Sunday, August 20, 2017

Sergio A. Mims: The Telegraph: Inside Chineke!, Europe's first black and minority ethnic orchestra





Chineke Orchestra founder Chi-chi Nwanoku playing double bass at the inaugural concert of Chineke! Orchestra in 2015
 



Chineke! Orchestra 
(Credit: Zen Grisdale)
 




The founder of Europe's first black and minority ethnic orchestra talks to Ivan Hewett about the challenges of building an ensemble from scratch

Almost two years ago, on September 13 2015, something happened at London’s Royal Festival Hall that was both ordinary and extraordinary. An orchestra dressed in sober black filed on stage, followed by the conductor, and gave a spirited and subtle performance. The critics were enraptured. 
That’s the ordinary part. The extraordinary part was that not a single face on the platform was white. This was the debut of Europe’s first black and minority ethnic (BME) orchestra, Chineke! And just to make the point that this was a historic moment, the first piece on the programme was by a black composer: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, who in his heyday rivalled Handel in popularity. 
Now the orchestra is well on the way to being an established part of the musical scene. It has played several concerts at the Southbank, and St George’s in Bristol, where it is a resident ensemble. It has a recording under its belt, with another soon to come, has made an overseas tour and has an office and a board of trustees. On August 30, it plays its first Prom. 
“I can’t believe we’ve got this far. I thought Chineke! might be just one concert and then nothing,” says founder Chi-chi Nwanoku, 61. Born to an Irish mother and a Nigerian father, she’s an unstoppable, fizzing, passionate bundle of energy. She’s also one of London’s best-known musicians. Anyone who goes regularly to concerts will have seen her in the double-bass section, where her vigorous style always gets noticed. She brought the eyes and ears of an expert to the job of creating an orchestra.
It began four years ago with a conversation with Ed Vaizey, who was Minister of Culture in David Cameron’s government. “He said to me, ‘Why is it only you we ever see on stage in orchestral concerts?’ and at first I didn’t know what he meant,” says Nwanoku. “Then I realised he meant musicians of colour. I had never really thought of myself in that way. I spend my whole life surrounded by white people in orchestras, I defined myself by what I did, not the colour of my skin. But of course he’s right. How often do you see a black person in an orchestra? Almost never.”
The conversation sowed a seed, but it wasn’t until the following year at a concert in the Festival Hall that light dawned. “I was at a concert by the Kinshasa Symphony Orchestra from the Congo,” says Nwanoku. “I realised I had to do something. I talked about it to Ed Vaizey and he suggested I create an all-black orchestra, but I said, ‘no, that’s too exclusive’. I wanted it to be open to all musicians of colour.”
Creating an orchestra from scratch is an immense task. You need an office, a schedule, rehearsal venues, music, instruments, a battery of percussion… Nwanoku started making phone calls to anyone who might be able to help: the British Council, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Southbank Centre, the other London orchestras, conservatoires. Soon she had a board of trustees, an office, and a tentative first date at the Festival Hall.

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