We aim to be London’s anti-racist conservatoire

Trinity-Laban is struggling to deal with a controversial email by a jazz professor that inflamed feelings among minority students. It is now issuing assurances of student safety, but none whatsoever about protecting its staff and their freedom to teach.

Here’s the latest marshmallow from the embattled principal (pictured):

Dear students and colleagues,

Last Tuesday 19 March we met with a large group of you in the Laban Theatre because we needed to address a situation in which a member of our staff shared personal views that caused harm and offence to many of our students.

We would firstly like to thank all of you who attended and those of you who added your voice to this conversation via other means. These past weeks have been painful and upsetting, but they have also served as a catalyst for our community to hold each other to account. We have felt inspired by our students’ commitment to supporting each other and to ensuring that we hear your voices: you are what make us.

We must now move forward, together. We are sharing the minutes of the meeting for those who could not attend, they are attached, and include the answers to questions that were asked anonymously but not raised due to lack of time.

We want to acknowledge that while the situation was isolated in one music department, Jazz, it has provoked scrutiny of the whole of Trinity Laban, as well as causing shockwaves across other conservatoires and in the jazz sector as a whole. As we now respond to this situation through actions as well as the words we’ve exchanged we want to make it clear that we will focus on making change for the whole of Trinity Laban. This will include more meetings, and more opportunities for you to speak to us privately and anonymously about your experiences.

Our aspiration is to be an actively anti-racist conservatoire, and that means improving the experiences of black students and staff now.

If you have questions, experiences, feedback and concerns to share now, please contact your Director of Faculty.

With our best wishes,

Anthony Bowne, Principal (pictured)
Roger Wilson, TL Governor and Director of Black Lives in Music
Aleks Szram, Director of Music
Frances Clarke, Acting Director of Dance
Pamela Thompson, Head of People and Organisational Development
Hans Koller, Head of Jazz
Tessa Gillett, Head of Brand &c…

Here’s a further nugget from the meeting:
For those of us who have not seen the contents of the email sent from the individual, it would be helpful to clarify what content was offensive. The individual is being called racist. What was offensive and traumatic in the email?
We cannot detail what was said in the email. The legal process is important.
We need a clear understanding of offense, which is why awareness of micro-aggressions is important; to some people they may not seem that bad, but if someone interprets it as offensive then they need to feel supported.
The content of the email can be construed as racist. It is provocative and inflammatory, demonstrated by the number of people who have read it and have been suitably provoked by it.
There is also the issue of the power relationship between a teacher and a student being misused here.
As someone who has not read the email, is it racist or could is feel like a smear campaign? If someone is acting diabolically, then we should be able to talk about it with the individual.
For context, to understand why this is such a great issue, we must understand that Jazz music was created by black artists. It belongs to the African American community. We are blessed to be able to listen to this music and to teach it. This does not mean that we cannot play it, but we must respect where it came from. It was created by young people and the older musicians had to catch up with them and their changing music and views. This created a sense of community and togetherness. We need to reflect this in how we look after each other. This music is not about freedom of opinions, but rather about caring for each other.
Our role as musicians is to remember that a band works through its sharing of roles. It is not about one person in a position of power, singling people out.