I’ve spent most of my adult life working in classical music – for the past 18 years as the co-founder and conductor of the London Contemporary Orchestra (LCO), an organisation I’m stepping down from today. During that time, I have found myself increasingly angry at how much harder it has become for someone without money behind them to build a life in the sector.

There used to be a route in. As a child from a working-class background, I could pick up an instrument at a state school, get cheap lessons through the local, council-backed music service and play in youth orchestras (borrowing a viola because my family couldn’t afford one).

The route was never easy or fair. As a teenager, I spent summers doing everything from being a binman to working on a farm to pay for music courses. During those weeks, of course, I wasn’t practising – people from more privileged backgrounds could spend the summer getting better while I scraped together the money to access some of the same opportunities.

Still, the route existed. Now we are dismantling it while talking endlessly about “access”. Today, working-class musicians are being priced out by countless unavoidable costs: lessons, instruments, train fares,........

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