A celebration of Winifred Atwell

I quit piano lessons when I was 14 due to being bored and frustrated with the graded system. My paternal grandmother was a pianist, and I promised her that even though I gave up lessons, I wouldn’t stop playing. She presented me a recording of Winifred Atwell playing ‘The Black and White Rag’, and said ‘try that’.
 
Winifred’s playing opened up the piano to me in a way that no-one had before. I loved how she rejected playing on a concert grand in favour of a honky tonk piano from a junk shop, and I loved the joy that exuded from her playing.
 
As a classical pianist she was the first female to be awarded the Royal Academy of Music’s highest grading for musicianship and she made one of the first stereo classical recordings of Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor with the London Philharmonia Orchestra. Her unique honky-tonk style of playing is what she is most credited for however, regularly appearing on TV during the 1950s, and she became the biggest-selling pianist of her time. Her 1954 single ‘Let’s Have Another Party’ was the first No 1 in the UK singles chart by a woman, by a black artist, and that was a piano instrumental.
 
While I was introduced to her music in my teenage years, my formal music education didn’t give me the tools or insight to ask questions about the context and the lives of who I was listening to, learning and playing and this is an ignorance I deeply regret. It is only through researching more about Winifred’s life and career that I have come to truly appreciate the resilience, courage and vivacity she had as a black female artist during the 1950s-1960s, who also regularly spoke out against prejudice and discrimination of others.
 
Therefore the important work of individuals and organisations such as Prof Nate Holder, Jenetta Hurst, Black Lives in Music, Natasha Hendry, Dr Diljeet Bhachu and many others is critical for championing a decolonised, diversified music education and giving children and young people the tools to question the music they are being exposed to.
 
And by the way, I’m still trying to play the Black and White rag…
 
Una Winifred Atwell (27 February or 27 April 1910 or 1914* – 28 February 1983)

#blackhistorymonth #salutingoursisters

*Exact date of birth unknown