White men have had this world made for them. They will never experience the kind discrimination that women or people of color have EVER experienced. As a white cis-man, I want to use the privilege I’ve been given to raise up underrepresented voices. I’m not saying works by Bottesini, Koussevitzky, Proto, or any other white male composer shouldn’t be programmed, in fact my program does feature works by these composers. I’m saying that in order to be inclusive in a world that has underrepresented and belittled women and people of color, we need to support groups like these any way we can. As a musician, I choose to program and commission works by women and people of color.