CURRENT.ORG: Three years in, the Recording Inclusivity Initiative is still fighting to diversify classical radio
By Marah Eakin for Current.org
On Elevate, the brand new album from All Classical Radio’s Recording Inclusivity Initiative, you won’t find any Bach concertos or quirky new takes on Beethoven’s symphonies. Instead, you’ll find recordings by Japanese-born composer Yuko Uébayashi and Black American composer Damien Geter, as well as a sonata by Nobu Kōda, a long under-heralded female composer who, in the late 1800s, created some of the first works ever written by a Japanese composer in the Western style.
These pieces are emblematic of RII’s mission, which is to address issues of diversity in the classical world by producing and distributing high-quality recordings of music by composers from historically marginalized communities. Launched (and given Current’s Local that Works award) in 2021, the project has released two records in the past three years, including Elevate, and has another on the docket for fall 2025. The 30-plus tracks on those records are also free and available to download via an RII database, accessed by about 20 stations so far.
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