Macon Magazine

only few have the talent and resolve for. While there can be a dozen violinists onstage in a given performance, there is only one conductor. Then, consider less than four percent of US conductors in that rarified group are of color. The League of American Orchestras acknowledges that this is due to a long and documented history of systemic racism, saying in a 2020 statement, "The impacts of our actions have included the loss of valuable musical and other creative contributions by generations of Black people, the disenfranchisement of fellow Americans, and redirected career trajectories, all resulting in fewer people engaging with the musical culture we all share and love. This ultimately diminishes the vibrancy of the art form and, therefore, undermines the orchestral experience for everyone." But Cox is not discouraged in his own sentiments on how race impacts his journey as a conductor. "Anytime I go to work with an orchestra, I don't approach it as someone Black looking into white culture," he said. "I may look at it as an American trying to approach German music to see how I can best conduct and serve the music. It's not a matter of thinking we need this many Black or white people doing what we do, but the fact we're all part of a global society intersecting and learning about one another. It's more of a cultural exchange." This worldly attitude is reflected in Cox's move to Germany, the birthplace of so much classical music. He did it for his art and to help him be the best conductor possible. Berlin has the unusually high number of four orchestras and three opera houses, and Cox said on a recent evening attending a performance, he ran into no less than one well- known conductor and six musicians. "Seeing and talking with them that way is not likely to happen elsewhere," he said. Plus, it's easier to travel. "Next year I'll find myself back in London, France, Norway, Spain and other countries. It just works better." But still, an NBC News feature called Cox an "African- American conductor making noise in (a) white-dominated field." Cox said he believes for the sake of all people and classical music itself that the industry must be more diverse. He said the best he can do to promote that is to be his best. And he is doing more. While in Minnesota, Cox and others began the Roderick Cox Music Initiative, which provides scholarships for young musicians of color from underrepresented communities, allowing them to pay for instruments, music lessons and camps. Not so dissimilar, Cox said, from what he saw and experienced with the Otis Redding Foundation. The initiative and sentiment behind it were factors in Cox saying yes to the seven-year-long film project resulting in Conducting Life. • • • IN CONDUCTING LIFE, COX STEPS UP TO PODIUMS AND TO LIFE OFFERING A GLIMPSE OF HOW HE GOT THERE AND WHAT MIGHT FOLLOW. "I never wanted this to be a vanity project praising me or making me special as someone who overcame adversity. There are others who face greater adversity to become the special human beings they are. But in light of the Cox Initiative, I believed it could tell the story and inspire others to aspire to an elusive profession. If we've done that, we've done our work." – Roderick Cox • • • F ilmmaker Diane Moore directed and produced Conducting Life and currently resides in Aspen. Frequently present at Aspen concerts, she said she had long wanted to do a film with a festival student-performer. "Listening to Roderick's story in 2013, hearing about his childhood and the struggles his family faced, the absence of his father and the many obstacles he personally met growing up – I knew I had found a story I wanted to tell," Moore said. "It was a story containing more than what I originally had in mind, and I was captivated by how thoughtful, articulate and passionate Roderick is. He is very confident, can be terribly funny, but he's also quite humble and shy. I wanted to follow a long-term trajectory of his life and film over a period of at least seven years. He was a perfect partner for the film." AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2022 | maconmagazine.com 51

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