Violinist Rachel Rowntree speaks to the music industry’s leading disability champions about the need to create opportunities for all
Disability in orchestras
When was the last time you went to a concert and heard a disabled musician perform? Many of the UK’s finest concert hall stages remain inaccessible to disabled artists and a lack of imaginative commissioning and programming means we too rarely see disabled musicians on stage. Thankfully, though, change is afoot. There is small army of instrumentalists, conductors, composers and instrument makers fighting to make the industry genuinely more accessible to professional performers.
Whenever Britain wants to show off its finest cultural jewels, there they are, shining brightly: the UK’s symphony orchestras. Speaking from 20 years of experience playing in orchestras at home and abroad, orchestral life is pretty magical. At its best, being part of a symphony orchestra is exhilarating; the orchestra becomes your second home, your second family. However, the symphonic sector can also be a brutal one. The schedules are gruelling, and late nights and early flights are the norm. The rates of pay can make it feel like a battle for survival and ‘job security’ are not words we’re hugely familiar with! These factors alone create huge barriers for professional disabled musicians.
Statistics are scarce. A 2021 Arts Council England (ACE) study found just two per cent of musicians in ACE-funded ensembles and BBC orchestras declaring a disability. This seems an incredibly low figure when 22 per cent of the UK’s total population identify as disabled. So why the gap?
Shockingly, it appears a culture of fear exists around disclosing disabilities, in case it might negatively impact a fixer’s decision to book a player. Charles Hazlewood, artistic director of Paraorchestra, told me this was horribly clear after a recent round of auditions for the ensemble: ‘At least half the players we took on had never come out about their disability. They’d soldiered on, obsessed that if they let out of the bag their particular challenges or differences, their work would dry out.’
Awareness, though, can be a gamechanger, as some orchestras are beginning to realise. The Aurora Orchestra, for one, has a plan in place – it has started sending an ‘Additional Needs’ document to all players before a project begins, as the orchestra’s concert manager Alana Grady told me: ‘This form gives an opportunity for players to have a dialogue with the creative team, so additional requests can be worked into the plans at an early stage.’ Reasonab
