Idea of the Day

How gender blind audition practices lead to more diverse orchestras:

To overcome bias, most major U.S. orchestras began to broaden and democratize their hiring procedures in the 1970s and 1980s, advertising openings, allowing orchestra members to participate in hiring decisions and implementing blind auditions in which musicians audition behind a screen that conceals their identities but does not alter sound.

Of the "Big Five" symphonies -- the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra -- only Cleveland still does not hold blind auditions. Use of the blind auditions varies among the other orchestras, with some holding them only in preliminary rounds.

In their study, Rouse and Goldin examined lists of personnel from 11 major orchestras, including the Big Five, and actual accounts of the hiring process maintained by personnel managers in eight major orchestras.

Among musicians who auditioned in both blind and non-blind auditions, about 28.6 percent of female musicians and 20.2 percent of male musicians advanced from the preliminary to the final round in blind auditions. When preliminary auditions were not blind, only 19.3 percent of the women advanced, along with 22.5 percent of the men.
Using data from the audition records, the researchers found that blind auditions increased the probability that a woman would advance from preliminary rounds by 50 percent. The likelihood of a woman's ultimate selection is increased several fold, although the competition is extremely difficult and the chance of success still low.

UPDATE: Someone has written in to let me know that in 2007, the Cleveland Orchestra changed its audition practices and implemented blind auditions.  The article quoted above was written in 2001.

Comments

[herxanthikles]

Worth noting that this doesn't just cover gender, but race, age, nationality and every other potential bias. It's been a superb practice.

[Thomas Garvey]

It's also worth noting that (as I assume Isaac is attempting to draw a parallel between this study and the results of the recent, notorious Emily Glass Berg Sands study) that many supporters of female playwrights do not want to go to a "blind submission" policy for new plays (which I have called for in the past). I'll also be discussing, in future posts on the Hub Reivew, how the Sands and Rouse studies are subtly, but fundamentally, different.