Workers' Music Association

Overview
The Workers’ Music Association (WMA) is an organization dedicated to musical
activities promoting a predominantly socialist outlook and is still active today.

Beginnings

The roots of the Workers’ Music Association lie in the activities of the London Labour
Choral Union (LLCU) and Co-operative musical associations, in which composers Alan
Bush and Rutland Boughton, and Will Sahnow (later the WMA’s first General Secretary)
were much involved. The LLCU was founded in 1924 by Labour politician Herbert
Morrison and Rutland Boughton, and conducted by Boughton until 1929, when Alan
Bush took over the conductorship.

In 1934 there was a Pageant of Labour, for which Alan Bush wrote the music. Bush took
a leading role in organising a ‘Concert Demonstration and Conference’, on March 1 st
1936 at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. Representatives of the London Labour Choral
Union, the Co-op Education Committees and the Co-op choirs, some of whom had been
involved in the Pageant of Labour, were among those present. This was the genesis of
the Workers’ Music Association.

Bush was anxious to make the new association different from other music societies,
bringing music out of the concert hall and making it more relevant to the lives of working
people. The WMA sought to bring existing workers’ music organisations into closer
touch with one another and aimed to include professional musicians to provide skilled
assistance to its amateur members. Courses in conducting and composition were
established, under Rutland Boughton and Alan Bush; the WMA started publishing new
songs for Labour choirs to sing, all within the first year of its existence. In 1939 an office
was opened in Southampton Row, and later at 9 Great Newport Street, with Will
Sahnow as Organising Secretary. Bush and Sahnow travelled across the country to get
support mainly from regional Co-operative conferences and expand the organisation
nationally. Incorporation as a limited company came in 1944.

1 Much of the information included here is taken from a draft document (author unknown) “How it all began”,
which is held in the Workers’ Music Association section of the Political Song Collection
https://politicalsong.arts.gla.ac.uk/digital.php?ref=PSC/1/2/1/16. , and from consultation of M. Kiladi’s PhD
Thesis (London, 2016) “The London Labour Choral Union 1924-1940: a musical institution of the left” .

Publications

Topic Records, which covered recordings of popular workers’ songs and introduced
works by Soviet composers, were launched in 1939, and 1940 saw the start of
publications such as the ‘Keynote’ booklets. Other examples are “The Pioneer
Songbook” , containing people’s songs from many lands, which was commissioned by
the Watford Co-operative Society, “Shuttle and Cage” (industrial ballads), and A.L.
Lloyd’s “The Singing Englishman”. A booklet entitled “A policy for music in Post-War
Britain” was produced in 1945, in which local authorities took much interest.

2. The Workers’ Music Association was central to the organization of many concerts
during the 1940s, based on ‘common purpose in national life’ 3 . Orchestras and choirs
were drawn from across the country and speakers invited from here and abroad;
Conductors such as Sir Malcolm Sargent, Albert Coates and Anatol Fistoulari took part
in some of these. There was a constant focus on forging links with war-time allies and
providing aid.

WMA Singers were formed in 1942, as an outcome of a “Conference of Choirs”. They
were conducted first by Arnold Goldsborough, and then by Alan Bush and David
Ellenberg. This body of singers took ‘songs of social significance’ all over the country
and British music to other countries. Notably, in 1947 they sang at war-torn Lidice in
Czechoslovakia, performing a work specially written by Alan Bush.


Summer Schools: the WMA’s commitment to music education led to annual Summer
Schools being held, at first in various locations, but in 1954 finding a home at Wortley
Hall near Sheffield, where it remained until 2007. Courses include wind, brass and
string ensembles, choir and solo singing, opera, folk music, conducting and
composition. The venue has now changed, but the Summer School still flourishes.


Currently: the WMA maintains contact and support for the Trades Unions and draws
much of its support from trade union members. Its activities may have slimmed down
since the early days, but its aims are fundamentally to maintain music education for
working people.