Double-degree fifth-year Jonathan Bruzon is a Salvadoran-Cuban hornist and Mellon Mays Fellow. Like many other students of color, he has faced difficulties within the Conservatory and recalled his first year as particularly arduous.

“I got so many strange looks my [first] year because people were like, ‘You don’t know who Mahler is,’ or some other obscure composer,” Bruzon said. “My imposter phenomenon kicked in, and I’ve been struggling since then. The Conservatory desperately needs more POC musicians, faculty, and staff because we’re so underrepresented.” 

Many Conservatory students come from affluent families and have participated in costly music programs throughout their lives. This creates a culture of common understanding and shared in-group knowledge, which in turn leads those who could not afford pricey programs to hold a warped view of their belonging. Bruzon, along with other POC from low-income communities, are often left questioning their presence within the Conservatory through alienating comments like the one Bruzon received. This has been an enduring feeling among POC in higher education.

“It’s the same thing as when I was in school,” Associate Professor of Horn Jeff Scott said.  “When you go into higher learning, you don’t see many Black or Brown folk in the student and faculty bodies. Not only are there a limited number of POC students, but there are even fewer POC instructors.”

While Scott acknowledges this is applicable to almost every higher education institution, he also recognizes Oberlin does actively try to introduce representation and diversity in different ways, one example being the addition of culturally relevant courses. Associate Dean for Academic Support and Visiting Assistant Professor of Musicology Chris Jenkins, who also acts as liaison to the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, highlighted Oberlin’s efforts to introduce new diverse courses into a traditionally rigid curriculum that has been in place for over a century.

“It is obviously a struggle for many POC students to feel validated in the [Conservatory],” Jenkins wrote in an email to the Review. “The most effective help that I’ve seen yet has to do with our curricular changes — new courses, new professors, and substantive alterations to existing required courses.”

Efforts to make curricula more inclusive also must include bringing in faculty with the ability to teach the content. This cannot be accomplished without sparking resistance from those tied to traditionalist views.

“Particularly when it comes to teaching American music theory, it has to be more inclusive of Latin and African-American contributions, and they may not have studied that,” Scott said. “So they don’t know how to teach it, so they’re more afraid of it than anyone. That means bringing in more professors, cutting the pie a little thinner, because you have to have more professors. When you start talking about cutting the pie more, that means pay raises don’t happen often. It makes people uncomfortable.”

It’s impossible to foster diversity within higher education without making space for POC, which usually comes at the expense of those who have been present within the space since its inception, meaning they have to forgo certain privileges. This causes a shift that many will consider unnecessary or arbitrary; however, establishing POC within the Conservatory is vital to ensure future generations of musicians will be more inclusive of all music and people. While Oberlin has made efforts to move toward this goal, mistakes have been made.

“There was a Black History Month concert where they put a poster out,” Scott said. “It was supposed to be music of all African-American composers being played. The poster was only of the headshots of the six white musicians that were playing the music.”

Mistakes like these are extremely easy to make if there are no POC present to help guide diversity efforts. It is paramount that these efforts are pioneered by everyone, but putting voices of POC at the forefront fortifies their presence within an exclusive community. This includes reshaping what has been established for years to invite input from POC.

“Pedagogy is about telling history, which has to be told in its totality,” Scott said. “The problem with classical music is that it’s very narrow — it’s this one corner of Europe. We tell a story that’s so narrow in its scope, it has nothing to do with the contributions of Latin-American and African-American folks, and so when we call this place a conservatory of music, we’re not really talking about music, we’re talking about European-based music like Mozart or Beethoven.”

Conservatories in general focus on a narrow range of music, casting aside a variety of genres which originate from communities of color. The hyperfocus on this particular music bars students from becoming well-rounded musicians, which does them a disservice.

“Until we accept that this has to be included in the pedagogy, students will grow up lacking it, and so when they get here and you put a rhythm in front of them that doesn’t go like a march, they don’t know how to do it,” Scott said. 

Establishing an inclusive curriculum with current students could open doors for future musicians who would have otherwise not entertained the idea of attending a conservatory.

“I never thought that anyone else in the Conservatory was experiencing what I had experienced until a friend spoke up, and I realized there are so many others,” Bruzon said. “I feel like there is starting to be more support for POC in conservatories, but there is a long way to go.” 

This widespread experience has inspired him to begin researching imposter syndrome among students of color within the Conservatory. Bruzon hopes to give POC a sense of advocacy through his research.

“This research, more than anything, is a way to bring about awareness of, ‘Hey, this is a thing that’s happening,’” Bruzon said. “What are institutions doing to help support their POC students in this regard?’”

According to Luminate and Billboard, Mañana Será Bonito racked up a whopping 94,000 album-equivalent units in the U.S. alone, as of March 10. Thanks mostly to streaming, the album claimed the number-one spot on the Billboard 200 for the week of March 11, 2023. It is the first all-Spanish language album by a female artist to ever reach this peak, as well as the first by a Colombian artist.

Previously, Bad Bunny had been the only artist to clinch a number one spot with the all-Spanish albums El Último Tour Del Mundo in 2020 and Un Verano Sin Ti in 2022.

“It is a very unusual feat,” Director of Musical Studies and Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Administrative Coordinator Kathryn Metz said.

“Even in English, a whole album that’s cohesive and goes to the top of the charts is not a thing people do easily. It is such a rare combination, even more so with a Spanish [language] female artist.”

Mañana Será Bonito is the perfect case of the right place and right time. The only other artist to achieve a similar phenomenon is Selena Quintanilla Peréz, often referred to just as Selena, at the height of her career in the mid- 1990s. Factors like globalization and Latinx people being the largest minority population in the U.S. have combined to create Billboard history.

A few of Karol G’s tracks, including Bonito travel across various genres including her usual reggaetón and urban Latin, regional Mexican music, ballads, and R&B. Metz attributed the number one spot to the extensive coverage of genres, an overall cohesive message of women’s empowerment, and straight to the point songs. Karol G has mastered many genres and has her number-one spot to show it. Since its creation, reggaetón has been an extremely male-dominated genre. However, in recent years, Karol G has established a female voice in reggaetón. Her tracks often promote women’s empowerment through anthems focused on “girl power,” in contrast to the female objectification common in the genre.

“It’s good there aren’t just male artists carrying the reggaetón genre to a new audience,” College first-year Kimberly Rodriguez Arroyo said. “I thin it’s paving the way for female artists; it could even help the genre become more mainstream globally.” Arroyo is from Puerto Rico, where reggaetón was first popularized and is an avid reggaetón listener. With Mañana Será Bonito, Karol is promoting a new form of reggaetón worldwide to audiences unfamiliar with the genre.

“The new phenomenon is that artists like Karol G and Bad Bunny do not have to switch to English or translate their songs in order to capture audience attention in the United States,” Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies Sergio Gutiérrez Negrón said.

Earlier Spanish language artists, like Shakira and Selena, had to translate songs to an extent in order to even make a dent in U.S. charts. However, Latin music has become so popular that people are listening even without understanding the lyrics. This effect began with the huge hit “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi featuring Daddy Yankee. Consumers are open to picking up some of the language, many singing along in broken Spanish or just translating the lyrics themselves. Audiences will continue to expand in the U.S. beyond just Latinx populations.

“The Latinx consumers in the United States are eager to see their music being represented, so we will continue to see these number ones, we will continue to see Karol G and Bad Bunny headline huge festivals like Coachella,” Negrón said.