‘The creation and work of Chineke! will be my legacy’
Chi-chi Nwanoku CBE, 66, founded Chineke!, Europe’s first orchestra consisting of majority Black and ethnically diverse musicians.
Ifounded Chineke! in 2015, a year after meeting then culture minister Ed Vaizey, who asked why I was the only Black person regularly performing on the international classical stage. We were both at the Congolese Kinshasa Orchestra’s 20th anniversary concert at the Royal Festival Hall, where the BBC was making a documentary. I thought, ‘This is the 21st century; it shouldn’t be a novelty that there’s more than one Black face on stage playing Beethoven.’
Days later, I met with former artistic director of Southbank Centre Jude Kelly about my plan to create an orchestra that provided opportunities and showcased the immense talent among Black and ethnically diverse musicians, who are currently unseen in the classical music world. I chose the name ‘Chineke’, from the Igbo language, meaning ‘guardian and spirit of creation’. I phoned the principals of all the music schools, looking for musicians. We launched in September 2015 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, where we performed Samuel Coleridge-taylor’s Ballade In A Minor. I’ll never forget the overwhelming moment we all walked out on to the stage, as for the first time in my career, the audience looked like London.
As a child, I was fascinated by my primary school’s recorder lessons and pestered my friend’s brother to teach me 12 Bar Blues on the piano. My parents caught on that I had a passion for music. I was the eldest of five and we didn’t have spare money, so Mum took on an extra cleaning job to pay for lessons. By the time I was 18, following an injury and an abrupt end to my sprinting career, my music teacher told me that I could have a career in music if I took up an unpopular instrument, such as the double bass. After two years and a crash diploma course in Cambridge, I reached grade seven distinction and applied for the Royal Academy of Music, where I eventually got a place.
By the end of my studies, I’d won the Eugene Cruft double bass prize and the principal’s prize, plus three scholarships to study in Rome.
After I graduated, I realised my knowledge of music history had been so narrow that only halfway through my career was I even aware of female composers, let alone Black composers. None of us in Chineke! had learned about Samuel Coleridge-taylor or played his music before. He was British-born, half Sierra Leonean and at 15 won a violin scholarship to the Royal College of Music. Yet in his 37 short years he had produced a library of outstanding music, until then forgotten.
I invited his descendants to that first concert, and they said I’d done more for him than this country had done in 100 years.
Having been on the board of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, I know most students come from private schools. So I asked the Royal College and Royal Academy to create scholarships for Black and ethnically diverse applicants. I said if a child from a working-class background had the courage to audition and scrape in, give them a full scholarship, because I believe we should give a child what they need to succeed. It’s what helped me – I had a full grant (which was means-tested in my day).
I’m thrilled to see other orchestras borrowing scores from Chineke! and hiring their own by Black and ethnically diverse composers that Chineke! has unearthed and championed. The creation and work of Chineke! will be my legacy. • chineke.org