Saturday, July 27, 2019

Sergio Mims: TheGuardian.com: Classical music is overwhelmingly white and male.

 Chineke! performing Three Songs from Ethiopia Boy by Roderick Williams at the PRS Foundation New Music Biennial, Southbank Centre, earlier this month. Photograph: Victor Frankowski 

Sergio A. Mims writes:

Musician and Chineke! Orchestra founder Chi-chi Nwanoku has written an article for the British newspaper The Guardian about the urgent need for diversity in symphony orchestras.

Fri 26 Jul 2019

Classical music is overwhelmingly white and male. My orchestra shows that can change

Chi-chi Nwanoku 

This year’s Proms include too few female and BME composers and musicians. I founded Chineke! to help redress the balance 

Across the cultural landscape, the light of truth is working its way through the past. Historical inaccuracies, unattributed contributions and long-lost gems – all victims of male whitewashing – are being restored and reinstated.

Hidden Figures, an Oscar-nominated film of 2016, shows the incredible contribution of three pioneering black women. Rosalind Franklin’s work, which enabled James Watson and Francis Crick to uncover DNA and claim a Nobel prize, has only recently been fully recognised, many years after her death. From art to science and beyond, the work of historically marginalised groups is being gloriously shared. Except within classical music, that is. And to compound matters, the errors of the past are being repeated today.

It’s Proms season – a chance for the classical music world to show that it’s moving with the times – and just as relevant today as it has always been. But it is yet another missed opportunity. I welcomed the BBC’s declaration last year that there would be a 50/50 gender balance in all new commissions of contemporary composers by 2020. I wholeheartedly agree with David Pickard, director of BBC Proms, when he says the target is “a crucial statement for gender equality by the arts industry”, and I am actively working with him to effect more change. But more must be done.

This year’s season includes work by 29 female composers, out of a total of 160. If we add ethnicity into the mix, the numbers become even more stark: of the BBC’s 13 new commissions for the season, only one is by a black female composer and one by a black male composer (at least they’ve got gender equality).

My pride at both of these composers - Errollyn Wallen and Daniel Kidane – having previously been commissioned by the organisation I founded, Chineke!, is overshadowed by my frustration with the continued male white dominance in the world that I love. The Proms run for eight weeks, with two or three concerts a day, but you’ll have to listen carefully for music composed by anyone other than a white male – in total there will be less than four hours of it, and less than 20 minutes from black and minority ethnic composers, throughout the whole season.

Sadly, it comes as no surprise to me that our cultural landscape in this section of the arts still looks and sounds the way it does. I’ve enjoyed many conversations and been involved in many conferences concerning the lack of diversity in the classical music world. There is talk of gender balance and a more complete balance of ethnicities; people in leading positions also say they want a more equal balance of ethnicities and gender in their organisations – be they orchestras or administration. I have heard all the talk but action seems rare and slow.

The choreographer Wayne McGregor compounds the problem in his recent compilation album. The release, Collaborations, was billed by its label as “a collection of music from the biggest names in modern classical and electronic music” – and yet, with dismaying familiarity, only two women are featured in the album’s 15 tracks.

I founded Chineke! in 2015, establishing Europe’s first majority BME orchestra, with the central mission of championing change and celebrating diversity in classical music. I felt something must be done after 35 years of performing on the international concert platform, and becoming too used to being the only black person on stage. In just a few years, we have been able to provide career opportunities for the BME community and to become a catalyst for change by increasing the representation on BME musicians in British and European orchestras.

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