English National Opera Announces Next Stage Of Strategy For Encouraging A More Inclusive Opera Industry

English National Opera (ENO) today (14 January) announces the next phase of a strategy aimed at making the opera industry more accessible and representative of the society in which we live.

ENO is to recruit 5 new string players from a Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) background in a positive effort to ensure our Orchestra more fairly reflects our society. ENO's ambition is to achieve greater diversity within the company to create specific opportunities for those who are currently under represented both in London and nationally. Those who are selected for the ENO Orchestra Fellowship for BAME String Players will join the ENO Orchestra from the start of the 2020/21 season on a fixed term contract for 12 months.

This marks the second phase in ENO's commitment to achieve greater diversity within the opera industry and classical music. In January of last year we announced the first phase - that we were to recruit four new Chorus Fellows from a BAME background in a concerted effort to ensure our Chorus more fairly reflects our society. Isabelle Peters, Julia Daramy-Williams, Satriya Krisna and James Liu joined ENO in August and have already been featured on stage as part of ENO's 19/20 Season.

Additionally, ENO launched four annual ENO Director Observerships, offering emerging BAME directors the opportunity to work alongside world-renowned opera directors, observing the entire process of directing an opera from start to finish. Paid participants will also be given an insight into the day to day workings of a large national company, from stage management and company office to technical and production. Abdul Shayek, Femi Fagunwa, Ashen Gupta and Annie-Lunnette Deakin-Foster are observing Orpheus in the Underworld, Rusalka, Carmen and The Marriage of Figaro respectively. This scheme will continue in to the 2020/21 season.

From the start of the 2018 Season, ENO put into place, for the first time ever, screened auditions for the orchestra, as part of its recruitment process. This has also extended to auditions for the chorus.

Martyn Brabbins, ENO Music Director, said: "Here at ENO we are committed to contributing to the development of a more diverse classical music industry. We strongly believe by introducing the ENO Orchestra Fellowship for BAME String Players we will make an important and much needed difference to the opera industry, and further our belief that opera should be open to everybody."

Stuart Murphy, CEO, ENO said: "This is another vital step by English National Opera to making the opera industry more inclusive. We are proud to be proactively encouraging a more diverse workforce in the classical music industry and hope that other UK institutions follow suit."

John Shortell, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Official, Musicians' Union said: "The MU is delighted that ENO are tackling the issue of diversity in orchestras head on. It's essential that orchestras reflect our diverse society and positive action initiatives, such as ENO's, are a vital first step in making orchestras more representative and help level the playing field for BAME musicians. The MU fully supports the initiative and we look forward to seeing the impact ENO's fantastic work has on the orchestral sector."

Claire Mera-Nelson, Director of Music for Arts Council England said: "The Arts Council welcomes the next step in ENO's plan to diversify its workforce. More needs to be done to address the significant barriers that Black and minority ethnic musicians face in joining an orchestra and ensuring that it better reflects the society we live in."

In the 18/19 season, 10% of ENO's audience was BAME. The company will continue to increase diversity via its audience development strategy, a big part of which will be ensuring bigger and broader representation on stage within our productions.

Through ENO Baylis, the company's Learning and Participation programme, we continually engage with people from areas of social deprivation or BAME backgrounds to introduce them to opera, and provide support to those who are interested in developing a career in the arts. To date, more than 15,000 people have watched ENO for free via Baylis ticket giveaways, and we have brought opera into schools, allowing more than 5000 schoolchildren from schools with a higher than average BAME representation to experience opera.