July 26 marks the 34th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was enacted in 1990 to establish a “clear and comprehensive prohibition on discrimination on the basis of disability.”
More than a quarter of Americans live with some kind of disability, and the changes introduced by the ADA helped to transform how people with disabilities interact with social life and how Americans view disability itself. It was a civil rights issue from the beginning.
While the ADA has had far-reaching effects, it was not a magic wand. Issues of opportunity and access continue to create even greater obstacles for people with disabilities to overcome. This is particularly true in the field of classical music, where the barriers for musicians with disabilities remain severe, noticeable, and rarely confronted.
The Kennedy Center’s anniversary weekend programming aims to address the complex relationship between classical music and disability by highlighting the talents of musicians with disabilities. On the morning of July 26, the Library of Congress’ National Library Service for the Blind will hold a presentation on music resources and adaptive techniques for musicians who are blind or have low vision at the Reach Center. That evening, violinist Adrian Anantawan will perform a Millennium Stage recital in celebration of the ADA’s anniversary.
The highlight of the weekend will be an evening concert on July 27, hosted by the Kennedy Center’s Office of Accessibility and VSA (formerly Very Special Arts), honoring and performing four recipients of the 2024 Access/VSA International Young Musician Award: violinist Julia Ragland, vocalist and guitarist Tia-Ning LaFleur, pianist Cheuk Him “Anson” Tan and ukuleleist Kapono Wong.
The four musicians will participate in this year’s VSA International Young Musicians Program, which is open to musicians from the U.S. and abroad ages 14 to 25 and offers a cash prize of $2,000 as well as performance and professional development opportunities at the Kennedy Center.
While the program attracts many young classical musicians, it welcomes musicians of all genres. “In the program’s 40-year history, we have seen musicians from a variety of genres participate, including jazz, gospel, world music, bluegrass and barbershop quartets,” Winsor Taylor, VSA’s program director, said in an email.
Anantawan, a violinist who was born with limb disabilities and uses an adaptive bow, graduated from the VSA program in 2002 and serves as a mentor in the program. Anantawan credits his experience more than 20 years ago as a major stepping stone to his wide-ranging career as a performer and educator. The experience introduced him to an ecosystem of disabled musicians he never would have imagined, and made him aware of his place in classical music, particularly its tradition of disruption.
“When you think about great advances, especially in classical music, it happens because someone thought about things in a totally unique and different way,” he said in a Zoom interview. “What was then an aspect of risk and change is now something that we choose to preserve as a relic of pure beauty. The disability experience associated with classical music is so iconic because it’s all about adaptation.”
Ragland, 20, is a violinist and disability rights advocate from Grand Rapids, Michigan, who has just completed her first year at the New England Conservatory and is preparing to enroll in Harvard University’s dual music program. The sister of a professional musician, she was motivated to start playing an instrument early on and quickly fell in love with the violin.
“Growing up, I was always conscious of my visual impairment to some degree,” she said in a conversation over Zoom, “but I never felt like it was a challenge for me musically. It wasn’t until I got to high school that I became more conscious of disabilities in general and how they are perceived by others. That really changed the way I thought about what I wanted to do with my music.”
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, as a high school sophomore, Ragland began to seek out spaces that would cater to her needs as a musician, and to develop the ability to speak about and address her own needs. Her advocacy has focused on the needs of musicians with disabilities, as well as the perception surrounding them.
“I think there are two distinct issues of perception,” she says. “In general, there isn’t a lot of information about the capabilities of disabled people. I think it’s really important to understand disabled people as capable. In the course of my research, I have interacted with people who, to varying degrees, were concerned that my disability would prevent me from having a fulfilling career in classical music. While able-bodied people may not understand exactly how a blind person operates a particular system, it’s important for them to understand that they do.”
For Ragland, mastering the violin repertoire has involved a combination of her own music notation, Braille music, a computer-assisted reading system, and learning by ear.
“The second issue of perception is how classical music is performed,” Ragland says. “For me, something that strikes me so often is the dominance of visual notation. There are so many ways to access notation, but often people don’t understand this, or they fundamentally believe there is some notation I’m missing, or that my way of accessing notation is insufficient to put me on par with my peers. This is a difficult perception to unravel. It has nothing to do with my abilities as a disabled person, but with how they view classical music as fundamentally tied to visual notation.”
Tan, a 26-year-old pianist who moved to London via Hong Kong, has used a wheelchair since he was a child. By age four he was playing on his family’s piano, by age six he was taking formal lessons, and by age eight his schoolteacher helped him build adaptive foot pedals, which he still uses in his performances.
After winning a prestigious scholarship from the Hong Kong Arts Association for Persons with Disabilities in 2014, Tan studied under Hong Kong Sinfonietta’s principal keyboardist Alan Chew. He is currently completing his degree at the Royal College of Music in London, where he will become the first wheelchair user to join the school’s keyboard faculty.
“There aren’t many opportunities for musicians with disabilities to perform,” he says. “Many music festivals don’t have enough accessibility, so I think this program is very important. We can learn more, but we also get a platform to showcase our talent and change the audience’s perception.”
From every perspective, increasing access and opportunities for musicians with disabilities is sure to help open the doors of the concert hall to new audiences.
“Somehow, the story of craftsmanship and perfection [in classical music] “There has to be a certain amount of vulnerability,” Anantawan says. “Understanding that we’re not perfect not only broadens access to classical music, but it also allows our stories to resonate with more people who aren’t perfect either.”
2024 Access/VSA International Young Musician Prize Laureates Concert, July 27, 6 p.m., Kennedy Center Millennium Stage. kennedy-center.org