones began as assistant director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s percussion scholarship program in 2010, Jones says his supervisor sent an email in advance to all staff, security, and volunteers in the building with his name and photo. He had no issues getting through security and says they even remember him to this day.
“When people make an effort to make sure you’re seen, you usually don’t have problems,” Jones says.
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| Josh Jones. Photo: Asa Orrin-Brown |
Tenure and contract
Jones’ artistic merit is difficult to contest: He won three orchestral auditions in under four years, which is often unheard of in the field. His arrival in Kansas City brought excitement, hailed by longtime local art critic Paul Horsley as “one of America’s finest” in an article for The Independent.
Kansas City Symphony CEO Danny Beckley stated that “the principal role is really a leadership role, and it requires communication and organization and advanced planning.” According to Jones, the organization’s collective bargaining agreement states that tenured musicians cannot be dismissed on non-musical grounds.
Some of the job duties are unclear.
“There’s nothing written usually in the contract or collective bargaining agreement about what the specific duties of a principal percussionist are,” Jones says. “The duties are assumed.”
While it’s common practice for principal percussionists to be responsible for part assignments, set-up charts, and facilitating and maintaining an array of instruments, the contractual gray area and ambiguity of his role led to miscommunication and an unhealthy power dynamic that ultimately worked against his tenure process.
Jones believes the collective bargaining agreement is set up in a way that affords the orchestra and tenure committee far more power than its probationary members—a sort of hazing process.
“Certain demands can be made, so you have to do whatever they tell you to do,” Jones says.
Doug Howard, a former principal percussionist of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, is skeptical.
“To deny tenure to such a gifted musician on the basis of some unsubstantial and, frankly, unconvincing reasons seems highly suspect,” Howard wrote in an open letter. “Any shortcomings in the ‘management and organization’ area would need to be really egregious to justify such a decision.”
Howard cited Jones’ method of organizing and assigning music at an international percussion conference in November.
“My system is the standard system that is used by all top five orchestras in America,” Jones says.
As the former principal percussionist of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO), Jones has successfully gone through the tenure process before, although it didn’t come without major challenges.
During CPO’s tenure process, he claims one of the section percussionists alleged they never received music after Jones had handed it out.
“It turns out they actually did have their music, but they were just lying about where it was,” Jones says.
With text receipts to back his claim, Jones brought the issue to management’s attention.
“There was no disciplinary action taken, and upon my next review, that person was also consulted about my performance, knowing that they actively tried to sabotage one of my assignments,” Jones says. “Questioning and challenging authority is common for African Americans in leadership positions.”
In KC, Jones again felt undermined by a colleague. On multiple occasions, a member of Jones’ percussion section at the Kansas City Symphony reassigned parts without consultation to “give himself more time off.”
“I brought this up to the personnel manager, my liaison, and the tenure committee chair,” Jones says. “Because of a failure to set up a meeting between myself and the assistant, which I requested, he did once again make a change without my permission.”
KCS allows non-tenured musicians to be consulted about their colleagues’ tenure process. This section member—also a probationary member—was consulted about Jones’ performance, but Jones says he was not consulted in return.
Ultimately, the decision came down to the votes of the committee with final approval from Michael Stern.
Jones is concerned about the accuracy of the tenure documents.
“The tenure committee presented flawed information to the music director, and then before allowing [me] to respond to that information, the music director credited the tenure committee’s account and decided to withhold tenure,” Jones says.
Given the widespread outrage over Jones’ denial of tenure, I asked the Kansas City Symphony if a third-party investigation would be conducted.
“The tenure evaluation process and ensuing decision were thoroughly reviewed by members of leadership not involved in the tenure process,” Beckley says.
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| Josh Jones on YouTube. Click here. |
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
In an initial interview with KCS in May, Beckley stated that the organization’s DEI initiatives were “in a very early stage.”
One of the first times Jones heard about an organizational DEI program was in November 2021 during a musicians’ meeting—over a year after he started.
“One of the things they said is that it would run for a couple of seasons,” Jones says. “It was another one of those ‘is this really going to work out?’ moments.”
Jones couldn’t determine if the Symphony meant that the DEI program at large would only run for a couple of seasons or just the task force composed of musicians.
“But even still, I feel like there should always be a committee of musicians engaging with that initiative,” Jones says.
Beyond the issues getting through security, Jones claims he encountered several more microaggressions during his time with the organization from fellow musicians—including his tenure committee chair—and Michael Stern.
During a rehearsal for the Kansas City Ballet’s production of The Wizard of Oz, Jones’ tenure committee chair told him one of the movements in the choreography reminded him of Sambo, a pejorative Black caricature.
“In a run-through, afterwards, when we came to the section he was referring to, he made the suspender gesture relative to the character,” Jones says.
Backstage during a performance alongside the Kansas City Symphony Chorus, a choir member approached Jones as he took a seat in the lounge. Both dressed in their concert attire, Jones says the singer declared that they both looked like Men in Black, characterizing Jones—one of very few Black performers on stage—as Agent J.
At a rehearsal, Jones wore a pick in his hair, a well-known symbolization of power and resistance among the Black community.
“Michael Stern asked if I knew that I had a comb in my hair in front of another staff member,” Jones says. “They assured him that that was the point, and he responded that he didn’t know if I had forgotten it was there.”
Once again, Jones didn’t feel comfortable bringing these issues to light.
“I just held back,” Jones says. “I’m definitely not going to call [my tenure committee chair] out because they have my tenure in their hands.”
After Jones was denied tenure, he claims his tenure committee chair exhibited aggressive behavior towards him.
During a performance with the Kansas City Ballet, Jones’ colleague was playing a snare drum in need of minor tuning—it didn’t sound as good as the previous performance. Responsible for instrument maintenance, Jones mentioned he would tune it during intermission after the drum would no longer be used for the remainder of the show.
Jones’ tenure committee chair approached him to ask what he was doing while tuning. According to Jones, the tenure committee chair began raising his voice—onstage, in the pit—after his explanation.
“He then began to use a nasty and aggressive tone with me, stating, ‘The courteous thing to do would be to ask the subs if it is okay to tune the drum and not just tune the drum. You’ve had four rehearsals and a concert, and now you decide the drum doesn’t sound good? Think!” Jones says. “I felt terrible.”
On June 12, the Symphony officially created a DEI task force. Task force chair and board member Gena Williams did not respond to an interview request.
“I’m still getting calls from Pittsburgh and Detroit about the things they could do better in their DEI and fellowship programs,” Jones says. “To see Kansas City so behind, it’s disappointing.”
What’s next?
Born and raised in Chicago, Jones spends his summers back home as the principal percussionist of the Grant Park Music Festival, a 10-week season in the Loop. Currently going through Grant Park’s tenure process, Jones is also an avid educator and has been diligently finishing his sixth percussion method book.
Now, Jones says he is still trying to get his job back with KCS due to health complications. With less than a year left in his cancer treatment, an enlarged lobe was recently found in Jones’ lung.
“With no healthcare, it could be a crippling expense,” Jones says.
For now, Jones is in a holding pattern, waiting for a far and few between full-time orchestral opening or a change of heart from the Kansas City Symphony.
“They are aware of the inconsistencies in the information they received, but Michael [Stern] still thinks it was the right decision,” Jones says.
While Jones feels the Kansas City Symphony has failed the community, his experience is indicative of the widespread discrimination and lack of diversity among American symphony orchestras. And he has advice.
“They should be invested in obtaining and retaining people of colour in their orchestras,” Jones says. “Be open to the change the community wants.”
First published at The Pitch, July 13, 2023
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