"The Proms are too white"

Tuesday, 4th September 2007

Not the kind of thing you expect to hear a Tory say, but here's Brian Coleman, going OTT in the New Statesman:

Musicals may be for the West End queens and the foreign tourists, straight theatre for the artistic elite, and opera for the upper classes and the corporate sponsors but classical music concerts remain for the middle classes. The Proms are the BBC's way of keeping Middle England happy. As London this week unveils its statue of Nelson Mandela our capital city’s cultural life continues to practise a firm apartheid system.

OK, now, I admit, I do get a sinking feeling every time I scan the audience at the Albert Hall - something I instinctively do every time I take my seat. I'm also usually the only non-white face at a comedy show by the peerless stand-up Jackie Mason, which can be a tiny but uncomfortable when he gets going on his racial schtick. But as far as I can see, the only durable way to change the make-up of the Proms audience is to improve music education in this country.

Julian Lloyd Webber (who's not to be blamed for his brother's crimes against humanity) makes a worthwhile point elsewhere:

Lloyd Webber, first spotted as a promising young musician in his early teens, said that last Sunday's performance by the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra from Venezuela was 'frankly shaming' to the British cultural establishment. 'This concert showed that classical music can be hip and that it is enjoyed by young people from every kind of background,' he said....He said that classical audiences are labelled elitist and dominated by white people, while the same thing is rarely said about the largely white and comfortably off crowds at rock concerts. It is a question of economics, not race, the musician argues.

[Prom pic: BBC / Sisi Burn]