Just The Tonic, Series 1, Episode 3: Music is for Everyone

Introduction (0:00)

[Music]

0:06 Katie: In previous episodes of Just The Tonic, we’ve explored how being involved in an orchestra or a choir does wonders for your mental and physical health. We’ve heard from players in The People’s Orchestra, the fabulous West Midlands-based community orchestra, about how much playing an instrument or singing in a choir means to them, and we heard from the singers in the Hallé Ancoats Community Choir too.

0:33 Results from research studies conducted by universities all over the world highlight the positive effects of being involved in music. It is clear that music-making benefits everyone. However, not everyone has access to the same opportunities, and that has been particularly true of classical music. It’s just not been a level playing field, particularly for people from ethnically diverse communities.

0:58 So in this episode of Just The Tonic, we’re going to be looking at diversity and inclusivity. As The People’s Orchestra say: music has no prejudice, music has no limitations, music is for everyone. So how can classical music be more open to including people from all backgrounds?

1:17 I’ll be speaking to Bradley Wilson, who’s a student at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. He plays trumpet in Chineke!, and he’s one of The People’s Orchestra’s newest conductors…

1:27 Bradley Wilson: I was talking to someone who said, you know, “I sit in an orchestra and I realise I’m the only one there with huge, big, curly afro hair”. Things like that, you don’t realise, can affect people, and can make you feel included or excluded.

1:40 Katie: …and Birmingham-based jazz musician extraordinaire and stalwart of The People’s Orchestra, Xhosa Cole…

1:46 Xhosa Cole: With such a complex issue as race and equality within the music industry, it’s going to take lots of different people doing different types of work.

1:58 Katie: …and I’ll be speaking to Chi-chi Nwanoku, who created the Chineke! Orchestra to provide career opportunities for up-and-coming Black and ethnically diverse classical musicians.

2:08 Chi-chi Nwanoku: We’re overpopulated in reggae and hip-hop and rap, and we have just as much input to contribute, and share, and benefit from, in the classical music industry.

Bradley Wilson and the Rusty Players (2:23)

2:23 Katie: First up, let’s hear from Bradley Wilson. 20-year-old Bradley is the newly appointed conductor of The People’s Orchestra’s Rusty Players Orchestra. I caught up with him in Birmingham recently, and I asked him how his first rehearsal went.

2:42 Bradley: It was a really fun rehearsal. Got to meet a lot of different people from all walks of life – people who had done a lot of playing and then put their instruments down for a while and had just picked them back up again, or people who had just started playing their instruments, or even people who are quite proficient players but maybe not that confident, and this is a good place for them to start. So it was a very nice blend of people, a mixed blend of abilities in terms of musical standard.

3:10 Katie: You said it’s quite a diverse group. In terms of the sort of people coming along, are they mostly people from the Birmingham area? Are they a diverse group of people?

3:18 Bradley: Yeah, a lot of people there were from the area, but it was quite representative of Birmingham – which I think is something you actually don’t see all that often in the professional music scene in Birmingham, or anywhere really. When I go to concerts in Birmingham – classical concerts, or even in the conservatoire – you can be walking to and from a gig and see a huge range of people, but as soon as you get in, you feel like you’ve gone back in time, or you’re in a completely different country, because everything changes. But it was the first group I’d conducted where I felt it was a really good representation of what Birmingham actually is.

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Handsworth and Xhosa Cole (3:59)

3:59 Katie: Birmingham has had many famous musical exports: UB40, ELO, Black Sabbath, Soweto Kinch, Musical Youth, Laura Mvula – the list is long. It’s also where Simon Rattle rose to fame during the 80s and 90s as music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

4:18 One area that’s been particularly significant in the city’s music scene is Handsworth. Much maligned in the media, Handsworth has actually produced musicians like legendary saxophonist Andy Hamilton, the renowned reggae band Steel Pulse, soul singer Ruby Turner, and saxophonist extraordinaire Xhosa Cole.

4:39 Now, as a teenager, Xhosa was one of the inaugural members of The People’s Orchestra, and he has gone on to great things. He was BBC Young Jazz Musician of the Year in 2018. In 2020 he received the Parliamentary Jazz Award for Best Newcomer and the Jazz FM Breakthrough Act. This year he released his debut album, K(no)w Them, K(no)w Us, influenced by jazz greats like Thelonious Monk and Ornette Coleman. So I asked Xhosa to describe Handsworth, and what growing up there meant to him.

5:10 Xhosa: Handsworth is the particular part of Birmingham that I’m from. And Birmingham as a whole, you know – it’s a big inner city, and it’s had various generations of immigrant communities over the past 100 years, really. Early on it was the Irish community that was in Birmingham, and then the Windrush generation comes along as the next big immigrant community that makes its way into this very soulful, vibey area of Handsworth – which one of my mentors, Lekan Babalola, likens to Harlem, you know what I mean? It gets that bad rap, but artistically it’s a very, very, very special place.

5:46 So that’s the 60s and 70s, and then you have many people from various parts of Asia – Bangladesh, Pakistan, India – that come in, and they get a bad rap for all the reasons in the media as well. And then the Eastern Europeans come, and they get a really bad rep. But this whole time, this is an amazing hub of a place, where there’s so many different intermingling communities and things happening, and vibrancy – that of course, artistically and culturally, it’s going to be very rich and diverse, you know what I mean?

6:15 That’s not to say it’s without its problems. But also a big part of the difficulties can be attributed to a lack of support from the council and the government, you know what I mean? When you’ve got areas that are underfunded, and you’ve got all this dormant talent – if people aren’t provided with an outlet, that energy is going to go somewhere. Sometimes that energy can then be misplaced. But I was lucky, in that the energy that I had, and the capacities that I might have had, have been able to be fulfilled through various localised arts programmes.

6:50 Every time I walk down the street on Soho Road in Birmingham, I probably learn more about jazz than I ever would in any classes. So it’s a very, very special place, and I’m very honoured to be part of a very long lineage of super, super, super influential and talented people.

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Why diversity in classical music matters (7:12)

7:12 Katie: While Xhosa’s education in jazz came from the musicians he met on the streets of Handsworth, he was introduced to classical repertoire during his time with The People’s Orchestra. I asked Bradley Wilson how important it is that classical music becomes more diverse.

7:28 Bradley: I think it’s one of the most important things. I think in the past it’s probably been pushed under the carpet, because it is such a big thing to deal with. You tend to find, especially as a young musician – and speaking to other young musicians – you go to a concert and you’re 90% sure that everyone watching you is going to be a lot older than you. And also, if you’re a Black musician like me, you know you’re probably not going to be playing to any other Black people. It’s something that, unfortunately, you get used to.

7:59 I came from an interesting background, because even though I call myself Black, I’m mixed race. My dad’s from Ghana, but my mum is from London, and I never really had any contact with my dad. So even though I look like I’m from somewhere else, I was brought up in a very British culture.

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8:25 Katie: Bradley plays with Chineke!, the orchestra for majority Black and ethnically diverse musicians set up by Chi-chi Nwanoku, who we’ll hear from later. Chi-chi played a crucial role in introducing Bradley to composers of colour.

8:40 Bradley: When I was going between first and second year at conservatoire, I’d realised that all year I’d played music by people who don’t look like me, who are a hell of a lot older than I am, or dead. And also, I’d indirectly been made to think that there was no music out there for me to play by anyone who came from my sort of background.

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9:12 Black people aren’t new – they must have been writing some sort of music, and I’m sure some of it was good! Through Chineke!, and through speaking to Chi-chi directly, I found this whole wealth of music, which at first was amazing, but then it turned into a bit of “why has no one heard this? Why are you not playing it?” That was a big eye-opener to me. It’s made me think: how many people have wanted to start music but felt like they can’t – not because they don’t want to, but because they’ve been made to think that it’s not for them?

9:47 Katie: What was it like the first time you played with Chineke!? Did it feel different? Was the audience different?

9:53 Bradley: It was the first time I’d felt not out of place. It was my first professional gig, so I was very nervous and wasn’t really looking out into the audience. I found my mum and my girlfriend and was like, “OK, that’s all I need to look at”. And then after the concert finished there was a standing ovation, and I looked out – and it sort of made me a bit teary, seeing such a huge mix of people. And we’d played two pieces that were both by Black composers, and then the Grieg Piano Concerto. It was a fantastic experience, and made me feel a lot more included.

[Music]

10:41 Katie: In the repertoire, there is more of a spotlight now going on to music by composers from different ethnic minorities. Just this year at the Proms we’ve had a lot of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Florence Price, and young composers like Daniel Kidane and Hannah Kendall being focused upon. Do you find there’s still work to be done in the education environment? Do you think at uni, or at conservatoire where you are, there still needs to be some work on studying these composers?

11:06 Bradley: The professional orchestra scene is definitely moving in the right direction, but I really don’t think that has properly trickled down into education yet. As a student you can only learn what your lecturers have chosen to learn themselves. And I think at a very young conservatoire level, where you have a lot to do and you take everything your lecturers say as gospel, it’s very dangerous – because you can end up in a position where you think everything my lecturer tells me is what I need to know, and everything they don’t tell me is stuff I don’t need to know.

Xhosa Cole: staying hyper-local (11:39)

11:39 Xhosa: The thing is, with such a complex issue as race and equality within the music industry, it’s going to take lots of different people doing different types of work. So I take my hat off to people who are on the ground in those institutions, trying to change them from the inside out, because I’ve been there and I understand how taxing that kind of work can be – emotionally as well as physically, and mentally, definitely.

12:05 I’ve been in the universities and the conservatoires and stuff, and I’ve benefited a lot from those experiences. But at the same time, those places simply aren’t engaging with the people that I know as part of my community. So rather than me trying to change anyone else’s mind about what they want to do with their resources, let me develop some resources outside of that environment. Because when you start your own thing, essentially what you’re able to do is form a strong set of objectives and values that are uncompromising. The conservatoires and the universities have their own set of values and objectives that have been established, and if you’re going into those environments trying to change that model, it’s difficult work, you know what I mean? But as I say, that’s the kind of work that also needs doing.

12:55 Black Lives in Music are doing amazing work, supporting and making those kinds of changes, and I’m in close contact with them. So I just think it’s a multi-pronged thing, and people have to understand their capacity, what kind of work they want to do, and how they want to engage with it. And for me, it’s just staying hyper-local.

13:20 Katie: So for Xhosa, it’s important for him to look beyond the formal education system and set up his own arts groups in Birmingham. And of course, that’s just what Sarah Marshall, CEO of The People’s Orchestra, did in West Bromwich.

Bradley Wilson: widening the repertoire (13:35)

13:35 Katie: Going back to Bradley Wilson, I asked him what his new role as conductor of their Rusty Players Orchestra would do in terms of creating opportunities.

13:44 We’re not asking for composers to be forgotten about – we’re just asking for other ones to be remembered.

13:52 Katie: So this is where you come in, you see. As the conductor of an orchestra like the Rusty Players, you have influence now on what they play. Do you feel that you’re on a mission to widen the repertoire for your players now?

14:03 Bradley: Yeah, definitely. As a conductor you are in a unique position where you can choose your programmes. Also, with the Rusty Players, it’s a really good place to be doing that, because everyone is there because they simply enjoy playing their instrument. They’re not there because it’s the way they earn their money or anything, so you have that pressure off you.

14:25 One of the big barriers to overcome will be finding repertoire that is playable for amateur orchestras. And then also, when you’re trying to find music that comes from a more diverse background, you’ve got another hurdle to get over. I think that’s where trying to get music from current composers is really useful, because they’re there for you to specifically ask for music to be written in a certain way.

14:55 Katie: We talked about how important it was for you – especially since Chineke! has been around in the last four or five years – to have role models on stage. Not just the repertoire they’re playing, but the actual musicians, and the people standing in front of them as conductors, who will make classical music seem accessible to a more diverse audience. How much responsibility do you think you’ve got, as a Black conductor and musician, to try and bring more young people in from the ethnic minority community?

15:23 Bradley: People need someone to look at who they can relate to, so I personally feel like I have quite a bit of responsibility.

15:30 Katie: Music should be for everybody, right? That has never been more clear. Have you got any immediate plans with the Rusty Players to try and increase the diversity of the group, or the audience?

15:40 Bradley: Yeah. One of the things I did want to do with the Rusty Players was get them doing concerts in education settings. I think that’s one of the biggest things: as a young musician, you need to hear another group playing for you to be interested. If you’re in a position where maybe your family aren’t musical – so music isn’t at home; you might have the radio on, but maybe music’s not being practised at home – then the only thing you’ve really got is live exposure. And I think there’s nothing like live music to really get you involved.

16:17 So that is one of the things I really want to see if we can do: getting Rusty Players into schools, because it is such a mixed group of people. I certainly think that if I was a young musician and a group like that came into school, I would be a lot more inclined to want to start doing music, and maybe would have started at a younger age – because you subconsciously feel like something is for you if you see people who you relate to.

[Music]

Chi-chi Nwanoku and Chineke! (16:52)

16:52 Katie: Chi-chi Nwanoku is a legendary figure in the classical music world – one I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and working with on several occasions. She’s really impressive. She’s an ex-sprinter. She’s the eldest of five children, from Nigerian and Irish parents. She was a founder member of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and she’s Professor of Double Bass Historical Studies at the Royal Academy of Music. She was awarded the OBE for services to music in 2017.

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17:21 In 2015 she founded the Chineke! Orchestra. I caught up with her over Zoom and asked her why she felt she just had to set this orchestra up.

17:30 Chi-chi: I had to set up Chineke! because – it was not that I didn’t know I was the only person of colour around in the industry; that was not news to me. But I didn’t know that I had a voice, Katie. And even if I did, was I allowed to use it? We, people of colour, are used to – even though Chineke! exists – we wait to be told what we can and what we can’t do. We’re so not entitled. It’s still a situation like that, where we’re invited to be part of things. And in my particular area, classical music, it was absolutely devoid.

18:12 So when I had the light-bulb moment, at the concert of the Kinshasa orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall celebrating their 20th anniversary, I just saw the look of incredulity on some people’s faces in the audience. And as I walked back to Waterloo Station after that concert, I just said to myself: this is the 21st century. It shouldn’t be a novelty that there’s more than one Black face on the stage playing Beethoven. Look at all those people out there on the stage from Kinshasa – 99% of them are self-taught. Look at the resources that we have in the UK and Europe. We should be doing more about this.

18:54 Katie: Why is it important that there is representation from the Black community?

19:00 Chi-chi: First of all, as you know, I’m the converted. I’ve committed my life to classical music – that’s why I’m still here. And I know it’s really good for you: music, and the making of it, the performing of it, the sharing of it. I know it makes me a better person. And it’s also so good for the cognitive brain – we often hear people talking about how the cognitive brain is so stimulated by learning to read and play an instrument at the same time. It’s good for you. So why should we see one part of the community just not included in the classical music industry? We’re overpopulated in reggae and hip-hop and rap, but we have just as much input to contribute, and share, and benefit from, in the classical music industry.

19:53 Katie: Plenty of people said, “oh, you’ll never be able to do it – Black people don’t really like classical music”, and “it’s not really your sort of music, is it?” Did people actually say that to you?

20:02 Chi-chi: People actually… Katie, I tell you the nice bits, OK? I don’t tell you the painful bits.

20:09 Katie: But if you were saying this was at the beginning of your career, when we were growing up in the 70s or whatever, then I’d find that easier to believe. But you’re talking about five, six years ago.

20:20 Chi-chi: I am talking about literally six years ago. When the new group on the block comes along, it terrifies some people. And the reason that people get frightened about something new turning up is fear of loss of power, fear of loss of earnings and income, and things like that. I had plenty of people who were quite negative towards Chineke! Orchestra at the beginning. I still get messages from people who say, “well, if I was to create an all-white orchestra…” – in fact, colleagues have told me they’ve heard people saying that if we were to create an all-white orchestra we’d get into loads of trouble. And then my colleagues have said to them: but we are in a normal white orchestra!

21:10 And anyway, Chineke! is a majority Black and ethnically diverse orchestra. It’s not an all-Black orchestra. And when people call us “the all-Black orchestra”, I can’t tell you how attacked I get. And when people say, “are you now a racist, Chi-chi?” – you know, I grew up with a Black parent and a white parent, and I have a completely open mind about this. And I played in the industry for 35 years before creating Chineke!, and not once – if you ask any of my colleagues over those three decades – not one person could ever say that I raised the colour card, or even said the word racism or anything like that. I just never did. I just got on with things.

21:55 Katie: What was it like when you started in the industry? Did you feel that you were having to push a very heavy door?

22:02 Chi-chi: I knew I had to be brilliant. And having come from being a sprinter, I had to win all the time. With music, you don’t come on the stage to get to the end of the piece before everybody else, of course! You want to do it in a really collaborative way, and it was like being part of the relay team. But I was told I wasn’t going to have a career because I was playing a man’s instrument, I was too short – I’m only five foot nothing, as you know – and there was something going on with my skin that might not help me very much. And I just thought: well, OK, you’re telling me all these things, and perhaps you’re being kind by warning me, but I tell you what, I’m just going to carry on working at it anyway, and just see where I can get.

22:42 And even today, Katie, whichever academy of music you go to study at, you might graduate with first-class honours, but there’s no guarantee you’re going to get any work. At the moment, most of the people of colour that I know who have an actual position in some of the world’s top orchestras – they all have principal positions. Like Anthony McGill, principal clarinet at the New York Phil – he used to be principal at the New York Met. Billy Hunter, principal trumpet at the New York Met. Paul Philbert, principal timpani at the RSNO, previously principal at Opera North. And we talk about it, the group of us, and we call it “exceptionalism”. I want to see Black people, Indian people – I want to see them dotted. I want to see them at the back of the first violins, third trombone, second percussion. I want to see them dotted, not just the exceptional principal players. We need to be treated like everyone else.

23:41 Katie: In the five or six years since Chineke! has been up and running, it’s extraordinary what the orchestra has achieved. Has it, though, had the knock-on effect that you’re wanting it to have – to try and make Black and Asian faces a more common sight in the other orchestras as well?

23:56 Chi-chi: Completely and utterly, absolutely. I don’t want the Chineke! Orchestra to be the only place where people of Black and Asian backgrounds feel comfortable or at home. When we sit down to play, all we think about is the music. No one has to think, “I’m the odd one out, I’ve got to keep my head down, and God help me if I make a mistake”. Nobody is the odd one out in the Chineke! Orchestra. Everyone’s welcome.

24:25 Katie: It’s also had a big impact on audiences, hasn’t it? When we were talking to lovely Bradley Wilson, who plays the trumpet with Chineke! but is also conducting the Rusty Players at The People’s Orchestra – his new gig – he was saying how it was the first time he’d walked on stage in a concert and looked out and felt at home, in terms of the audience looking like him, not just the people on stage.

24:43 Chi-chi: Exactly. That was the first impact when Chineke! walked onto the stage for the first time in 2015: the audience looked like the community. And you know, there are old-timers and seasoned concert-goers, and then there are all these people who’ve never been to a concert before, who just come with their own new energy and their own new responses to music. A lot of them had never heard Beethoven 7, or Brahms before, or the Coleridge-Taylor, but they just felt part of it. They felt included. We cracked that door open for them. And what’s beautiful for me now is that some of those people go back to concerts at the Southbank, whether we are playing or not – which is fantastic. That’s what we want to see.

25:28 Katie: One of the perhaps less expected benefits of Chineke!, and the way you’ve grown, has been the spotlight you’ve shone on Black repertoire as well, and the composers who are now becoming mainstream. You mentioned Coleridge-Taylor – why was he not mainstream before? The guy was a genius, right? That is very gratifying, but is enough of that happening, do you think?

25:50 Chi-chi: Almost every day of the week we’ll hear composers of ethnicity on BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM as well. It is absolutely important for everyone. And some of my Chineke! colleagues say to me, “Chi-chi, we talk about the great canon – why are we not in the canon? Why are we nowhere in the great canon? How do you get into the great canon?” And I say: repetition. That’s why, if we keep repeating the music of Coleridge-Taylor, people are now falling in love with it. And I know that a lot of orchestras are thinking about what they are doing to develop the culture within their organisations, because that’s what needs to happen.

26:39 Katie: For anybody listening who is maybe part of an orchestra – whether it’s professional, community, amateur, school – how best can they get on board with this great new movement that you’ve started? Because there’s no question it’s a good thing, right? But some people might think, “well, where am I going to find the kids from an ethnic minority background who want to play classical music?”

26:58 Chi-chi: We might be in the minority in the classical music industry, but in the lower-income areas we’re in the majority. To learn an instrument costs money. You’ve got to own an instrument, or borrow one – or you can’t afford to rent. I had somebody who works in a menial job at the Royal Academy of Music, and her son is trying to play the double bass, and it’s costing her, I think, £50 or £100 a month to rent a double bass. And he’s eight. Imagine that over the years! She just needs someone to give her one for him to use. And then you’ve got to have one-to-one classes, and that’s all very expensive.

27:38 Access points are not equal. A lot of the kids in primary schools and state schools are not getting access and opportunities on instruments, so that needs to be addressed. And then we need to do something about the culture within the organisations, for those people who take that study right the way through into tertiary education and imagine that they’re going to be a professional. There’s a terrible fear around at the moment that we’ve come to kick people out of their jobs. We’re actually creating more jobs for composers and players that are going to amplify this industry. We’re not taking anything away from it, and the sooner people accept that, the better.

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Close (28:25)

28:25 Katie: My thanks to Chi-chi Nwanoku, to Bradley Wilson and Xhosa Cole. I hope their stories have inspired you to get involved in making music.

[Music]

28:37 If you are a composer from a Black or ethnically diverse background, and you would like to compose music for The People’s Orchestra, or for the Rusty Players Orchestra, or for the show choirs, just head to the website, thepeoplesorchestra.com, and you’ll find regular open calls for composers – not just from the UK, but from across the world too.

28:58 Now, as we will find out in the next episode, The People’s Orchestra is so much more than making music. We’re going to hear from some of the many people they’ve helped to get back into work. We’ll also hear from Streetwise Opera, who give homeless people the confidence they need to get back on their feet through the power of song, and we’ll hear from renowned composer Sir James MacMillan, who’s composed music especially for Streetwise Opera.

29:23 If you’re thinking about joining a choir or a community orchestra, or maybe looking for musicians to start a band, search online for community arts organisations in your area, or get in touch with Arts Council England, the Arts Council of Wales, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland or Creative Scotland.

29:38 Just The Tonic with me, Katie Derham, was produced by Jill Davis and is a Peanut and Crumb production, supported by The People’s Orchestra and Arts Council England.

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