Ask the experts, Uy, Michael Sy (allston Burr Resident Dean, Allston Burr Resident Dean, Harvard College)

The significance was two-fold: not only were male, Western art composers put in charge of directing large and unprecedented channels of public and private funds, but in doing so they also determined and defined what was meant by artistic excellence. They decided the fate of their peers and shaped
the direction of music-making in this country. By asking the experts, the grantmaking institutions produced a concentrated and interconnected field of artists and musicians. Officers and directors utilized ostensibly objective financial tools like matching grants and endowments in an attempt to
diversify and stabilize applicants sources of funding, as well as the number of applicants they funded. Such economics-based strategies, however, relied more on personal connections among the wealthy and elite, rather than local community citizens. Ultimately, this history demonstrates how
expertise served as an exclusionary form of cultural and social capital that prevented racial minorities and non-dominant groups from fully participating.