Turning on the tap

Clement Ishmael does pretty much everything. The composer, music director, conductor (and now - producer) has carved out a wonderful career by, essentially, falling upwards. He tells us how he learned to stop saying ‘no’ and about the satisfying flow of creativity.

Who are you?

That is not an easy question! I’m Canadian British, a musician, composer, conductor. That’s who I would say I am. I started my education in England, came to Canada and had my formative life in Canada which was high school and university. I went to the Faculty of Music in Toronto and studied Composition and Conducting. Then I came back to London and studied Composition and Conducting at the Guildhall (School of Music and Drama). 

Why do you do what you do? How did you get here?

The only thing that’s been a constant in my life is writing music. As soon as I could play, I was writing. I’ve spent my whole life writing music. It's funny, I didn’t consider myself a composer at all - not formally - because writing music just felt a part of me. Even after I graduated, I didn’t call myself a composer, I just said I write music. I did a course in music for film and I asked a colleague there what she did. She said she was a composer and I thought “What do you mean you’re a composer? Who are you to say that?!” That was the first time I really considered who I am. Maybe I am a composer as well. It just didn’t occur to me. If you read books, do you call yourself a reader? No, you just read books. You read, you like reading. I’d never thought of it before until I was confronted by her statement. She was so confident and confident in the way students can be. “This is who I am!” And me, with all my nervousness and worry about my career, I was reticent. “ Yeah, maybe I am as well…”. It took a while.

What would you do if you couldn’t write music?

I had always wanted to be a foreign correspondent, believe it or not.

I started playing the piano from an early age. I was the young black kid on the block that played piano, one of the rare black kids that could play classical music. I turned seventeen, eighteen and was going to University and the last thing I wanted to do was what everyone was expecting of me, so I thought, let me look around and see what else I can do, I also liked Maths as well. (We’re going back a long way because in the first year of University, you could do anything, you didn’t have to specialise.) I took Psychology, Maths, English and Music because I thought I was good at it, so I should take it. In the second year I thought about what I’d done really well in and that was English and Music, so I did Music with an English minor. It was out of rebellious resistance to my family who were automatically assuming that I would be a musician. I thought there was more to me than just that. I wanted to prove them wrong and I ended up doing music anyway. They were right! You know what it’s like, seventeen, eighteen - don’t tell me what to do!

What I’m doing now, I fell into. Every step of the way I just fell into it. The conducting wasn’t an idea because, believe it or not, I’m a very shy person. Standing up in front of people and telling them what to do  - I like the power, don’t get me wrong, but it’s quite nerve wracking for me. I was still at University and I was playing for an operatic company, based in Brampton. The conductor moved away and they asked me to take over. I said “Wha???” I hadn’t dreamed of doing anything like that before. I had my own groups that I played for and conducted, little tiny things that I did myself. I thought, ”Why not? Just do it!” It was partly Clifford Poole who was my piano teacher at the time. He said, ”You must do it, you must.” So I said, “Okay.” And I was nominated for a Juno for best conductor. That was my very first gig. I thought, if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it properly and that’s when I started taking conducting. Initially I was doing a Music Specialist degree but then I took on Conducting and Composition. I was also singing at Hart House and the conductor, Denise Narcisse-Mair wanted me to be her associate for the choirs. I started doing more choral conducting and stuff like that.. I fell into it really.

What is that Shakespeare quote? “There is a tide in the affairs of men.” It’s all about taking opportunities as they present themselves, whether you think you can do it or not. I’ve learnt that sometimes, even though you don’t think you can do it, find a way to do it.  That’s been my modus operandi. It’s taken me a long time to get to that place, I have to say. I’ve learnt even though you’re not quite sure how you can do it, you should just go for it and learn how to do it. If someone has asked you to do something, they have confidence in you.

With the pandemic upon us, as the Music Supervisor Supremo (!) for The Lion King, how has it affected your position?

I'm the only creative that works out of London, I don’t get any money   I’m self-employed. Even though Disney furloughed me and I get my majority of work from them, I’m not entitled to anything in this country. If I were in America it would be different.  

What have you been doing in this pandemic?

For the last fifteen or so years, I’ve been working like a chicken with its head cut off and flying all over the place. I am so happy and thankful to be home. Basically, all I am doing  is writing music. I’m one of the lucky ones in that I’d saved up money to fix the house and buy a car and all that stuff, so I had some savings, which will go in a year or so, but that’s okay. Hopefully by that time I’ll be back at work. I’ve always said that I wanted the time to write and here it was. So I wrote.  And I’ve written forty something songs, I’m working on a choral piece right now. I’ve written some piano stuff and I’m happy about it, very happy about it.

Was it solely lack of time to do this, or enough distraction to stop you doing this?

That’s a fascinating question. I sat down, a couple of days into the lockdown and thought to myself, ”well, here you are, you’ve got the time to write, so...write.”  I’ve always been writing but it’s been snippets, here and there. I did my concert last year, with twenty or so songs that were all mine plus choral stuff, so in between all of this I have been writing but not substantially. It was like somebody had turned on a tap creatively and I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop, it was just unbelievable. I was writing three songs a week. It was so gratifying and exciting. Maybe the stuff I was writing was crap, but honestly, I’m really proud of the stuff I’ve written. It’s just come pouring out. During this lockdown I’ve realised that maybe I need to balance my life a little more. Maybe I need to do less running around the world and start balancing my life so that I have time to really write. I also formed a new company - BENNU CREATIVE HOUSE. The manager for the concert said that she had three colleagues that were all trying to do the same thing - trying to put something back into the artistic environment and enable people to achieve what they want to achieve. There are so many people who we see, who we meet, who have great ideas and nobody to facilitate them. I thought, “why not?” She suggested I talk to Shelley (Maxwell). And I was talking to Celise (Hicks) and she was talking to Michelle (McGivern). The four of us got together and formed a production company, just to do that. To provide people with the space and the expertise to fulfil what we think they might possibly achieve. You know what’s really interesting about it? We’ve done a couple of projects and we have a lot of things we want to do and put together but it’s in the conversations, like we’re having now, that we find out what people want to do and what they want to achieve. There are four people saying yes and  that these things are possible. It’s affirming. People go away from the meeting and say, “Right. I just needed someone to tell me that it’s possible, that it’s a good thing”. We have a lot of ambitious plans and ideas. Watch this space. 

I got into music theatre but was not what I wanted to do, at all. Music theatre was way down the totem pole for me. I was a classical musician, I was a classical composer, blah blah blah… I was teaching and a friend of mine was doing Ain’t Misbehaving. He got really ill and he asked me to do it. They were on tour in Oxford and at that time, I was saying yes to everything so, I said. I spent hours and hours and hours practising the bloody thing, God it was hard! Clarke (Peters) saw it and said he was doing a new show in Stratford East and did I fancy being MD of it. I was teaching and I said I didn’t know but at the same time I was asked to do Carmen Jones at the Old Vic with Henry Lewis. And I knew that Wayne (Marshall) was doing it. And they wanted me to be the other conductor. That’s the field that I wanted to be in - classical. But, I was teaching and that was very long term and Five Guys was only going to be five weeks. I did Five Guys and of course it just blew up. One thing just lead to another.

I did Ain’t Misbehaving at the Tricycle, which then transferred into town.  That’s how I drove myself into music theatre, I guess. I got all the black shows, of course. I was doing Smokey Joe’s Cafe, twenty one years ago in town and was asked to be the associate conductor of the London conductor of Lion King. My agent told me to go to New York and see the show. I went and thought...not bad (!).

That’s what I mean, you fall into these situations. 

The reactions to George Floyd, the frisson in the arts world that changed in some way, the very careful tiptoeing about diversity in the arts. What did it do for you?

Disney has shows everywhere. I’ve had many conversations from companies all over the world. It was the conversations with the Americans and the British that were very raw. There’s Lion King in New York but there’s also a tour. You can only imagine what those kids have experienced on tour in middle America, in Trump times. The stuff that came out was not unexpected but very hard to hear. It made me feel...I’m in a creative management position, I’m not going to be silent anymore.  That’s what’s changed for me more than anything else. When I see things that are unjust, I have a responsibility to myself and everyone around me. I haven’t done that enough in the past, to be completely honest. We see it, know what it is, but don’t say anything. The times that we’re in now make me feel that I need to be bold, say this is what it is and not tolerate it. I have nothing to lose right now at this point. In music theatre, I’m going out on the biggest show ever. If I don’t do another show for them, that’s okay, it’s fine. Lion King is a black show, really, but there are only three creative people of colour not on stage. There are hardly any behind the scenes. It’s something that needs to be addressed. My experience with Disney has shown me this. The States are different from here. If they think you are talented and we need you to make money out of, that’s fine. In this country, they can know that you’re talented but they would rather have somebody else.

There are battles of course. I only get involved in the final auditions. Only in South Africa do I do everything. But every single country is really different. I have a global perspective now on race, which is really interesting. They are all very different and all have problems. I’m one of the privileged because I come with the badge of Disney. I’ve been treated badly too but as soon as you show the Disney badge then you’re kind of ‘home free’. I’ve had problems, a lot of problems because of how I look. Travelling through America and on planes. I haven’t talked properly to the powers that be but now, they kind of know. It’s time they knew what is happening to the people that work for them, in whatever capacity - people of colour who are from diverse ethnic backgrounds.

Do you think that music theatre is freer in its attitude to race than classical Music?

I think, in a way, it is. I think it’s about both race and class. The type of people that go to opera are traditionally from a particular class, and a particular class that don’t feel the need to mingle and mix with people who are not of their class. My experience, in classical music, has not been unexpected but very racialised. Even at the Faculty of Music in Toronto, I was the only black person there. I always felt like an interloper. They would always look at me. ”Who is this person? What is he doing here? Why is he doing classical music? It’s not his music, he should be doing something else.”  I actually do think it’s worse. They expect black people to be doing popular music, not to be singing opera as such. I want to see black people in Carmen, Magic Flute, everything under the sun, why does it have to be Porgy and Bess? This is why opera is behind music theatre, to be honest. Music theatre was the same, years ago. At one point, years back, when I was doing all the black shows, there was a moment when Ain’t Misbehavin, Five Guys, Hot Mikado, Mama I Want to Sing - all were on at the same time. We renamed Shaftesbury Avenue as Blacksbury Avenue. After the shows, everyone would congregate at a local pub and everyone was there because everyone was in town. And we all knew that, in a year, everyone would be gone, never to return. It was a specific moment in time. But what happened in music theatre was that John was played by a black actor in Miss Saigon which became the norm and Eponine in Les Mis etc. They’ve been infiltrating, much more than in opera. I could be completely wrong but that’s what I think.

When I go to a show, I always check how many people are in a show and how many black people are in the audience. Black people in this country have been performing for years but they just don’t get the platform. It’s beyond a tick box exercise.

I don’t want to wait for people to hire me anymore. Furthermore, I’m going to be the one to say that I like your project and we’re going to put some money into it and find a way to get it done. Because nobody else will.  The amount of goodwill for that is incredible. People have been so generous and said that this is what they need and want. Once it’s monetised, the money will go straight back out to projects, for the people that don’t get a leg up. What we’re interested in is talent. I’ve also discovered that in talking to people, there’s a side to them that I never knew existed. What? Really? This is you? In this pandemic, you find you have so many facets, so why stick to one? There’s the one that you’re successful in, so you stick to that one - but what about the other things that you thought and dreamt about? It’s taken a long time to get to the place where I can do what I want to do. If we can help people find what they want to do, they find that they’re generally good at it. People don’t have that time to explore. Everyone has to make a living. The decision to have a family was huge. It definitely changed the trajectory of my career.

The stuff I’ve written now is who I am. I’m only who I am because of the experiences I’ve had - politically. The stuff I’ve written now I couldn’t have written twenty years ago. I would have written something but it would be different to what it is now. If it had been in my twenties and thirties, it would be young and full of life and energetic. Now there’s a bit of, I don’t want to say – somberness - in my work now. I don’t know.  Even when I’m supposed to be writing something uplifting, there’s always a tinge of darkness, I don’t know. Have I written a happy song recently? Hmmmm… It’s difficult to write something carefree when you’re in the middle of a pandemic and people are losing their jobs. You can’t, as an artist, not be affected by it.

Who are you?

At my core I’m simply a composer, who’s trying to write music that he feels and is reflective of the society in which he lives.