What’s bothering Birmingham’s classical music fans?

‘If it ain’t woke, don’t fix it'

Good morning — are you a fan of classical music? Are you a regular in the audience at the CBSO? Do you read a certain blog called Slipped Disc? If so, you may be familiar with the conflict at the heart of today’s story. When the CBSO’s new chief executive, Emma Stenning, published plans for a shake-up at the organisation last November, she probably didn’t expect the furious response she received from some audience members. Much of the criticism has played out on a very popular classical music website edited by the critic Norman Lebrecht. We set out to find out what’s troubling them.

Editor’s note: Much like the arts sector, these days there isn’t a huge amount of money being invested in local journalism. As a result, readers like yourselves have to wade through adverts for betting sites and ‘one weird trick to cure fat loss’ to get to your news. We think that if we provide you with high quality writing, and skip the annoying ads, then you might be persuaded to pay £8 a month to ensure Birmingham has a publication it deserves. In return you’ll get access to a couple of extra, thoroughly reported articles a week with insights into the city that you won’t find anywhere else — like this one.

“Good quality local journalism is important to develop a good sense of community.” — Dispatch member.

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Brum in brief

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What’s bothering Birmingham’s classical music fans?

By Kate Knowles

Emma Stenning had a vision — a bold one. 

She wanted to conduct an experiment, which she expected would have a seismic impact on Birmingham’s concert-going public. 

It was 30 November 2023 and the 48-year-old arts executive was six months into her role as the new CEO of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO). With the help of staff members — musicians and administrators alike — she had developed five resolutions that would shake up the culture at the organisation. That morning, they were posted to the CBSO website. 

The “bold new vision for the CBSO” was intended as a work in progress, designed to evolve over the next 18 months in response to feedback from audiences. In her introduction, Stenning wrote: “Please join us on this journey of collaboration, discovery, and joy.” Paraphrased for brevity, the five resolutions were:

1. To share exceptional musical experiences and build on the CBSO’s reputation

2. To welcome audiences from all of Birmingham’s communities

3. To collaborate across those communities

4. To celebrate the individuality and personality of everyone involved in concerts

5. To demonstrate the belief that a symphony orchestra is uniquely positioned to achieve the above

Little did Stenning know, these words would unleash a furious response. 

Emma Stenning. Photo by CBSO.

That same day, Norman Lebrecht, a veteran classical music critic and author based in London, published an article to his website Slipped Disc. He did not take to the CBSO’s new approach. “Some CEOs feel happiest when they are making to-do lists,” he wrote. “In the orchestral world it is best to keep these things to yourself.” He ended his post on something of a cliffhanger that suggested there was more to come on this topic: “We’re getting worried about the future of the CBSO.”

Slipped Disc is a go-to depository for all things orchestral in the UK. Lebrecht publishes news, reviews and opinion concerning anyone and everyone in the classical music industry. The prolific 75-year-old has a reputation as something of a stirrer — the American site classicstoday.com once published a parody article declaring his death by spontaneous combustion. It “hardly contains more fiction than a typical Lebrecht article”, wrote its author David Hurwitz (Lebrecht rejects the claim he is a gossip-monger, and points to serious stories he has broken that have been picked up by the worldwide media).

Over the following nine months, Slipped Disc published at least 15 articles on the CBSO, which together give the impression of an orchestra undergoing a crisis, with Stenning at its centre. As well as Lebrecht’s site, negative coverage of the CBSO has also appeared in the Birmingham Post and The Critic. The harshest of these criticisms suggests Stenning is overseeing a “woke” transformation of the 104-year-old organisation; that she doesn’t understand the world of classical music and that her attempt to widen participation in it is merely a “box-ticking” exercise that she learned from her time working for Arts Council England (ACE). One Slipped Disc commenter even compared her to Adolf Hitler (Lebrecht says this was “bloody stupid — she is nothing of the sort”).

I was curious to understand this vitriol — whether any of it was well-founded, or if there was something else underlying the fervour elicited by Stenning’s vision. Were hoards of people very upset by the missive? Did this represent a financial threat, as one source suggested, to the organisation? Was the furore, as so often is the case, a storm in a teacup, brewed online? 

When I asked around about the controversy, I was surprised to hear it was part of a larger story — one involving jealousy and snobbery among Fleet Street’s critics of the higher arts.