Tulsa Opera stands up to composer Daniel Bernard Roumain—and its concert commemorating the city’s massacre shines in his absence.
Composer Daniel Bernard Roumain has made a good career leveraging his skin color. He writes pieces with titles like “i am a white person who ____ Black people.” He argues that orchestras should “focus on BLACK artists exclusively” (capitalization in the original). He has solicited funding for a work written “EXCLUSIVELY for BIPOC [black, indigenous, and people of color] members of ANY orchestra.”


Imagine for a moment that you’re a parent in New York City who is paying $55,000 per year to send your child to first-grade classes at the exclusive Dalton preparatory school. Then try to imagine your reaction after your little tyke comes home one afternoon and tells you all about a “special” class they attended that day providing information about “touching yourself” in particular ways, followed by 







