Charles Hazelwood Wants Equality in Music

By Paul Richoux

“I want to make the world sit up and really think” – says Charles Hazlewood, creator and conductor of the British Paraorchestra. And my how the world is thinking.

The realisation

A renowned world class conductor, Charles Hazlewood has performed in some of the most iconic venues in the world. Most notably he has conducted the orchestra of Saint Luke’s in Carnegie Hall and the BBC Concert Orchestra for the BBC proms in the Royal Albert Hall.

When his youngest daughter was born with cerebral palsy seven years ago, Charles became more aware of and sensitive to disability issues. It was then that he realised; “I’ve conducted orchestras all over the world and I’ve only ever encountered a tiny handful of musicians with disabilities”.

This will not do

Realising that something needed to be done about this, Charles set about creating an orchestra made up entirely of musicians with disabilities. Finding musicians, he tells me, was the easy bit. Although there was no pre-existing network as such to find disabled musicians, he found that the word got out very fast and he quickly amassed a selection of some of the finest disabled musicians the country has to offer.

“Technologically speaking there is no barrier” says Charles and a glance at the Paraorchestra will prove this to be true. Virtually any disability can be worked around to allow the individual to create wonderful music. A good example of this is Lyn Levett, a member of the Paraorchestra who has cerebral palsy and who creates high quality music via an iPad that she controls with her nose.

Fighting prejudice

The greatest battle for Charles was not, as was mentioned, finding great musicians, it was “convincing the world that they would be any good”. Charles laments the continued stereotyping of disabled people by some. With a note of frustration he tells me that sometimes when he told people of his project they responded with a polite but slightly patronising “oh that would be lovely”, as if they didn’t seriously think the paraorchestra could be that good. “I had to really work to convince people that this wasn’t therapy. It was absolute excellence and musical talent”.

The ideal platform

Determined to silence the doubters Charles sought a stage worthy of his newly assembled orchestra and concluded that “with the Paralympics coming to London it was a once in a lifetime opportunity”.

Getting there however proved to be no picnic, even with his good name and reputation to vouch for them the paraorchestra encountered brick wall after brick wall.

But ultimately…

… Of course they made it. On the evening of the 9^th of September 2012 the British Paraorchestra took to the stage at London’s Olympic stadium and performed beautifully side by side with Coldplay to a live audience of about 80,000 people and an estimated UK TV audience of 7.7 million. Later as the Paralympic flag was lowered they performed the Paralympic anthem, slowly bringing the event to a close.

Since then

Since that extraordinary night, both Charles Hazlewood and the Paraorchestra have received considerable media attention. And far from retiring after that one performance they have gone from strength to strength, performing the national anthem for the Queen’s Christmas address and releasing a single. “True colours”, a cover by the British Paraorchestra of the 1986 song by Cindy Lauper, was released at the end of last year. Charles selected the song which he “considered very appropriate” due to the lyrics which emphasise the importance of inner strength and character. Building on this, the Paraorchestra is working on an album which is due to feature a number of celebrity guest musicians including Chris Martin of Coldplay and influential American composer Philip Glass.

They continue to perform live although sadly there are no UK tour dates coming up just yet. They do however have a residency coming up in Qatar, and are also scheduled to play in Johannesburg.

Barriers still to be broken

Charles is delighted that so much progress has been made in the campaign to give disabled musicians equal status, but reckons even more can be done. According to him “the key is to keep it in people’s minds”.

Following on from their acclaimed performance at the Paralympics, Charles is now looking to Rio 2016 for which he has an even greater ambition; a European wide Paraorchestra composed of not dozens but rather hundreds of disabled musicians. “I feel the sky’s the limit” says Charles for whom no dream is too big. He has already received the go-ahead from the president of the EU and it is now a case of “discovering” the talent.

There’ll always be an encore

In the brief time that they have existed the British Paraorchestra have defied prejudice and shone brightly. And the evidence indicates that we have a great deal still to look forward to. When I ask Charles what his own personal highlights are with the Paraorchestra he has this to say; “every time we get together, even if it’s just to jam, is unique to me”. For Charles, the journey is evidently as enjoyable as the destination.

Charles Hazelwood Wants Equality in Music

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