I Don’t Know. What’s Music Theory?

Part 3 of Philip Ewell Go Down In History

In order to begin responding in any way to Philip Ewells work, it must be fully understood in both detail and overview. This section consolidates Ewell‘s papers, talks, blog posts and virtual symposia, including Q&A sessions, into a summary of his views on race and antiracism with respect to music theory in particular. It includes short video excerpts that illustrate Ewell’s most essential remarks by topic. It is intended as fair and accurate, not critical or skeptical.

Part II of this article covered Philip Ewell‘s rapid and remarkable attainment of international attention for his work on race and music theory. Tenured, and having achieved mainstream media coverage in the United States, Philip Ewell was, by late 2020, a formidable presence in a field not known for its public visibility in the first place. As he states in the last film of Part II, he “booked close to forty talks this academic year [2020-2021] for a large, large sum of money, collectively.” Through these talks, virtual symposia, and other activities, he was able to further propagate, supplement, expound upon, and clarify his ideas to a larger audience, including students, academic colleagues who were not specialists in music or music theory, and now including an international audience. Though this activity remained still mostly within the academic world, it quickly achieved far broader reach than anyone might have imagined before the events described in Part II .

It was mentioned earlier (Part I) that Ewell has commented significantly on matters outside music theory, and this will be covered in Part IV. Further, a clear separation is made throughout this article between Ewell’s content and his presentation. It is on the content, and upon music theory, that this section focuses, with the presentation to be discussed in Part IV in a larger examination of Critical Theory as it has operated in Ewell’s work.

Many of the following ideas (Ewell’s) are borrowed from other writers, scholars and public figures. This fact and its significance will be revisited later, while within this summary, references to persons other than Ewell himself are made only when essential for understanding. In preference for readability, sources are not cited at every use. Readers are encouraged to read and view the source materials, listed at the end.

The summary should be understood everywhere to represent the views of Philip Ewell, not of the author.

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Music Theory’s White Racial Frame

Introduced in Part II, Ewell’s idea of music theory’s white racial frame provides a starting point for comprehensive understanding. The composers that music theorists teach and analyze were and are influenced by the narrative shaping of United States history by whites, whose purpose was to ensure dominance over Americans of color. There is a “white racial frame” in music theory whose function is to keep the system “as it is.” It believes the following things, quoted in their entirety from Ewell’s paper:

1. The music and music theories of white persons represent the best, and in certain cases the only, framework for music theory.

2. Among these white persons, the music and music theories of whites from German-speaking lands of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early-twentieth centuries represent the pinnacle of music-theoretical thought.

3. The institutions and structures of music theory have little or nothing to do with race or whiteness, and that to critically examine race and whiteness in music theory would be inappropriate or unfair.

4. The best scholarship in music theory rises to the top of the field in meritocratic fashion, irrespective of the author’s race.

5. The language of “diversity” and “inclusivity” and the actions it effects will rectify racial disparities, and therefore racial injustices, in music theory.

Ewell writes, “We have not yet begun the conversation on how we can begin to deframe what sociologist Joe Feagin calls America’s white racial frame, because we in music theory have yet to comprehend its very existence.”

Heinrich Schenker

Ewell has said on several occasions that his original focus, in 2019, on the music theorist Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935) in his SMT plenary talk and paper was blown out of proportion by his adversaries. Elsewhere, he has said Schenker was “a straw man” in the JSS incident and that his work is “not about Schenker.”

Still, Ewell devotes a large portion of his plenary paper to Schenker, writing that Schenker “in many ways represents our shared model of what it means to be a music theorist. If Beethoven is our exemplar of a music composer, Schenker is our exemplar of a music theorist.” A full section of the plenary paper is titled “Schenkerian Theory as a Racialized Structure of the White Racial Frame”, in which Ewell states and comments upon Schenker’s views at length. He has also commented extensively on the JSS incident and the significance of Schenker’s work throughout the field of American music theory and in the formation of music schools and conservatories in the United States.

Schenker believed in the inequality of all peoples and nations, but it is his racism, Ewell says, that is most relevant to music theory’s white frame. Among all races, Schenker had the lowest opinion of blacks — in Ewell’s words, “there exists an anti-black racism to Schenker’s work”. Schenker states blacks are not capable of creating the “background” necessary for transformation into the “foreground”; only white Germans are. (These terms have special meanings in Schenker’s theory that will not be covered here; they correspond roughly to “innermost” or “deepest” and “outermost” or “surface”.) Schenker’s theory is actually not music theory, but rather a theory of genius, or of mastery in music. Since it is only the genius who can penetrate to the “background” layers of music, the theory has no application to the works of the non-genius, and thus not to black people.

Schenker was also a white-supremacist who opposed inter-racial marriage. He disliked the Versaille Treaty (the treaty that ended World War I) because it left Senegalese people stationed in Germany. Though Schenker was not the first to suggest there were hierarchies in music, he was the first to suggest these reflected hierarchies in human races. He associated genius with whiteness and glorified whiteness at the expense of nonwhiteness. Ewell quotes Schenker writing in praise of Adolf Hitler.

Schenker’s racism and racist writings have been suppressed, or “whitewashed”, by whites as unimportant, in order to keep in place racialized systems. For instance, Ewell notes that some have tried to call Schenker’s racism cultural, instead of biological, in order to shield Schenker from criticism. But Schenker’s homoerotic preoccupation with the black male body supports the view that his racism was biological, not cultural. Ewell quotes a handful of authors who have advocated on Schenker’s behalf, stating these authors say it is “unfair” to study Schenker from a racial standpoint. These authors are themselves examples of the white racial frame. Ewell points out that the only option apparently “off the table” in academic scholarship is to be honest and to call Shenker a “zealous racist” and “fervent German nationalist.”

The United States is the country most responsible for advancing Schenker’s ideas, since they mirror America’s own views on race; as heard in the film above, Ewell advances the possibility that Schenker’s music theory was supported in America precisely because it was racist, during a formative period in American music theory history (the 1920s-30s) when virtually half of America supported the Ku Klux Klan. Carl Schachter, the first English-language author to call out Schenker’s racism and to use the term specifically, believes Schenker’s views on people affected his music theory and that Schenker intended them to be considered together as one. Martin Eybl has done the most to reframe Schenker’s racism, stating Schenker’s work is not “ideologically self-sufficient” (cannot be separated from his racism). Eybel also pointed out the Nazi implications of Schenker’s prose and his belief that Germanism is the best conditioning for genius, but Ewell believes Eybel “fell short” in not believing those beliefs penetrated Schenker’s music theory.

Ewell wishes to “rigorously examine to what extent Schenker’s views on race align with his views on music.” Specifically, he wishes to recouple Schenker’s hierarchical beliefs about music and about people and races, in part because Schenker himself would want and support this. A starting point is Schenker’s training in, and views on, law, specifically “natural law”, which generally hold that individuals, nations and peoples are not equal, and neither are musical tones. None of these entities have “equal rights.” The idea that blacks must be governed by whites is mirrored in the idea that certain musical tones and structures must be governed by others. It is unclear which influenced which, but they are inseparable. Ewell admits that linking of Schenker’s racism with his music theories is speculative, and that this his own interpretation, but states they at least “belong together”, and that it no longer possible to separate Schenker’s racism from his music theories.

Schenker is only one of many racist music theorists who form part of an unexamined racist narrative of the West and should be explored similarly. As other examples he cites Hugo Riemann, Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Frangois-Joseph Fétis, and the Enlightenment itself, as it “subsumed racist ideas under the rubric of humanistic discourse.” Wagner is another example of a racist, though he was not a music theorist. In any case, among theorists, Schenker appears to have had the greatest impact on academic music theory; several undergraduate music theory textbooks draw significantly on Schenker, and thus from the very beginning, theorists teach Schenkerian thought.

We must acknowledge the existence of the white racial frame that has shaped everything in music theory and benefits whites and whiteness at the expense of nonwhites and nonwhiteness. The only way to improve our situation is frank conversations about race, racism, whiteness, white privilege, and white supremacy, using antiracist ideas, or those derived from Critical Race Theory. Everyone must be prepared to make fundamental antiracist changes in our structures and institutions.

Segregationism, Assimilationism, and Antiracism

Borrowing from Ibrahm Kendi, Ewell cites three main positions with respect to race in the United States from the nineteenth century up until the present time. As defined by Ewell, segregationism is the belief that some races or groups are permanently inferior, can never be developed, and that the only solution is to keep such races or groups separate from others; assimilationism, which replaced segregationism as the “official” white policy after the civil rights events of the 1960s, is the view that some races or groups are inferior and must be helped, enriched, or “raised up” to the standard of the dominant group, typically positioned to be white people; antiracism is the belief that all groups and races are equal, that nothing is wrong with any race or group, and that no group must be enriched or developed.

Ewell is committed to antiracism as the only acceptable option among these.

Ewell adds another term: Colorblindness, or colorblind racism, is the insistence that race is not involved in a given problem, topic or situation, that race should not be discussed but rather, essentially, ignored. Ewell views colorblindness as a form of assimilationism and, hence, terms it colorblind racism. Colorblind racism was and is the dominant form of racism through most of the 20th century up to and including the present time, at least among whites. It is “coverup”, and is deficient in addressing the problems of systemic racism.

To each of the three main positions, there corresponds a form of policy to implement; Ewell, being antiracist, believes there is no such thing as race-neutral policy; all policies either enforce racial equity or racial inequity. The way to dismantle systemic racism is to implement antiracist policies. These are derived by reversing every aspect of the racist policies. Accordingly, music theory’s white racial frame is not a problem to be solved, but a system to be dismantled, as Critical Theory advocates.

Most whites experience racism as prejudice; for blacks, racism is rather systemic or institutionalized. Racialized social systems are equivalent to white supremacy and exist to benefit the dominant race: whites.

Solutionism vs. Looking to the Past

Having realized and acknowledged the white racial frame of music theory, we must not rush to solutions. Ewell offers specific solutions reluctantly, since “solutionism” is itself part of whiteness and therefore part of the problem, by framing the situation as something to be “solved” rather than “dismantled.” The final section of his plenary paper comprises several recommendations. Those recommendations are distributed through this article according to topic and context, they are to be understood as a beginning, not an end.

Of course we should seek solutions to the problems created by our racialized structures, but we must also reframe how we understand race in music theory, which we cannot do if we rush to find solutions to problems we do not yet understand or even acknowledge.

Before discussing exactly how to dismantle the white racial frame of music theory, more racialized structures of the white frame must be discovered and exposed by looking to the past. “Too much work remains in terms of uncovering and exposing the racialized structures of our white frame, and jumping to solutions allows for theorists to not do the difficult antiracist work that we must.”

The “work” of antiracist music theory is to look always and continuously to the past for examples of racism in music theory, to name and expose them in the classroom and in scholarship, presenting their racist ideas along with their music theories.

Naming the Racist Narrative

Borrowing again from Ibram Kendi and also Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Ewell quotes: “an antiracist idea is any idea that suggests the racial groups are equals in all their apparent differences—that there is nothing right or wrong with any racial group.” With Kendi, Ewell believes “racist” is not a slur but a usefully descriptive term, and that the claim of “not racist” neutrality is often a mask for racism. He seeks to return “racist” to its proper use. “It is descriptive, and the only way to undo racism is to consistently identify and describe it—and then dismantle it. The attempt to turn this usefully descriptive term into an almost unusable slur is, of course, designed to do the opposite: to freeze us into inaction.”

Ewell does not suggest that music theorists no longer, for example, teach Schenker, but that they instead adopt an antiracist approach to doing so: specifically, concede that Heinrich Schenker’s racism “deeply suffused” his music theories and present Schenker’s racism alongside his music theories, as Schenker himself would have wanted.

“Only by explicitly naming the thing on which music theory is built can we begin to have the serious discussions we need to have in the field.”

The Society for Music Theory

Over nearly thirty years, efforts by the The Society for Music Theory to increase the numbers of nonwhite members of the SMT have failed. The SMT’s mission statement itself is even exemplary of white privilege:

The Society for Music Theory promotes the development of and engagement with music theory as a scholarly and pedagogical discipline. We construe this discipline broadly as embracing all approaches, from conceptual to practical, and all perspectives, including those of the scholar, listener, composer, performer, teacher, and student. The Society is committed to fostering diversity, inclusivity, and gender equity in the field.

Following the JSS incident covered in Part II, the Society for Music Theory attempted to “cleave itself” from the contributing JSS authors, as though to suggest “it’s just a few bad apples.” Their letter on Ewell’s behalf was included in the section “Summer 2020 Timeline” in Part II. Though Ewell appreciated the acknowledgement, he is unwilling to let SMT claim they do not represent the racist views expressed by many authors of volume 12 of the JSS. To be absolutely clear, the opposite is true: music theory is the authors of JSS volume 12.

Ewell focuses on whiteness, rather than maleness, as the primary problem at SMT – “first things first”. He notes that the SMT’s Committee on the Status of Women still lists gender first in introducing the Committee on Diversity. (It remains the case as of this writing.) “This is the white frame in action since, by spreading our actions out over various marginalized groups, the white frame is able to take the focus off of race and whiteness […]”.

Ewell writes, “Seminars, for featuring 100% white-male music theorists create hostile environments for POC and non-cis men and, especially, non-cis men of color. Such exclusionist seminars give rise to negative psychological and emotional environments for POC and non-cis men, and intimidate and undermine their self-esteem and dignity.”

Ewells recommendations include that The Society for Music Theory could set benchmarks, such as “By 2025 we at SMT vow to make the society minimum 50% non-cis men and minimum 40% [people of color].” Rename SMT’s “Committee on Race and Ethnicity” to the “Committee on Antiracism”, since the word “diversity” has been confusing and ineffective. (The change has not been made as of this writing.) Examine music theory from a critical-race perspective. Convene antiracist music theory conferences, or sessions at existing conference, to examine music theory using Critical Race Theory. Offer awards for antiracist music-theory or Critical Race Theory scholarship. Invite an antiracist to speak at music theory conference, considering even individuals not involved with music theory or music. Ibram Kendi’s Antiracist Research and Policy Center in the U.S. at American University could be a model for SMT’s committee for such changes.

DEI vs. Antiracism

The distinction between “diversity, equity and inclusivity” (“DEI”) and antiracism was introduced in Part II. With many Critical Theorists, Ewell believes not only that DEI is inadequate to address systemic racism in music theory, but that it poses a deeper problem: Ewell refers to “diversity” as a “managerial neoliberal term” that represents the corporatization of the university and is a sign of lack of commitment to any meaningful change. The language of DEI avoids terms such as “race” and “whiteness” in order to avoid discussing racism, whiteness, white privilege, and white supremacy. DEI therefore is a mask for colorblind racism, amounts to an assimilationist view, and is inferior to antiracism. DEI can be generally good, but it can sometimes be bad, since it avoids the real problems and the most difficult work. Ewell supports both, but he believes antiracism is much better, since it is far more “threatening” to the white racial frame of music theory.

As an example, he refers to the sudden recent interest of the music of black female composer Florence Price. Price was nearly unknown until a 2018 article by Alex Ross in The New Yorker. Her music is now being played and discussed throughout in the United States, as though to make up for the historic omission. Ewell points out that it was only because a white music critic wrote about Price that her music came to such public attention; a black writer would not have received such attention on Price’s behalf. Meanwhile, the question of why Price’s music was unknown and unplayed for so many decades remains unaddressed — an example of the problem with DEI. The antiracist work that remains involves investigating the historic reasons for the neglect of Price’s music, bringing this “nasty story” into view, and inciting a public conversation with the goal of collective understanding and acknowledgement of the historic, systemic racism and sexism that prevented her music from proper recognition.

In the following short film, Ewell provides several more examples of the difference between DEI and antiracism and their potential implementations in academic music.

Getting More People of Color Into Music Theory

There are so few non-white people in music theory because the music theory community is unwilling to acknowledge its white racial frame. Acknowledge that “qualified, music theoretically inclined” non-whites often leave the field, especially for musicology and ethnomusicology. Welcome such persons back to music theory, ask why they left music theory and what we could be done in the future to encourage nonwhites to come to or remain. Anonymous surveys could also be useful to “garner participation” from those who have left music theory.

With this and similar antiracist action, both institutional and structural, the number of non-white music theory students would rise “naturally and organically.”

Textbooks and Course Requirements

Ewell’s analysis of the seven most-used music theory textbooks in America shows that the compositions used are written by white persons overwhelmingly. Steven Foster’s music is especially problematic due to the racist lyrics in many of his songs. Ewell refers to Alex Ross’s article on Florence Price that terms reliance on white composers “lazy.” But merely stocking music theory textbooks with examples by black composers (Chevalier Saint-Georges, William Grant Still, Scott Joplin) is insufficient, “since tonal harmony itself is white.” This just reinforces the white racial frame.

The antiracist solution is to restructure the entire music theory curricula to require music theories and theorists of Asia, Africa, and other countries in the Americas. As examples, Ewell lists a number of music theorists whose work could be added. (All composers and music theorists Ewell recommends as new and under-represented voices in the field, along with resources for discovering the work of each, will be provided as an appendix to this six-part article following the final section, in August 2023.)  As in the short film on his views about SMT, he predicts these names will be objectionable to the academic music theory establishment, however, since they would be considered “not music theorists.” He also anticipates the allegation of “dumbing down” or “lowering the standards” music theory. But he calls such objections “coded racist language.” “Lowering of standards” for example, is a “euphemism for ‘becoming less white.'”

Thus, it is required not just to include previously disregarded theorists, but to redefine — reframe — the whole field so that topics or ideas not previously considered music theory become so, and, in the process, to dismantle the framing of music theory in whiteness and maleness.

Specific recommendations (again only as a starting point) include reducing four-semester undergraduate music-theory sequences that focus solely on western theory to two-semester sequences, clearing a path for two new semesters of nonwestern, nonwhite music-theory classes. Remove any white supremacist songs, such as many of those by Stephen Foster, from music theory textbooks, and be mindful of other such controversial figures. Do so in public fashion by announcing and explaining the reason for the decision.

Beethoven

Other than the JSS incident summarized in Part II, Ewell has probably received the most attention in mainstream media for the fourth of his six-part blog, titled “Beethoven Was an Above Average Composer—Let’s Leave It at That.” Here, Ewell identifies problematic terms such as “great,” “genius,” and “master,” commonly used in reference to composers such as Beethoven. These terms are euphemisms for whiteness and maleness. Quoting Amanda Hess, Ewell notes how such words are used to excuse misconduct by white males, often in situations harming females and nonwhites, citing the case of conductor James Levine. The myth of genius, and the use of this and similar words, involve “general dangers.”

However, just avoiding the words is not enough. Whether or not one agrees that words like “great” or “genius” are problematic for the reasons described above, it is incorrect to believe Beethoven or his music was or is what is meant by any of them. “To state that Beethoven was any more than, say, above average as a composer is to state that you know all music written on planet earth 200 years ago when Beethoven was active as a composer, which no one does. Beethoven occupies the place he does because he has been propped up by whiteness and maleness for two hundred years, and we have been told by whiteness and maleness that his greatness has nothing to do with whiteness and maleness, in race-neutral and gender-neutral fashion.”

What is “really being said” when Beethoven is called a master or genius is that Beethoven is revered, and his music considered great, because he was white and male. Ewell does not specify to what extent Beethoven’s popularity rests on his race and gender, how much can be accounted for in intrinsic musical or other value, or whether it is possible to separate these. But there is at least enough of a problem here that Ewell, quoting Sara Ahmed, wants to “challenge the selection of materials” in music curricula — that is, to advocate for displacing the study of some composers with the study of others, chosen for being non-white or non-cis-gender male.

Ewell does not specify what characterizes an “average” composer, but he does seem to concede that whatever does, Beethoven is above it. Only by a small amount, though: “anything more is to dismiss 99.9% of the world’s music written 200+ years ago, which would be unscholarly, and academically irresponsible.”

“Genius”, and other Problematic Terms

To be exact, the problem is not Beethoven himself, but that he has been “propped up by the white-male frame, both consciously and subconsciously, with descriptors such as genius, master, and masterwork.”

Ewell lists several other euphemisms for white or whiteness: Authentic, canonic, civilized, classic(s), conventional, core (as used in “core” requirements of academia), European, function (as used in “functional” tonality), fundamental (as used in acoustics and elsewhere), German, great, maestro, opus, piano, seminal, sophisticated, titan(ic), towering, traditional, western, and terms such as “the long nineteenth century” and “fin de siècle.” These terms hide and distract from the whiteness underneath in order to hide the effect of that whiteness on music theory. The Gregorian calendar is similarly problematic: “no one can deny the racial element behind how the world now understands the linear and cyclic nature of time.”

The Canon

Ewell refers in his plenary paper to The College of Music Society’s 2014 report, “Music Study from Its Foundations: A Manifesto for Progressive Change in the Undergraduate Preparation of Music Majors“. Though this document, known colloquially as “The CMS Manifesto,” sparked important conversations, it lacked the antiracist and Critical Race Theory analysis that is essential to dismantle the canon.

The “Western canon”, as it is known in classical music, is an outgrowth of “Western Civilization”, which is itself a mythology devised by white people in the nineteenth century in order to consolidate whiteness and power. Its antecedents are the idea of Europe, the Holy Roman Empire, and ultimately Christianity.

Most of Ewell’s additional remarks about the canon are to be found in his talks and symposia:

Whitewashing

In the section on Heinrich Schenker in his plenary paper, Ewell notes Schenker’s racist views “presented a dilemma for those who edited and promoted Schenker’s works and translated them into English. To solve the problem, Schenker’s offensive writings were simply cast aside as unimportant, or whitewashed for general consumption.”

Ewell quotes sociologist Joe Feagin writing that whitewashing is a general practice, “most especially today” that has “shoved aside, ignored, or treated as incidental numerous racial issues, including the realities of persisting racial discrimination and racial inequality.”

Ewell’s further remarks on whitewashing are in his talks and symposia, where he addresses the question of how to “deal with the beautiful artistry of so-called ‘monstrous men'”.

Language Requirements

The requirement to be able to translate into English two or more core, which is to say white, languages (Ancient Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and German) “is a racist policy born of the racist idea that white persons are superior to people of color.”

The antiracist solution is to reverse this policy so that any language — including sign language and computer languages, for instance — is acceptable, with the exception of Ancient Greek, Latin, Italian, French, or German, which will only be allowed by special dispensation. If this solution is “too difficult”, a compromise is to eliminate foreign-language requirements entirely.

The 1855 Project

The start date for academic music theory in the United States is, in the current standard view (Ewell cites Oxford Music Online), understood to be 1960. Ewell proposes moving this date, both for the United States and Europe, to 1855, the year Arthur de Gobineau published his “Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races.” The work was influential on the Nazis, as it was upon musicologist François-Joseph Fétis, Richard Wagner, and Heinrich Schenker. Music theory in the United States actually began with the 19th Century “intensification of a fallacious race science”

Everyone Benefits

At every publicly available talk and symposium, Ewell emphasizes that everyone benefits from the work of antiracism in music theory. White persons are themselves “collateral damage” of white supremacy. “They are suffering, too.” As Ewell remarks in the above film about Beethoven, keeping such “canonical” figures in position of such elevated estimation places “an enormous burden” on white people. This will all “go away if we can some emancipate ourselves from the many, many mythologies of Western, […] white male greatness.”

In the last part of is his six-part blog post, entitled “Music Theory’s Future,” Ewell writes, “White persons, especially white men, bear an enormous unnecessary burden in sustaining the many myths of whiteness and maleness in music theory.”

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This concludes the summary of Philip Ewell’s work.

Afterword

For almost any musician or other person who does not share in some portion, or any, of these values and aspirations, powerful feelings can emerge. The urge to think or write up rebuttals, instigate debate, and construct counterarguments and refutations, can be overwhelming. However, that temptation must, at all costs, be suspended, or at least kept private for the moment. Transforming and redirecting those impulses into actionable ideas will be the main topic in Part V of this article, but readers may in the meantime revisit the actions of the Journal of Schenkerian Studies authors covered in Part II to begin recognizing the damaging consequences, on both sides, of reacting in this way to Philip Ewell or to Critical Theory in general.

Part IV examines how Critical Theory operates in the presentation and remarkable propagation of Ewell’s ideas summarized here.

In the meantime, the reader is encouraged to review these materials as much as possible, follow links to all original sources and, all related authors, all institutions that hosted the events or published works described here, and all individuals associated with them.

Most of all, make an honest effort to understand Ewell’s point of view, with compassion and with consideration for his humanity.

> Part 4: Deer Whiteness and Maleness

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Sources

“Confronting Racism and Sexism in American Music Theory“, six-part blog post (2020)

“Music Theory’s White Racial Frame“, Society for Music Theory plenary talk (2019)

“Music Theory and the White Racial Frame“, published by the the Society for Music Theory (2019)

“White Stories, Black Histories, and Desegregating the Music Curriculum“, Emory University CMBC (Center for Brain, Mind and Culture) Lecture, with host Laura Emmery. Co-sponsored by the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture, the Hightower Fund, The Department of Philosophy, the Department of Film and Media, and the Department of German

“Decolonising Music Education“, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Festival of Ideas 2022

“Philip Ewell Talk” The Faculty of Music Anti-Racism Alliance (FoMARA) at the University of Toronto

“Musical Metaphor as a Racialized Structure“, keynote speech, THEORIZING MUSIC THEORY, Jade Conlee, moderator. Part of Naming, Understanding, and Playing with Metaphors in Music, a virtual symposium organized by the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) PEER Lab & Durham University Music Department (2022)

“How We Got Here, Where To Next: Examining Assimilationism in American Music Studies“”, UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. Part of the “Still Waiting” Speaker Series, then ARAC, now the The Anti-Racism Anti-Discrimination Committee (ARAD)

“Urban U” “feature; “‘Urban U’ is a CUNY-TV magazine show about CUNY students, faculty, alumni, and programs. The stories highlight the quality and rewards of a CUNY education, one that enables people to achieve great things.” (2020)

“Race Talks: Dr. Philip Ewell“, Interdisciplinary Virtual Colloquium Series, Texas A&M University Performance Studies

“Polarization in Music Theory“, Conversation with Philip Ewell, moderated by Wolfgang Marx; from “Post-Truth and the Musical Humanities,” organized by Wolfgang Marx and Alexandra Monchick.

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