BBC Music Day Ambassador, conductor and founder of the British Paraorchestra Charles Hazlewood explains how the group will work with music-makers in Bristol on BBC Music Day.
I'm a conductor and I'm the founder of the British Para Orchestra. I'm really pleased to be working with the BBC as an ambassador and participant in BBC Music Day and wanted to share a few of my thoughts about the day and what me and my colleagues will be doing in Bristol as part of the celebration.
But first, some background about the group I conduct. The British Paraorchestra is a band I formed three years ago to meet a very specific need. Having had a child myself with cerebal palsy she woke me up to the issue of disability in music-making. I began to realise that in my 25 years as a conducting working with orchestras across the world there were virtually no groups with musicians with disabilities in them.
There's a simple reason for that: the world hasn't woken up to the fact, hasn't done the joined up thinking, hasn't slightly shifted on its axis so that the potentially gifted musicians who do have a disability get an opportunity - getting the training they need, getting access to the technology they might need and work their way through the ranks and sit side by side with all non-disabled musicians. That isn't happening at the moment and it's got to change.
So, we decided to form a new orchestra of virtuoso musicians each of whom had some form of disability. Musicians who are disabled are every bit as capable of making world class music as non-disabled musicians. And secondly we wanted that orchestra to shift people's thinking - rather in the same way that the Paralympics achieved for disabled people in sport.
There was a lot of scepticism initially which was the unspoken thing. What I could see lurking at the back of their mind were half-formed thoughts. It was that assumption that if a disabled person does something it somehow won't be as good as if a non-disabled person does it. There remains some scepticism which is why we have to carry on shining a light on what the Para Orchestra is doing so that everyone sees that things still need to change.
The tipping point comes when people and open their ears and hear absolutely phenomenal, world class music making actually happening in front of them. When that happens, then any half-constructed pre-conception they might have about disabled people and music-making will be shorn off. Then those people become the permanently converted.
So, on BBC Music Day there are five members of the BPO working alongside some local choirs under the direction of David Alston along with the Open Up Orchestra which Douglas Bott runs. It should be a lovely coming together of local musicians and performers from much further afield. I'm really looking forward to it.
For me, the important aspect of BBC Music Day is that its an opportunity for the whole country to come together and share in a love of music-making and music. We'll see performances from across the UK. but the fact that it's a celebration of not just pop stars or known groups, its very much about joining them up with members of the public and making music today. Music is a universal language - or should be.
BBC Music Day is a unique opportunity to celebrate that fact and the BBC can stage a celebration like that better than anyone.
- Discover more about BBC Music day events across the UK.
- Follow events on Friday 5 June via the BBC Music Day website.
