News Piece

Diversity Dischord in the Music Industry

In recent years, there has been a rise in articles reporting the music industry’s imbalance of diversity. This article explores the current figures on diversity in the UK music industry and considers how specifically the classical music world has acted to improve these statistics.

 Recent research from organisations such as, Arts Council UK (Creative Case), show concerning statistics over diversity across the music industry. Some of the main concerns are how are women, BAME (Black, Asian, and minority ethnic) and disabled workers are being represented in the music industry today.

Womeninmusic.org report that women comprise only 30% of the music industry (2018). Furthermore, Music Business Worldwide findings present a 30+% pay gap in major music companies. The Performing Rights Society, a major player that influences music policy in the UK, have created an initiative called PRS Keychange Foundation. This is a European movement which aims for 50:50 representation by 2022. Their progress is apparent as many organisations are already signing up to join. Moreover, the media and events associations are also raising public awareness and taking a stand on this issue too. Examples include; BBC Proms 2018 Woman Composers Commissions and Royal Philharmonic Society’s Woman Conductors Scheme. Advances in equality such as these, have made improvements to the 2.3% of female composers works performed in classical music. They have also improved Arts Council statistics of female artistic directors rising from 28% to 46% in the last year.

Alongside the change in diversity of women in music, National Portfolio Organisations associated with the Arts Council show the BAME demographic has increased from 11% to 12% in the last two years (2017/18). In recent years, BAME issues have been given a greater platform within classical music, the work of Chineke! Foundation being a foremost example. In 2017, the Chineke Orchestra were given a global platform to highlight BAME artists at the Proms and continue their work in helping future BAME artists, with the Chineke Junior Orchestra. Furthermore, other institutions have launched schemes in support of BAME artists, such as English National Opera’s Chorus Fellowship. 

Disabled workers only make up 5% of the work force in the Arts (Arts Council). A variety of programmes have been launched such as; the Nationwide Disability Confident Scheme, allowing companies the freedom to educate staff and ensure equality in the work place. In 2018, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra established BSO Resound, which is an ensemble made up entirely of disabled musicians. Their aims are to push for a social model towards disability in the work place. They achieved this when they were given to opportunity to perform at the BBC Proms. BSO Resound has also paved the way for other organisations such as, Royal Northern Sinfonia to create similar projects.

Overall, statistics demonstrate that diversity in the classical music industry is improving, but significantly, even Sir Nicholas Serota, Chair of Arts Council England, admits that “Progress has been too slow”.