Chi-chi Nwanoku

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 11 February 2018

⏱️ 38 minutes

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Summary

Chi-chi Nwanoku is a double bass player and founder of Europe's first professional majority black and minority ethnic orchestra, Chineke!. Chi-chi is the eldest of five children, born to a Nigerian father and an Irish mother. Early on, she discovered two competing passions: playing the piano and 100 metre sprinting. She was aiming to qualify for the 1976 Olympics when she suffered a knee injury which cut short her life as an athlete. Her music teacher then suggested that she could have a career as a musician if she took up 'an unpopular orchestral instrument'. She began learning the double bass a week later. She was a student at the Royal Academy of Music and for over 30 years has played with renowned orchestras, including the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, English Baroque Soloists, London Classical Players and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment , which she co-founded and where she was principal double bass for three decades. In 2015, she set up Chineke! to support, inspire and encourage black and minority ethnic musicians. Last year the Chineke! orchestra made its debut at the BBC Proms, and Chi-chi was awarded an OBE for her services to music. Producer: Sarah Taylor.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the BBC.
0:03.0	Hello, I'm Kristi Young.
0:05.0	Welcome to Desert Island Discs, where every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, the book and the luxury item
0:12.0	that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away on a desert island.
0:16.0	For rights reasons, the music on these podcast versions is shorter than in the original broadcast.
0:22.0	You can find over 2,000 more editions to listen to and download on the Desert Island Discs website.
0:30.0	Music
0:49.0	My castaway this week is the musician Chichen Wanakou.
0:52.0	A double bass player, she is founder of Europe's first Black and Minority Ethnic Orchestra, 62 musicians, 31 different nationalities.
1:01.0	My guest contributes to the multicultural mix three times over. Born in London, her mother was Irish, her father Nigerian.
1:08.0	She was a talented child and in the beginning it was sport that captured her heart.
1:13.0	She trained as a sprinter for the Montreal Olympics, but a nasty knee injury put paid to her ambitions on the track.
1:20.0	And so she swiftly turned her attention and ability to music.
1:24.0	She shone as a student at the Royal Academy.
1:27.0	And later was a founder member of the orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.
1:30.0	And now, in a classical world still notable for its paleness and mailness, she's changing perceptions and challenging stereotypes with significant success.
1:40.0	She says, with all born musicians, since the beginning of time we've communicated with each other through a series of rhythms and signs,
1:48.0	every one of us has a heartbeat that connects us to the rhythm of the earth. That's such an optimistic thought.
1:54.0	But for those of us who are not, we really don't feel that we naturally have musical talent. You honestly believe that, do you?
1:59.0	I do, I do.
2:01.0	If you've got any sense of coordination and movement, then there's absolutely no reason why we can't learn to do something physical.
2:11.0	You've performed all over the world different audiences in different places.
	...

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