Notting Hill Carnival Strategic Review - Intelligent Space

teacher trainee from Goldsmiths would have had a carnival experience. The next step,
according to a Goldsmiths lecturer, is to try to take it forward to the postgraduate programme
with a link to the MA on Carnival Arts at the University of West Indies. A student evaluating
the Carnival workshop wrote: “I learnt about the history and culture of Carnival and what can
be done with few resources and excellent design and technology skills to use in school. It is
important to use skills that children and parents have developed outside school - recognising
and using those skills in school.”
4.40 Carnival Messiah - Classically trained musician and university lecturer Geraldine Connor
brought Carnival to the mainstream in the 1990s with her ambitious work ‘Carnival Messiah’ -
a combination of Handel’s ‘Messiah’ - with the Trinidadian Carnival and the sounds of world
music – jazz, calypso, rock, choral music and steel-pan. It succeeds in fusing two cultures
without losing sense of its traditional roots. For Connor, the work became a case of using art
as a tool for integration as every culture has its music, dance and theatre. She wanted to
combine European ‘high art’ with Carnival art and bring the major influences from both
cultures together.
4.41 The idea for ‘Carnival Messiah’ emerged in 1994 when some students at Leeds University were
looking for a project that would last five weeks. Connor had been thinking of combining
classical and carnival music after she heard Quincy Jones’s ‘Soulful Messiah’ that fused
American music with Handel’s ‘Messiah.’ The students’ project presented her with an
opportunity to press ahead. A year later, Carnival Messiah was showing at the West Yorkshire
Playhouse with costumes designed by Clary Salandy and dub poet and actress Jean Binta
Breeze in the cast. One of the most striking elements of the show was the finale when the
classic ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ was played by a steel band.
4.42 Though some would consider it exceptionally ambitious, when put into perspective, history,
knowledge and research played an important part in the composition and production. For
Connor, “Knowing the context and history of your indigenous history is important. You’ve got
to know where it came from to take it somewhere else. If you are going to use someone’s
culture, you need to know it as well as they do and manipulate it.” She is very clear about the
direction that she wants to go and she has no doubts about the position of Carnival arts and
its place in society. “My culture is mainstream. Very often one of the mistakes we make as
artists is that we think our art is a minority art.”
Economic Contribution and Impact
The Business of Carnival
4.43 The business of Carnival is not only cultural, but also economic. As part of the Mayor’s
strategic review, the London Development Agency (LDA) commissioned a review of the
economic contribution made by the Notting Hill Carnival to the local and regional economy. A
consortium lead by the consultancy firm Mann Weaver Drew and De Montfort University
carried out an analysis of:
• the economic value of the Carnival in terms of total revenues generated, visitor spend
and job creation;
• the potential linkages such as the transfer of skills within the creative industry sector
and the wider London economy so as to enable Carnival specific businesses to move
from seasonal trading base towards long-term sustainability;
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