The exam board of Britain’s royal schools of music is being urged to address the legacy of its colonial origins after research found 99% of pieces on its syllabuses were by white composers. Almost 4,000 people have signed an online petition calling for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM), which was founded in 1890 and exported its ideals of musical standards across the British empire, to include “black composers who have shaped the course of western classical music”.
And click the petition here to discover: Even in the ABRSM jazz piano syllabus, only around 22-25%* of the set works are written/arranged by black composers. Considering jazz originated in African-American communities, it seems to me that this statistic should be the other way round.
