“All White on the Night”!….

There’s a vitriolic war of words going on across the pond in Great Britain over this statement made by the Arts Minister Margaret Hodge:

“The audiences for many of our greatest cultural events – I’m thinking of the Proms but it is true of many others – is still a long way from demonstrating that people from different backgrounds feel at ease in being part of this.”

She is being torn apart for this, but there is a balanced and profound viewpoint that I came across……

As a student in London for 4 years, I loved going to the Proms.  I saw many incredible performances (I’ll never forget when Bernstein and the Vienna Phil did Mahler 5).  I didn’t really pay attention to the audience, I was with fellow students and immersed in what was happening on the stage, and since we were always on the floor, it was actually hard to see anything at times, since everyone mostly stands up for the whole performance.  The atmosphere though was very casual, and before every performance groups of people would compete with clever and witty chants.  There’s no doubt this is an accessible festival and unlike regular concerts. The music too was and is very diverse (more so now), however, the vitriolic responses to the above statement in my opinion raise more questions about overall accessibility, and might even add a floor to the “ivory tower”.

Several journalists have written that her statement is an unfair attack on the Proms, like in this article by Martin Kettle:

She made an attack upon the Proms as a whole – and I think she should be absolutely pilloried for it.

I’m confused by this and other similar statements, especially from those who use the diversity in the music and those performing at the Proms as the sole basis of their arguments.  She’s not talking about what’s happening on stage, she’s talking about the accessibility for a diverse audience to feel at ease to attend.  Almost no one is focusing on that. I haven’t seen any article that provides stats to refute what she’s saying either.  What is the make up of the Proms audience?  She’s not attacking the event or the culture, but more the elitism of those organizing and promoting the culture.  Is anyone prepared to write that there is no elitism?

In an extraordinary article written by Stephen Moss entitled All white on the night, there’s a very detailed and moving interview with Candace Allen and what it’s like to be the only black person at a classical concert. It outlines many different issues, truths and challenges.  For my class it’s going to become required reading.  One of the many concerns Candace brings up is the issue of class, and the role it plays in excluding people from culture:

The issue is as much about class as race. Living on a council estate, offered only the most rudimentary music education, I was exposed to virtually no classical music in my childhood. One memory that has stayed with me is of standing on a street corner once with a group of my friends – we’d have been about 14 – and hearing strange music coming from an elderly woman’s flat (I think it might have been the Blue Danube waltz). We always thought this old woman was mad, and this music just proved it. What on earth would we have thought if she’d been playing Schnittke?

This is one of the many great points she makes.  To keep the Class in Classical, we need to make it open to all Classes or even better, help make the idea of Classes disappear!