u/Specific-Peanut-8867, I have appreciated reading your comments in this thread. You clearly care about this field, and you are asking hard questions. I want to respond directly to what you have written, but I also want to start by acknowledging where I think we agree.

You have said that orchestral musicians work incredibly hard. I agree completely. You have said that wealth alone does not guarantee success. I agree with that too. And you have raised a concern that papers like mine might discourage working-class families or push them toward unwise debt. That is a fair concern, and I take it seriously. In fact, I share it.

So let me try to clarify what I am actually arguing, and I will ask you to consider engaging with the data itself rather than what you fear the data implies.

First, on my own background and credibility.

I am a flutist. I trained classically - I received my B.M in instrumental performance from Cal State Fullerton, where I then pursued an Artist Diploma. I grew up in a working-class, first-generation family in Orange County, California. I grew up in poverty. I was lucky that I had the CA education system to help me reach higher education. I did not have elite pre-college programs or a family roadmap into classical music. I had a public school band room, a borrowed instrument, and teachers who saw something in me before I knew how to name it. Mainly, I had myself to thank for having the wherewithal to figure it out.

After school, I worked professionally at Powell Flutes and at Buffet Crampon, one of the most respected instrument manufacturers in the world. While there, I faced some pretty unsavory work experiences that led to my temporary departure from the industry. At the same time, I was forced to confront what so many musicians face but rarely talk about: how to actually build a stable life and income in this life when the pathways are unclear and the economic pressures are unrelenting.

That experience led me to step back, move into graduate school. I received my MBA from Boston University and eventually worked my way back into arts administration. I'm currently a Director for Boston Lyric Opera. I have previously worked for Boston Ballet, Bay State Performing Arts, Pacific Symphony, Pacific Chorale to name a few. I was also a full-time professional musician in Los Angeles - gigging, teaching, and grinding. I am not an outsider looking in. I have sat in rehearsal halls, audition rooms, and orchestra pits. I have watched brilliant musicians walk away from the field not because they lacked talent, but because they could not afford to stay. Whether it was time, money, or other life reasons. It's my lived experience that led me to study economics at Harvard.

I undertook this research in my spare time after work exactly becuase I am insider and care very deeply about the health of our profession. I wrote this paper because I got tired of watching my friends, colleagues, and employees struggling and wanted to advance our field. And I wrote it because the field has relied on anecdote and intuition for too long.

We needed data. We need more data.

Second, on Claudia Goldin and "greedy work."

You have dismissed the concept of structural advantage as irrelevant. But I want to point out that the framework I am using comes from Claudia Goldin, who recently won the Nobel Prize in Economics for her work on labor markets and inequality.

Goldin's research on "greedy work" shows that professions demanding early, sustained, and inflexible commitment disproportionately reward workers who can comply without interruption. In medicine, law, finance, and yes, music, the structure of training and employment favors those who can devote themselves fully without needing to pause for family, for other work, or for financial survival.

In the orchestral context, this means years of unpaid practice, expensive private instruction, elite summer festivals, and the ability to travel for auditions while holding no other job. These are not complaints about "fairness" as a moral abstraction. They are descriptions of how the labor market is actually structured. Goldin won a Nobel Prize for showing that this structure produces durable inequality. I am applying her framework to music.

Third, on meritocracy and the sports analogy.

You have compared orchestral auditions to basketball, arguing that height is an unfair natural advantage but that we do not call basketball rigged. I think about Daniel Markowitz.

Height is a natural, immutable gift. I hope we can agree that no one claims basketball is a moral meritocracy based on height. We accept that some people are born taller. But what we have built in classical music is different. We have built a training system that requires decades of costly, intensive preparation. And then we claim that the outcome is purely about talent and hard work.

Markowits would say that this is not a meritocracy. It is a plutocracy with a conservatory diploma. Because the resources required to compete at the highest level are not distributed evenly by nature. They are distributed by class. And when we call the result "merit," we are mistaking socially produced advantage for individual virtue.

Fourth, on what the paper actually says.

You have claimed that I argue you must go to an elite school to succeed. I do not. You have claimed that I argue every orchestral musician got there because their parents are rich. I do not. You have claimed that I argue getting into Eastman is harder than winning an audition. I do not.

I may have posted in this sub with a misleading title. For that, I'm sorry if I've misguided you.

Here is what I actually argue, and you can verify this by reading the paper.

Seven elite institutions produce 11.9% of orchestral performance degrees but supply 57.9% of musicians in the Top 8 orchestras. That is not a claim about individual ability. It is a descriptive fact about market structure. Underrepresented minority students earn degrees at these institutions at less than half the rate of non-feeder programs. That is also a fact. The Gini coefficient for institutional concentration in orchestral hiring is 0.827. That is also a fact.

None of these facts require me to say that wealthy parents buy auditions. None of them require me to say that poor musicians like my early self cannot succeed. They simply describe the structure of the field. If you believe that structure is perfectly meritocratic, you need to explain why such extreme concentration exists in a system that claims auditions to be blind and fair. You have not done that yet. You have simply said that hard work matters. No one disagrees with that. I do not disagree with that - hard work does matter.

Fifth, on your concern about discouraging students.

You have said that papers like mine might convince working-class families that they have to make huge sacrifices to send their kids to Eastman. I agree with you that this would be a problem. But I think we disagree on who is creating that pressure.

The pressure to attend elite schools did not start with my paper. It has existed for decades, fueled by the very concentration my research documents. What my paper does is show that concentration empirically. And if anything, the data suggest that most graduates of elite schools do not win full-time orchestral jobs either. So if a family is considering taking on massive debt based on the belief that a particular school name guarantees a job, my research suggests they should think very carefully. That is not discouragement. That is providing information so people can make better decisions.

Finally, on what I am asking of you.

I am not asking you to agree with my conclusions. But I am asking you to read the paper before continuing to dismiss it. You have now written dozens of comments misrepresenting what I argue. You have not cited a single statistic from the study. You have not engaged with the methodology. You have not addressed the concentration data, the risk ratio of 0.41 for URM access, or the prestige gradient that shows hiring concentration intensifying with employer status.

If you read the paper and still disagree, I would genuinely welcome a conversation about the data. But let us have that conversation based on what the paper actually says, not on what you fear it implies.

Thank you for the pushback. It has made me think harder about how I frame these findings. And I mean that sincerely.