The Guardian newspaper has reported that over 4,000 people have signed an online petition calling for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) to include "black composers who have shaped the course of western classical music", after research found that 99% of pieces on its syllabuses were by white composers.
Exclusion
The petition says the exclusion of figures such English conductor and composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and Joseph de Bologne, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, amounted to the "erasure of people of colour"from history.
The Royal Academy of Music (RAM), the Royal College of Music (RCM), the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and the Royal Northern College of Music deliver more than 650,000 exams and assessment each year in 93 countries around the world.
Study
However, a forthcoming study by Austin Griffiths, a senior teaching fellow at University College London (UCL) found that white composers wrote 98.8% of the 3,166 pieces on the latest exam syllabuses for 15 instruments.
Only 14 (0.4%) of pieces for the piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, French horn, trumpet, trombone, bass trombone, tuba, or harp were by composers of African heritage, with another 23 by Asian and other minority ethnic composers.
Only 14 (0.4%) of pieces for the piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, French horn, trumpet, trombone, bass trombone, tuba, or harp were by composers of African heritage4BR
Origins
The Guardian reported that Anna Bull, a sociology lecturer and author of Class, Control, and Classical Music, said the "overwhelming whiteness"of the ABRSM syllabuses reflected its colonial origins.
She stated that: "As a result, it is hardly surprising that there are very few black British students at UK conservatoires."
Find out more
To find out more about this story go to: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/15/uk-royal-schools-of-music-exam-board-urged-to-address-colonial-legacy?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
