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Last year, the Chicago-based nonprofit Equity Arc organized a program that invited 30 teenage musicians to perform with the United States Marine Band, a long running federal institution that was founded in 1798. The concert was supposed to take place on May 4th, but thanks to Donald Trump’s wave of executive orders targeting DEI initiatives, it was indefinitely canceled. However, thanks to a group of Marine Band veterans, the concert went forward anyway.
As profiled on Sunday’s episode of 60 Minutes, the initiative began after the United States Marine Band contacted Equity Arc in 2022. The Marines were looking to foster music education for the youth and reach out to young musicians of color, as today’s American orchestras remain overwhelmingly White (80% White, 11% Asian, 5% Hispanic and 2% Black). The resulting collaboration saw about 60 teenage musicians virtually audition for a chance to play and study with the band, with about half being selected for the trip to Washington D.C.
But because it was a program focused on diversity and inclusion, one of Trump’s day-one executive orders (Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing) mandated its cancellation. “As long as the executive order is in place, we will not be able to reschedule,” Equity Arc’s Stan Thompson wrote in an email to the Marine Band’s commanding officer. “I am really sorry to be the bearer of this news.”
In response to the program’s cancellation, and to the intentions behind the executive order as a whole, the 30 musicians and Equity Arc planned a makeup concert. After 60 Minutes flew them out to conduct interviews for the profile — a common practice of the news program — Equity Arc organized rehearsals and booked a concert hall. In place of the official Marine Band, who were ordered to stand down, former members of the United States Marine Band filled in instead.
“I just felt like, well, there’s usually two responses to something. You can complain about it, or you could do something about it. I chose the latter within seconds. And it was the easiest decision ever,” John Abbracciamento, retired Marine Band trumpeter, said. After being asked about how he thought the current band members felt about the executive order, he replied, “I know them like the back of my hand. So, I don’t think it’s too much for me to go out on a limb to say how disappointed they were.”
“I challenge anyone, literally anyone, to come to me and say by having this concert does damage to the United States,” he continued. “It doesn’t. It brings out the best of us.”
Watch the full 60 Minutes profile on the Equity Arc program and makeup concert below.
English (US) · 