Asians Are Represented in Classical Music. But Are They Seen?

The success of some artists of Asian descent obscures the fact that many face routine racism and discrimination.

As reports of anti-Asian hate crimes spread in the United States earlier this year, David Kim, a violist in the San Francisco Symphony, found himself despondent. Kim, who is Korean American, was already disturbed by what he saw as widespread racism in classical music. He believed Asian string players were marginalized and treated “like cattle,” as he put it in a recent interview. “Like a herd of mechanical robots.” And he felt his white colleagues in San Francisco, who make up 83 percent of the orchestra, did not share his urgency about building a culture more welcoming to Asian, Black and Latino players.