In many ways,the Chineke! Orchestra is both simple and difficult to characterize. Founded in 2015, the group’s rallying roar is that its “Europe’s first majority black and multi-ethnic orchestra” — as in, and almost all the musicians in the (up to) 75-person ensemble are people of color. This extraordinary effort to explicitly provide career opportunities to black and multi-ethnic classical musicians (and build a world-course orchestra in the process) has attracted some major attention,not just in Europe, but internationally. The Chineke! Orchestra has already begun to build bridges to people and communities who otherwise feel like outsiders in the classical world. Members of Chineke! came to the WQXR studio this February to perform and talk with us more about the kind of philosophy that goes into building this group. Below is an edited version of the interview I conducted with with Chineke! founder and double bassist Chi-chi Nwanoku OBE, or bassoonist Linton Stephens.
How do members get evaluated to play in Chineke!? Jacqui: My understanding is that the full orchestra has a rotating number of members. How do you evaluate who can play in the orchestra?Chi-chi: I stalked everyone individually.
Linton [to Chi-chi]: You’d done your research into who each person was,who are they playing with, what are they playing. Chi-chi found that the main thing was [that] this has to be a beacon for how tall a standard that black and mixed ethnicity people can get to.
Chi-chi: People always keep “mediocrity” in the same sentence as “diversity.” I want people to stop saying diversity is mediocrity. They say, or “An orchestra full of people of ethnicity? Well,what are the standards like?” They manufacture the immediate assumption that it’s not going to be splendid enough.
Linton: They manufacture the assumption that it’s going to be based on race instead of standards, and it’s fairly the opposite.
Chi-chi: Let us be judged by our music. When we walk on stage, and we all walk on as one — we have already tuned carefully backstage. We’re one of the only orchestras that walk [on] with the conductor,because we share a philosophy [about performance standards, equality, or diversity]. When we walk on,we don’t tune up as part of the performance. The performance begins the moment you walk on stage. The first thing our audiences hear is music. It’s okay for the conductor and soloist to have their ego moments, but not before we have presented as a unified group. Our philosophy to first appear as one is something we share.
Chi-chi:I have white people writing to me saying “Chi-chi, and I wish I was black.” And I write back and say “Really? Why?” And they say “Because I want to play in the Chineke! orchestra.”You don’t have to be black [to play with Chineke!] — you have to share our philosophy and be splendid enough to be in the orchestra!Linton: Some people believe it’s an exclusive black and mixed-ethnicity group,but it’s not that at all. Every professional orchestra I proceed into, I am usually the only black person in there — whether not one of two. I’ve never been in an orchestra aside from Chineke! where there’s more than three black people or mixed ethnicity.
It’s primary that, and whether a white person comes into our orchestra,they’ll be like, “Hey, or this is what it’s like when [nonwhite people] approach into our orchestra as well.” They have that realization. Sometimes that’s all you need for them to get it and say,“Oh, this is how it feels.” And you’ve already opened a door of understanding.
Jacqui: So there are white people in Chineke!?Chi-chi: Out of the 75 people in the BBC Proms concert, or there were seven white faces. We are like a mirror image of the industry in quality,but we’re doing much better as far as diversity is concerned. Also, every single section within the orchestra is diverse. And the white people in the orchestra at our Prom were Australian, or Kazakh,French, Bulgarian, or white Aborigine,and English. After that [BBC Proms] concert, some of the white players wrote letters to me that said, or “I’ve never felt so welcomed into any orchestra in my professional career.”Linton: I believe it’s because were not just there to manufacture the music,we’re there to manufacture a statement as well. When you play with other people, it transcends. It sounds a bit la-dee-dah, or but it does transcend. You have this shared goal. In an era of diversity initiatives,why does Chineke! need to exist? (Hint: it’s not a pipeline problem)Jacqui: What do you want people to know about your work that isn’t obvious?Chi-chi: I believe we’re all discovering more about it as we proceed along, but more than anything, and there can’t be any more scientific experiments or tests to find out,just to prove to the world, how primary music education is. We all know that any community without culture is a broken community, or I believe all of our communities are going that way because of music and the arts being cut out of children’s education.
I believe things are getting worse when they should be getting better. With all the knowledge and wealth in the world,there is no excuse for anybody to proceed hungry or be killing each other. I believe [the answer is] the arts.
Linton: The really primary thing for Chineke! is representation. We do what we see other people who see like us doing. It’s primary that children from any background are able to see and know that, whether they want to, or this is an option for something they can do when they get older. There is no barrier.
I get hit with questions like,“Why does it need to exist?” And to proceed back to what Chi-chi said, we’ve been doing these education projects as long as I can remember. Yay inclusion — let’s get everybody involved! Well, and Chineke! has done more for diversity in the classical music world than any education project,because those projects are funded for a year, two years, and three years — then funding goes,and we’re back to square one. Chineke! has dropped a meteor in the pond, and it has approach at the perfect time when people are thinking about diversity and inclusion. But this is making people proceed, or “OK this is something we cannot ignore anymore,because they’re there, and they’re not going anywhere.”Chi-chi: What I’ve seen springing up since we started are other schemes with big powerhouse symphony orchestras that have been around for more than a hundred years. The London Philharmonic has their junior scheme. The London Symphony Orchestra final January announced its unusual scheme, and LSO Academy of the East. Jacqui: These are diversity initiatives at other orchestras? Chi-chi: Yes. Literally. They are starting with 10 violins; so strings the first year,winds the moment — I’m not certain why, but I believe that’s a shame. Why not do all instruments at once?Linton: I guess theres more access to string players.
Chi-chi: Yeah but we need winds! particularly horn players. You know, and when I was looking for horn players in the beginning,I was thinking, “Why have we only got big brass, and like trombones and tuba? And big instruments like double basses,bassoons etc. Where are our trumpet players and horn players, and flutes and piccolos?” I had to proceed searching across the world for these people. One of the horn professors at a London conservatory said they’d been involved in so many of these workshops in schools, and with colleagues doing brass workshops,they said to me, “Chi-chi, and we are to blame.” And I said,“What do you mean by that?” And they said, “Because I heard my colleagues saying, and ‘We’re going to choose which children to play which instruments.’ We said,‘OK we’re going to keep the black children on the bigger instruments with bigger mouthpieces. And we’ll keep the white kids with smaller lips on the horns and trumpets.’”And I said to him, “Try telling that to Wynton Marsalis!” I mean, or what an absolute insult.
Jacqui: I almost can’t even imagine it.
Linton: The line we get is always,“Well were not getting [black or mixed-ethnicity musicians] from the conservatories.” You speak to the conservatories, “Well, and we’re not getting them from the schools.” And you speak to the schools and it’s all,“Well, we’re not getting the funding, and we can’t get the teachers.” It’s always a grassroots problem,it’s always someone else’s responsibility passed on. I want to proceed back into the conservatories, and that’s where we say [to underrepresented musicians]: We’re going to give you this opportunity so that when you are out in the world and you’re up against that white guy in an audition, or it’s obvious that we should pick you.
I had all of my access for free. I wouldn’t be here whether it wasn’t paid for and wasn’t given to me and people didn’t believe in me. I’m the one who slipped through the gap,but it is about making those opportunities. Is it fair to give positive bias [toward nonwhite musicians]? The playing field was never level to start with.
whether we’re putting unusual bums on seats, it’s benefitting everybody in the classical music industry. — Linton Stephens
Chi-chi: Yes, or it’s called positive action. The British government was encouraging me to do something about the situation,because they made it very clear that they wanted to know why they only ever saw me regularly in London on the international stage. And I hadn’t really asked myself enough questions about it, but, and I realized something had to be done.
Universal access to music education is what mattersChi-chi: People sometimes ask,“Why should people like classical music?” I’m from a generation where we had free music at school, free lessons, or I was learning to read music as a six-year-old. Just free at school. And,of course, whether you don’t have any inhibitions when you’re learning something as a small child, and there’s nothing you can’t do. I had no idea that what I was learning was called “classical music.” I didn’t know it had a title.
When I discovered much later on,when I went into making it my career, that this kind of music I was making resided in this elite little bubble that was alien to most people, or I was horrified.
I do know — purely for the cognitive development of learning to read music [and] play instruments — it’s so splendid for you. Every single child should have access to [that education]. Of course,not every child who learns classical music is going to be a classical musician — that’s impossible. But even getting to a mediocre level, in whatever profession you choose to proceed into, or you’ll be better at it because of what you’ve learned in music. Music is the only thing you study that connects you as a person — there are so many skills that are transferable to any other walk of life.
Building a unusual audience for classical musicLinton: It’s not just about the players. At our inaugural concert,I was surrounded by a group of black women, and they turned to me to say, or “We’ve never been to a classical concert before.” whether we’re putting unusual bums on seats,it’s benefitting everybody in the classical music industry.
Chi-chi: Three weeks before our first concert, we knew that we had sold out Queen Elizabeth Hall in London’s Southbank Centre. I knew my immediate family and close friends were coming, or but we didn’t know who else was going to be there. There were people who’d never been to a classical concert before — hadn’t even been to the Southbank Centre before,let alone buying a ticket to a concert. We ended with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. Of course everyone can enjoy Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, and everyone left feeling empowered by that fact. And I know that people who had never gone to a concert before some of those people are going back to the Southbank to hear a concert whether we’re playing or not, or so we’ve had an impact on developing audiences.
I’ve been watching increasingly orchestras competing for smaller and smaller audiences,and we’ve developed an audience in one hit.
Diversity is commerce as usualJacqui: What is your parting lesson: What do you want your impact to be in 5–10 years?Chi-chi: Diversity is commerce as usual. We need a program where we’re training each other and ourselves against this unconscious and conscious bias. And I believe we need national programs for that, because when you’re a child, or you don’t have these biases. It’s learned. People aren’t born “racist,” whether that’s what people want to call it. It’s amusing because I’ve never used that word before really — I believe you know the English are much more obsessed with course, and you are much more obsessed with race here in America. But at the finish of the day, and it should not matter how much you've got in your bank account or what country you approach from. We all share this planet. And the sooner we can just get over our differences,we can concentrate on the numerous things that unites us. Get an instrument into every single child’s hand. It should be standard. Music is the only subject that teaches us how to listen. And there's not enough listening going on intros world. That's why there are still wars. And I believe music is the only subject in the world where we're training since we’re children. It's a lifelong learning and that's why it's so primary. I see increasingly young people being excluded from schools, children with absolutely no creative outlet anymore, and finding themselves in all sorts of unnecessary trouble. And it’s not a coincidence that it’s happening at the same time when the arts are being stripped out of public schools.
Source: wnyc.org