Mahaliah Edwards

As part of the ISM’s commitment to exploring issues of access to music and arts education, violinist Mahaliah Edwards tells Clare Stevens about her experience of making her way through professional training as a person of colour from a state school in an East Midlands town

Above: Clare Stevens Photo: Bruce Childs

Left: Mahaliah Edwards Photo: Bethany Watkins

Right: Mahaliah Edwards with one of her pupils (Photo taken prior to the COVID-19 lockdown) Photo: Vicki MacLeod Mahaliah Edwards was given a violin for her seventh birthday – ‘I don’t really know why,’ she recalls, ‘I just woke up and saw it in its case on my bedroom floor. I’d been having piano lessons, but we weren’t a particularly musical family, and there was nobody to teach me how to play the violin until I started secondary school. I was fascinated by sound, so I signed up for half-hour weekly lessons at school given by the local county music service. It just snowballed from there; I had five different teachers, but one of them really pushed me, introduced me to a lot of repertoire and educated me about the world of classical music. I joined the Nottingham Youth Orchestra and ended up leading it.’

It was only when they saw their daughter standing at the front of the stage in Nottingham’s Albert Hall and being applauded that her parents realised the importance of music to her. Even then she didn’t feel able to tell them she was interested in making it her career. ‘I knew Isata Kanneh-Mason and she suggested I should audition for a sixth form place at the Purcell School in Hertfordshire, but it was one of my form teachers, Mrs Pink, who drove me down to the auditions. She knew nothing about music either, but she had seen me doing my violin practice and my homework at school and she wanted to help me. I didn’t tell my parents anything about it until the letter arrived offering me a place.

‘I didn’t think they’d get it. Music is inherent in the Pentecostalist culture that we belong to, but it is not considered to be a valid career; my parents would have thought it was much too risky.’

How did it feel to be one of only three black students in a school of 200 pupils?

‘I was used to it, as I didn’t live in a multicultural area of Nottingham and I was the only black person in the youth orchestra. I didn’t have any black role models. But the difficulty I faced at the Purcell School and later when I won a place at the (now Royal) Birmingham Conservatoire (RBC) was not being black, it was the limitations of my musical education: having started learning the violin so late, when most other people had been playing since they were five or six; having all my lessons at school, snatching half an hour out of a science lesson, instead of privately; knowing so little about the whole context and etiquette of concerts.

‘I felt I hadn’t been educated to the right level. I won a place and a scholarship, but I hadn’t developed the technique and skills I needed to succeed as a violinist; from leading the orchestra in Nottingham I went to the back desk of the second violins. It was a big culture shock.

‘I did enjoy being able to talk about my favourite pieces with other young musicians of my age who shared my passion for Shostakovich, or argue about whether Julia Fischer is a better player than Maxim Vengerov, but I more or less had to start learning to play the violin all over again with my new teacher, and I found that really, really difficult. I’m grateful to the Purcell School for giving me the skills I needed, space to breathe and the opportunity to practise for hours and hours a day – I could never have gone straight from a state comprehensive school to a conservatoire. But I did develop a bit of a complex about not being good enough as a performer. That is quite normal, but it’s much more poignant when you don’t have a role model to help you see that it’s possible to conquer your difficulties.’

Below: Mahaliah Edwards playing at Shrewsbury Folk Festival (Photo taken prior to the COVID-19 lockdown)

At RBC the proportion of BAME students was even smaller than at the Purcell School: ‘There were around 600 students including postgraduates, and only about five of us were black. It is strange, because that is not the case when you go out into the streets of Birmingham. When you are studying and performing at that level it is very isolating to be so different. My teacher, Susanne Stanzeleit, was wonderful – she is an amazing player and an amazing person and I’m so grateful to her, but I often encountered some very harsh criticism from visiting teachers because I didn’t play to the standard they expected. I think more could have been done to recognise that students from backgrounds like mine need additional support to help them through the conflict of identity they can face, and even with practicalities like managing more money than they have ever been used to when they receive large scholarships.’

After graduating from RBC, Edwards returned to Nottingham, where she now has a portfolio career as a performer, educator, community music facilitator and advocate for music for social change. In addition to playing classical repertoire with the Birminghambased Dunev string quartet, which she founded, she performs music of diverse origins ranging from gospel, reggae and Afrobeats to electronic and folk. She has also worked, performed and collaborated with artists such as British Composer Errollyn Wallen, Grammy Award-winning percussionist Lekan Babalola and Haitian-American singer-songwriter and violinist Germa Adan.

Edwards admits that if she is booked to perform at a wedding or a dinner there are still some surprised looks when she arrives with her violin over her shoulder: ‘People are expecting somebody else. I’m the person who speaks when my string quartet gives a concert and afterwards people will say thank you, but with a tinge of surprise that I can chat about Shostakovich and Haydn. I’m used to it, but that doesn’t make it OK.’

Even in the short time she has been working in classical music, however, she can see a change in attitudes as a result of the success of performers like Sheku Kanneh-Mason and his family, and double bassist Chi-chi Nwanoku’s Chineke! Orchestra. ‘They make it seem quite cool for a young black person to be a classical musician. That’s great, but I’m always wary of tokenism, or of being put in a box – my life is not a “trend”! I can’t just decide one day that I’m not black.’

Edwards teaches with the Nottingham Music Hub and regularly runs workshops, classroom lessons and enrichment programmes in schools across the UK, particularly in areas where accessibility, mentorship and inspiration are lacking. She is passionate about helping young people to develop essential life skills through engaging with music and the arts and in 2017 her work in this domain was recognised by the Association of Jamaican Nationals who awarded her with the Be Inspired Youth Award.

‘In many ways I have a more direct influence on the children I teach than someone like Sheku does,’ she points out. ‘His profile is huge in Nottingham, his picture is on the side of the buses, but it’s much more effective for the children to hear someone like me playing the way I do, because there isn’t such a gulf between me and them.

‘Much more needs to be done before a young black person can think it is normal to be a classical musician. We need more black virtuosos and more awareness of black composers – I didn’t know there were any until I was at my second year at conservatoire.’

But cultural capital works the other way too, she adds. ‘I think high culture is for everyone, whatever background they are from – whether it’s art, literature, history – we need to be exposing children to it the minute they get into schools and throughout their education. It’s art and creativity that enrich society. People often struggle with their identity, but who said we have to choose? There is music in every culture, and over the years they have all been influenced by one another. The Pentecostal music that I grew up with was full of reggae and African and calypso elements. I’ve been arranging music for my string quartet that reflects some of that – I’m hoping it will bring more people into concert halls in a way that is respectful to all genres.’

Edwards is keen to emphasise that the #BlackLivesMatter movement is about protesting against police brutality, a serious cause that should not be diminished by adding lots of other agendas. But she does recognise that it may have a beneficial effect at every level of society.

‘We are gaining a lot of allies, people who are not black but who really want to understand the challenges black people face in arenas such as the arts; what are the societal issues and the systemic discriminations that prevent them from fulfilling their potential. Outreach comes in all types and forms, and there is undoubtedly a ripple effect from everything that is going on at the moment. I hope that there will be more people like me on concert hall stages and in the audience, so that ultimately anyone can walk into a place like Symphony Hall, Birmingham and feel included, rather than feeling that they don’t belong.’

mahaliahedwards.com

Edwards will be delivering our webinar, Diversify your music lessons, on Friday 25 September from 2-3pm at ismtrust.org/ professional-development/webinar-archive

Above: Mahaliah Edwards (right) with the Dunev Quartet (Photo taken prior to the COVID-19 lockdown) Photo: Bethany Watkins