In The Second Installment

In the second installment of our series Classical Music in Black and White, marking Black History Month, reporter Steve Mencher profiles African American conductor Dean Dixon. Born in 1915 in Harlem, Dixon won a fellowship to Juilliard when he was 20. After several years of trying and failing to find a permanent position with an American orchestra, Dixon left the United States in 1949 and found a successful and lucrative career in Europe and Australia. Was the bias against him in the U.S. because his skin was black, or was it because American orchestral managements preferred European conductors and their innate feel for the popular repertoire of the period? Even contemporary African-American conductors are divided on this issue.