Mixed Race Studies

NEW TO YOUTUBE | Chineke! – Europe’s First Black Orchestra Concert Debut [VIDEO]

The Violin Channel
2015-09-15

Debut concert performance of the Chineke! Orchestra – Europe’s first professional orchestra made up entirely of musicians of colour.

The 60-piece ensemble, founded by British double bassist Chichi Nwanoku, was established with the objective of making a conscious effort to redress the racial balance in classical music.

Programme includes: Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, Brahms ‘Variations on a theme by Haydn’, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s ‘Ballade for Orchestra’ and Philip Herbert’s ‘Elegy’ [a memorial to Stephen Lawrence].

Recorded live at London’s Southbank Centre, 13th September 2015 – as part of the ‘Africa Utopia Festival’.

First black and minority ethnic orchestra to make debut

BBC News
2015-09-11

Lizo Mzimba

Europe’s first professional orchestra consisting entirely of black and minority ethnic musicians will make its debut this weekend at the Southbank Centre in London.

The Chineke orchestra has been created to promote diversity in a musical world that is predominantly white.

Lizo Mzimba reports from one of its final rehearsals.

Watch the story here.

In Search of the Black Mozart

BBC Radio 4
2015-07-19 and 2015-07-26

Sarah Taylor, Producer

Historian Steve Martin and Double Bassist Chi-chi Nwanoku

Chi-chi Nwanoku has spent her career travelling and performing in concert halls the world over as the principal double bassist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. More recently, she’s been on a personal journey seeking out the lives and careers of black classical musicians from the eighteenth century who like her, played and composed music at the highest levels. In some cases, slivers of their lives are on record but you have to be quite determined to find out.

Chi-chi puts the record straight and with the help of some of the finest musical researchers around, she brings to the fore the music and lives of musicians like violinist/composer Joseph Emidy, virtuoso violinist George Bridgetower and composer Joseph Bologne, aka Chevalier de St-George who not only met Mozart in his lifetime, but who was known by all those who heard his music as the ‘Black Mozart’.

In today’s programme she visits the British Library to find our more about Ignatius Sancho – someone who was born into slavery and ended up being the first person of colour in Britain to have the vote. Also of interest to Chi-chi are his musical compositions which are held at the British Library. Together with music curator, Nicolas Bell and Sancho expert Professor Brychhan Carey the three of them assess Sancho’s musical ability and life.

In a more sinister turn of events, Chi-chi talks to Handel scholar, Dr. David Hunter who shares his research which reveals that Handel, whilst composing some of the most beautiful music around was an investor in slavery.

She also hears about the violinist and composer Joseph Emidy who became a musical star of Cornwall’s music scene and meets up with one of his musical ancestors.

Also features commentary from:

• Jeanne Lamon
• Allan Donald Jeffryes Badley
• Rachel Barton Pine
• Simon McVeigh
• Dominique-René de Lerma
• Shirley J. Thompson
• Steve Martin

Listen to episode 1 here. Listen to episode 2 here.

Chineke! Europe’s first professional orchestra of black and minority ethnic musicians launches

The Independent
2015-09-02

Jessica Duchen

Its founder double-bassist Chi-chi Nwanoku talks to Jessica Duchen

When the Chineke! Orchestra steps on to the Queen Elizabeth Hall platform on 13 September, the audience should notice something unusual. One of those uncomfortable truths about classical music is that most symphony orchestras in Europe still consist mostly of white and white-Asian people. Chineke, the brainchild of the double-bassist Chi-chi Nwanoku, is Europe’s first professional orchestra made up entirely of black and minority ethnic musicians.

The idea is to bring together and showcase the wealth of talent among these under-represented performers. “It is about raising awareness, trying to level the playing field, altering the status quo a little bit and changing perceptions,” says Nwanoku.

Born in London to a Nigerian father and Irish mother, Nwanoku has been mulling over these issues for years, from her vantage point as a founder member of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, a popular media commentator and broadcaster, and a professor at the Royal Academy of Music. Her recent programmes for BBC Radio 4, In Search of the Black Mozart, about the 18th-century violin virtuoso and composer the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, sparked wide interest in historical musicians of colour…

Read the entire article here.