Decca and Chineke! Orchestra announce Chineke! Records

Florence Lockheart
Friday, May 6, 2022

The new label, launched by Decca Records in partnership with Chineke! Orchestra, will release its first album in August

L-R: Natalia Senior-Brown(Viola), Benjamin Garalnick(French Horn), Decca Records Co-President Laura Monks, Chineke! Founder Chi-chi Nwanoku OBE, Decca Records Co-President Tom Lewis, Aaron Akugbo(Trumpet), Thea Sayer(Double bass) ©Carsten Windhorst
L-R: Natalia Senior-Brown(Viola), Benjamin Garalnick(French Horn), Decca Records Co-President Laura Monks, Chineke! Founder Chi-chi Nwanoku OBE, Decca Records Co-President Tom Lewis, Aaron Akugbo(Trumpet), Thea Sayer(Double bass) ©Carsten Windhorst

Decca Records has launched a new label in partnership with Chineke! Orchestra, Europe’s first professional majority Black and ethnically diverse orchestra. Chineke! Records will release the orchestra’s music, with the first album release expected in August.

Chineke! Orchestra is the flagship ensemble of the Chineke! Foundation. The foundation’s founder, artistic and executive director, Chi-chi Nwanoku OBE, will now become the executive producer of Chineke! Records.

Nwanoku said: ‘Chineke!’s mission of championing change and celebrating diversity in classical music shines throughout the extraordinary range of repertoire we have discovered and brought to life; music that has been either hidden or unheard for too long… Decca shares our mission of inclusion and with their worldwide reach will ensure this music is heard in every corner of the globe.’

Chineke! Records’s first release will commemorate the 110th anniversary of the death of composer, conductor and political activist Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Thw album will also features a world premiere recording of work by Coleridge-Taylor’s daughter, Avril. 

The Chineke! Orchestra and foundation, were both founded by Nwanoku in 2015, with the aim of providing career opportunities for Black, Asian and ethnically diverse classical musicians in the UK and Europe. In 2017, the orchestra made its BBC Proms debut at the Royal Albert Hall before going on to make its debut at Wigmore Hall the following year. In 2019, the orchestra won the Royal Philharmonic Society’s first Gamechanger Award.

Tom Lewis and Laura Monks, co-presidents of Decca Label Group, described Chi-chi as: ‘a trailblazer with an important mission and, together with Chineke! she has recorded compositions by some of the world’s most important yet under-represented classical composers. We are committed to spreading the incredible music, talent and message of Chineke! around the world.’  

You can find out more about Decca Records here.

You can find out more about the Chineke! Foundation here.