For 30 years, double bassist Chi-chi Nwanoku has enjoyed a successful career and as a classical musician and never felt the colour of her skin has held her back. So why is she now embarking on and ambitious plan to form Europe’s first professional black orchestra? She explains all

Perhaps I was one of the lucky ones? I somehow slipped through the net. I’m a classical musician, an all too rare black face on concert platforms among what are usually all-white orchestras. My Nigerian father and Irish mother brought me up believing that I could do anything I wanted. They never doubted me for a second, and I was surrounded by people who supported and encouraged me.

We were the only black family at my primary and secondary schools, and I didn’t think at all about being the only black student at the Royal Academy of Music. My attitude is that if anyone has a problem with the colour of my skin it’s their problem not mine; I don’t think I necessarily even notice what my colleagues might term racism. And yet I know it’s there, though it’s taken a while for it to sink in, and to realise that I can actually do something about it.

Perhaps the first seed for me was sown about ten years ago when my then colleague and co-founder of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment Marshall Marcus asked if I would speak to one of the broadsheets about our next concert programme. Why? I asked - I don’t know anything in particular about it. He chuckled and told me he’d send me a link to look at, and I’d understand why. We were playing a symphony by Chevalier de Saint-Georges, an 18th-century composer who was also a conductor, a virtuoso violinist, a champion fencer, and the son of a wealthy French plantation owner and his African slave. His works included three operas, two symphonies, 15 violin concertos and more. And yet this was the first I’d ever heard of him! I was fascinated and also horrified that I’d never before asked myself whether there might have been someone like me in previous generations, previous centuries of classical musicians.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Chi-chi (third from right) with fellow members of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Photograph: OAE

If Saint-Georges was there, who else might there have been, and who else could there be in future generations? Over the last few years, I’ve also found more and more people, from chief executives, to politicians, to audience members approaching me to ask why there is such a lack of diversity in classical music. There’s no straightforward or easy answer. The removal of music programmes from state schools over a generation ago has had a disastrous effect. The cost of buying or hiring and learning an instrument, of attending specialist Saturday music schools, of studying at a conservatoire excludes many lower-income families, and of course the perception that classical music is just for white, middle-class people is a powerful inhibitor for many. But the only thing that is not to blame is lack of talent.

Extraordinary composers and musicians such as Chevalier de Saint-Georges have been virtually written out of history. Is it any wonder that we struggle to encourage a diverse society of musicians today and tomorrow?



I resolved to showcase the exceptional talent we have here in the UK and Europe among performers of ethnicity and so the Chineke! Foundation and orchestra was born. The name came to me in a eureka moment in the middle of the night – I leapt out of bed shouting it – Chineke! It’s an Igbo word that pre-dates Christianity. According to the traditional Igbo people from the south-eastern region of Nigeria (where lie my paternal roots), Chineke is the creator of the world.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest A chamber group at the US’s Sphinx Organization for Black and Latino players. Photograph: Nan Melville/Sphinx Organization

In part my inspiration has been the wonderful Sphinx Organisation in the US, set up in 1998 by Aaron Dworkin, for Black and Latino players. I’ve worked with them on and off for a decade and witnessed outstanding musicians come through their hands. Meanwhile I’ve not had experience running a business before and I’m on a steep learning curve, but I’m not someone who’s ever been put off by hearing the word “no”! As well as a professional orchestra, the Chineke Foundation will also create a junior one for players up to age 18, an annual competition for young BME musicians, and a mentoring programme.



One of the first organisations I approached was the Southbank Centre. Their head of music was visibly moved by the idea. We discussed the many wonderful current outreach programmes aimed at bringing music to deprived areas and to children from ethnic backgrounds, but, as she pointed out, this is the first time one has been designed specifically for people of colour and led by one of our own. I went to talk to my alma mater the Royal Academy where, in terms of their ethnic mix, things don’t seem much different to when I was there. They want change as much as I do, and if I can find the musicians, they’ve offered four full scholarships to fund them.

I would like to encourage all the conservatoires in the UK, across Europe, to do the same. And although I’ve got the blessing of organisations from the Arts to the British Council, and government support, I still have to raise £150,000 over the next three months, before our launch concert on 13 September.



Wayne Marshall, who will conduct Chineke’s inaugural concert. Photograph: www.WayneMarshall.com

Did I mention our launch concert? It’s come rather sooner than expected, but I love a challenge, and have spent the last few months putting together what I think will be the first professional black orchestra in the world. Wayne Marshall will conduct us at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, and around 60 professional musicians from across the UK and Europe are coming together, most are in their 20s and 30s, but the odd straggler like myself will be allowed in from time to time!

Each of our programmes will include a work by a composer of relative ethnicity standing alongside the great canon; this opening concert will include a moving work for 18 strings called Elegy written in memory of Stephen Lawrence by black British composer Philip Herbert, and we will end with Beethoven’s seventh symphony. The younger generation are punching the air - they cannot wait to get started, whereas a few of my UK colleagues of an older generation have not been entirely comfortable with the idea.

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This is of course complex and emotional territory for some musicians who, like myself, have never had to deal with obvious exclusion, who have enjoyed busy careers being “accepted as the same as everyone else”, and not everyone feels sure that forming an orchestra specifically for black players is the best way to help. I respect their opinions, but can only disagree - I feel sure that bringing a group of people together to play incredible music is one of the most creatively powerful and positive things we can do, and will celebrate our talents. It will also realign perceptions, so that the very systems can change.

My aim is to create a space where black musicians can walk on to the stage and know that they belong, in every sense of the word. We’re creating a vision of what tomorrow’s orchestras can, and should, look like. If even just one black child feels that their colour is getting in the way, that they have to work that bit harder to achieve anything, then I hope to inspire them, give them a platform, and show them that music, whatever the kind, is for everyone.

Chi-chi Nwanoku was talking to Imogen Tilden

