Chris Jenkins has served as the Associate Dean for Academic Support for Oberlin Conservatory since 2016. This year, he will receive his D.M.A. in viola performance and Ph.D. in Musicology with a focus on African American musical aesthetics. Jenkins is the author of Assimilation v. Integration in Music Education (2024) and co-founder and co-organizer of the Theorizing African American Music conference. This April, Dean of the Conservatory William Quillen announced Jenkins will be stepping down from his positions at Oberlin at the end of this academic year. In July, Jenkins will assume the role of dean of the conservatory of music at Lawrence University. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What are you most proud of during your time at Oberlin? 

I’m definitely happy to have created some interesting new courses and to be involved in the creation of the African American Music minor. I created two courses in the Musicology Department — MHST 333: The Racial Politics of Classical Music and MUSY 223: Hip-Hop History and Analysis. I’m hopeful that it’ll be possible to hire other folks to teach them once I leave.

I’m most proud of the work I have been able to do one-on-one with students. This is the most meaningful work for me, and I know there are a handful of students over the past 10 years who would not have graduated if we had not worked together. That, to me, is more important than any course or program. 

You’ve written on assimilation and integration in music education. Briefly, what’s the difference?

The message of that book emerged from many conversations I had over many years with students of color at Oberlin. The current practice of music education compels, to varying degrees, cultural assimilation for students of color — this is the case for any educational system, but its cultural nature is more explicit in music education because music is undeniably a cultural product. An extension of this concept is that the aesthetics of every part of the conservatory environment, not just the music — the design of the concert hall, the dress worn onstage and by the audience, the nature of speaking in class and onstage — are culturally limited such that students must assimilate into them in order to be academically and musically successful. An integrative approach would involve a synthesis of cultural elements; a more incisive version of “integration” is “transculturation,” or the creation of a totally new culture.

Transculturation is a term used by the Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz, and it refers to cultural synthesis under conditions of unequal power dynamics, which is usually the case. There are some examples of transculturative Western classical groups that take some fundamental aspects of Western classical music and merge them with traditional music from their own heritage. There’s a group called Interwoven, which does this with various types of Asian music and an Iranian group in Los Angeles, the Iranshahr Orchestra. I used to play in the Soulful Symphony in Baltimore — full jazz band, full symphony orchestra, and full gospel choir onstage at once. Those are examples of how the structures and forms that we’re accustomed to — literal ensemble structures — can be repurposed. They don’t have to be dedicated to the specific aesthetic style to which we’re accustomed. The instruments can still be used to produce different kinds of music, even for those who are trained in a classical style. 

You have talked about your journey to understanding what white supremacy means in classical music. Can you talk about that journey?

So many of the ideas present in my writing now have come out of my interactions with students. When I first came to Oberlin in 2014, “white supremacy” wasn’t yet something we talked about often in reference to classical music; the first time I heard this reference was from a student. I had been working with other African American string players for many years, but even in that environment, no one yet used that term; we were from a different generation. It took me a while to understand what students meant when they declared that “music theory was racist” or that “the Conservatory was a bastion of white supremacy.” Now we have much more sophisticated vocabulary; music theorist Philip Ewell has written about the white racial frame of music theory, which is a much more specific and effective description. Developing vocabulary is crucial in identifying the racial elements of conservatory education and communicating in a way everyone can understand. I still have Black colleagues who hesitate to embrace this vocabulary, so I don’t push them unless they’re ready.

You cite the orchestral hierarchy as a continuation of white supremacy. How should we revise or replace it?

I would revise those comments to emphasize that the orchestra’s structure is representative of certain ideas about ideal political structures, social autonomy, and class relationships. It’s critical to understand that the nature of Western classical music training, in the U.S. and the U.K. at least, is rooted in class identity.

The vast majority of people who pursue this training are not going to become classical musicians. Its implicit purpose is to reinforce normative behavior that helps students become productive members of the upper middle class. One learns how to function in small-group work, be it a section or a chamber group; how to follow rules and regulations of tempo, dynamics, and self-presentation; and how to find within oneself the emotional motivation to follow the commands of another. The best description for this is “expressive conformity.” One learns to enhance a particular type of musically and socially acceptable emotional response. This training is less about exceptional creativity and emotional dynamism than about creating productive members of the upper middle class, suitable for white-collar jobs. 

So, it’s less that there is a straight line between white supremacy and the structure of the orchestra than that our musical training for young people is generally designed to condition them to embrace a system of political economy characterized by white supremacy to begin with. The question to ask is what system of political economy do we want to reinforce, especially if it is not the one we inhabit? How might any type of cultural education be designed to reflect the values of creativity and individuality? 

You lived in Palestine after graduate school. What was that experience like and what did you learn there?

It was certainly an amazing and impactful experience for me. For four years after I came to Oberlin, I brought Oberlin students on a Winter Term trip to Jordan, which borders the West Bank, to perform and teach. That social and physical space is similar to where I lived in the West Bank. Those students have told me that this experience was extremely impactful for them.

Other than that, what I will say about it is that I arrived there with a very conventional American perspective, and for anyone living in that physical space it becomes very clear very quickly, that the mainstream American narrative is exceedingly underinformed. Beyond that, this is a topic I do not address because I’m sensitive to the strong feelings held by so many members of our community on this issue, and because there has never been a moment when I sensed it would be maximally productive for me to address it, or that audiences would be able to hear and understand me. Perhaps that will change in the future.

What are your plans after Oberlin?

I hope to bring the lessons I’ve learned from Oberlin to Lawrence University Conservatory of Music and to transition into a different type of work at a higher level of leadership. I intend to remain committed to improving the musical, academic, and social experience for students there — and I intend to continue performing and writing about African American classical music and teaching about rap music.