(NPR) — There's a bulletin board at the front of the band room at Spring Lake Park High covered in portraits of the composers who wrote this year's music selection.
The bulletin board isn't new, it's there every year. What's new are the faces: Instead of primarily white men, there are faces of women and composers of color.
This is intentional. The band directors at Spring Lake, outside of St. Paul, Minnesota, have pledged to include at least one piece by a female composer and one by a composer of color in each concert, for each of the school's bands.
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"We made a commitment this year to only buy music from composers of color," says Brian Lukkasson, one of the directors.
