A paucity of colour: Black Lives in Music Report

Trying to find up-to-date statistics is rarely straightforward, particularly when the data you're looking for involves protected characteristics like age, race, disability, sexual orientation, and so on. There is usually a baffling array of sources to navigate, all with varying degrees of reliability, assertions of the ‘latest’ data backed up with reports carried out 10 years ago, dead-end links on ‘official’ websites, and too many unnecessarily complicated charts and tables. In some cases, the data eventually materialises, albeit obscurely presented or hidden behind misleading messaging; but in others, no amount of Google wizardry or FOI (freedom of information) requests will answer your questions: the data simply doesn't exist.

In the 2011 census, nearly 1.9m people (3.3 per cent) in England and Wales identified as belonging to a Black ethnic group (the results of the March 2021 census are not due to be released until early 2022). If you want to find out information about the musicians within this group, however, you soon hit a brick wall, as there is currently no data on Black musicians in the UK. Information on ethnic diversity in music isn't completely lacking, though, and since 2016, UK Music has run three Music Industry Workforce Diversity Surveys covering the whole music industry and providing data on Black, Asian and ethnic minority people as one group. In terms of staff in education, Samantha Stimpson also recently conducted research for Music Mark (see MT August 2021, p.62) into ethnic diversity within London Music Education Hubs (MEHs).

However, seeking further insight on the premise that ‘data drives change’, Black Lives in Music (BLiM) recently launched a nationwide survey to collect missing information in the areas of wellbeing, economics, racial discrimination, mental health, education, and the talent pipeline in music. Co-founded in March 2021 by chief executive Charisse Beaumont and director of operations Roger Wilson, BLiM's mission is to carry out research and work with partners across the sector to drive real and lasting change.

Featured on Sky News, Good Morning Britain, Times Radio and other national news outlets, the organisation's first survey was open for six weeks, closing on 30 April 2021, and gathered anonymised information from 1,718 respondents, 23 per cent of whom identified as White British or Irish. Set to be published at the beginning of October, the findings are summarised in a report covering each of the above areas, and both the survey and the report are set to run annually so that evolving real-time experiences can be captured. Set against the wider contextual backdrop of the global Black Lives Matter movement, the murder of George Floyd in 2020, and the racial abuse from England fans towards three Black footballers in the Euro 2020 final this summer, a report that articulates the lived experiences of Black musicians in the UK seems incredibly pertinent, and long overdue.

From the ground up

Taking time out of his busy schedule to speak to me, renowned musician and educator Wilson says that the report aims to target two main groups of people: firstly, the ‘nay-sayers' who do not believe that there are disparities between the experiences of White musicians and Black musicians, and secondly, people in power who can help leverage influence over organisations and the wider music sector. ‘We're in the 21st century,’ says Wilson, ‘and at this point in time, we're simply unable to make the music offering – in delivery, education, and performance – representative of the nation in contemporary times.’

Wilson continues: ‘What we're trying to do is level the playing field, not only at a professional level, but also in terms of entry level grassroots initiatives and opportunities.’ As for why this is the first survey of its kind to investigate the lived experiences of Black musicians, Wilson doesn't hide his cynicism: ‘I think there's an element of people simply not caring,’ he says.

Under the expansive umbrella of ‘education’ comes areas such as teaching staff in schools and music hubs, musical opportunities for young people, music qualifications, school music curricula and exam syllabuses, and students and staff at conservatoire-level learning. The statistics gathered in this first BLiM report focus largely on qualifications, although the qualitative data touches on many of the other areas, and it is hoped that the statistics will help uncover the narrative around the current experiences of Black musicians.

‘Why do we not see more students of colour? Why are we not seeing more teachers? Why are we not seeing better representation on syllabuses and curricula? And why are we not able to address that?’ asks Wilson, highlighting the questions at the heart of this narrative. ‘It's not just a lack of opportunity,’ he says, ‘but it's the perception of a lack of opportunity because you're not seeing yourself reflected in the wider community in that chosen field.’

As a person of colour from a socio-economically challenged background, Wilson recognises that there's a ‘personal agenda’ behind his work at BLiM as, he says, ‘it's about us'. Touching on his own lived experience, Wilson adds: ‘I've been an instrumental teacher for just short of 30 years – I've seen a real paucity of colour, a lack of diversity, in just about all of the educational organisations that I've worked in. That's in the private sector, the independent school sector, the university sector, and the secondary education sector.’ Wilson is conservatoire trained and also has a wide range of experience across the music sector.

Robustly challenged

When Wilson and I meet, the BLiM team is in the final stages of analysing the data and pulling it together into a report. I have been provided with a draft version of the Education section, which includes key statistics (see below) and qualitative survey responses. It begins by referencing the oft-cited but no less jarring statistic that 98.8 per cent of the 3,166 pieces on ABRSM's Grade 1–Grade 8 syllabuses for 15 orchestral instruments at the time of the research were written by white composers (research by Dr Austin Griffiths published in July 2020 for Chineke! Foundation).

Wilson brings this up too: ‘We do not wish for anyone to apologise for the colour of their skin anymore than I should apologise for the colour of my own skin. But to suggest that there is a whole music curriculum basically made up of music written by White music creators is to suggest that there is no contribution of value that comes from any other aspect of society. That, for me, is a glaring problem that continues to be unanswered and unaddressed.’ At the same time, Wilson is keen not to single out ABRSM or any other organisation, as he says that ‘we are seeing this across the board’.

A Chineke! performance in 2020 © ORLANDO GILI/CHINEKE!

Although questions raised by these issues may go unanswered, exam boards and other music education organisations have, arguably, began to address them in recent years by diversifying syllabuses, commissioning composers from ethnic minorities, and publicly targeting underrepresented groups for educational schemes and competitions.

Responding to these signs of progress, Wilson says, ‘We understand that diversifying a curriculum – decolonising it – is a process and is not something that we should naïvely think can change overnight – its design needs to be robustly challenged and tested. But the question can always be levelled at these organisations: what are you doing about your staff force?’ He continues: ‘How can an organisation understand how to decolonise if they look the same as they did last year, or 10 years ago, or 100 years ago? What we're seeing at the moment feels very tokenistic, although those organisations trying to make changes may not feel it is.’

‘Tokenistic’ is a strong word but is one that often surfaces in discussions around diversifying, whether that's in terms of employees, curriculum or representation. An active step that has become more commonplace in recent years, particularly among music exam boards, is the commissioning of new music by up-and-coming composers from minority ethnic backgrounds.

On this, Wilson says: ‘While I applaud that there is a positive move to encourage and stimulate growth in composers who are Black, Asian, and ethnically diverse, I would also say that the music is there.’ He continues: ‘We've lost the Prices, the Grant Stills, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges; we've lost them. Thanks to amazing organisations like Chineke! Foundation, we're hearing that music come back, but we're hearing it come back almost from the brink of extinction – it's been expunged from history.’

Holding nothing back, Wilson adds that he believes there is ‘a bit of hoodwinking’ in the suggestion that commissioning new works is a big part of the decolonisation process: ‘The music's out there and we need to enable young people of all ethnicities to wallow, to be engulfed, to be smothered in the music of their culture and to see and understand that there are creators who reflect their own cultural identity in the music that they play.’

Key initial findings in Education

• White music creators are more likely than Black music creators to have formal or professional qualifications that are specific or relevant (78 per cent and 53 per cent respectively).
• 88 per cent of Black music creators have a music related degree or other qualification, compared to 97 per cent of White music creators.
• White music creators are almost two times more likely to have ABRSM and Trinity College London (TCL) qualifications than Black creators (68 per cent of White creators have ABRSM qualifications compared to 33 per cent of Black creators; and 22 per cent of White creators have TCL qualifications compared to 12 per cent of Black creators).
• Black creators with music qualifications earned £1,463 in a month compared to the £1,936 earned by White creators. Black women with qualifications earned £1,187.

A Chineke! performance in 2020 © ORLANDO GILI/CHINEKE!

Lost generation

As anyone involved in almost any industry will know, reports, however ground-breaking their findings, can often lead to nothing. Wilson agrees: ‘If you're not careful, they become a stack of paper that keeps the door open or is some good burnable stuff for the fire. Things have to come from this, action needs to come from this.’ This is one of the main reasons behind BLiM's partnerships, which the organisation has been announcing on Twitter over the last few months. These include educational organisations and institutions such as Leeds Conservatoire, National Youth Choirs of Great Britain (NYCGB), Musicians' Union, and Trinity Laban, all of whom have committed to BLiM's ‘charter’ for change.

Wilson says, ‘We want our partners to lead the trend and say, “this is what we're seeing from the report, and we need to do something about this”. We aim to support our partners in these actions, but equally we want them to be lobbying other organisations in the sector to implore them to do what's right. We also want to elevate that to a government level so that we're able to see some pressure brought to bear on the sector more widely.’ He believes that if the report's findings aren't translated into effective impact, we will lose ‘another generation of people who deserve to have opportunities that are simply not there for them’.

Trying harder

Thinking about what music teachers, hubs and schools can be doing to make real, lasting change for the current and future generations, Wilson offers three main areas of focus: diversifying staff force; decolonising curricula; and lobbying exam boards. Diversifying staff force within a music hub, for example, has a direct impact on the young people who will access the service, says Wilson: ‘If you're not going to see people who look like you within an organisation, why are you going to want to go there?’ Although it almost goes without saying, decolonisation (‘the big D word’, according to Wilson), is equally as necessary: ‘We are playing music that is effectively the product of cultural racism.’

Throughout our conversation, which has been both expansive and richly detailed, Wilson has acknowledged several times that change is hard. However, he believes that is no excuse. ‘Put simply,’ he says, ‘organisations need to try harder. “Trying harder” is a really simple phrase, but if we think about it, it's really powerful’. Wilson illustrates this by pointing out that a ‘nice strapline’ at the bottom of an advertisement isn't necessarily ‘trying harder’.

Rather than taking a ‘scattergun’ approach to try and tackle a systemic issue, Wilson says: ‘It's about building relationships and looking at ways in which there can be mutual support between grassroots learning, mid-level learning, and professional performance. That way, we're not only building the sector in terms of the professionals, the musicians, the practitioners, the administrators, but we're also building the audiences of the future. I think if we could see things from that perspective, we would all be better invested in the exercise to see a mutual benefit for us all.’

Further statistics and anonymised anecdotal responses will be available in the full report. blim.org.uk