My name is James Dickenson and for more than twenty five years I was a professional violinist. During this time I worked with most UK orchestras, led quartets, and recorded TV and film music. I was also heavily involved in working for the union and representing musicians.

Covid changed the direction of my career and in 2023 I graduated with an honours law degree from the Open University.

It had been on my mind for many years to create something like this, as I believe that there is a real need. Here’s why:

If you have an issue presently you have four options. Go to the union. Engage a solicitor. Represent yourself. Walk away.

Don’t get me wrong the unions can be effective, but they are by their nature, collectives. That is to say they negotiate for a large body of people. There were 40,000 musicians in the union last time I looked, all of whom have different needs and expectations. Additionally, to be at all effective unions needed to be ‘closed shops’. The anti union legislation of the Thatcher era ended this. At the other end of the spectrum we have arts firms and solicitors who work for big clients. They are prohibitively expensive. If your loss was only 500 pounds, a solicitor would eat into most of that in 2 hours……

So actually, when you think about it, many artists actually have little or no representation at all……..

That’s where we come in.

At Black Revie what you get is personalised representation. We work for you, and you alone. We are also cost effective. A lifetime of subs to the union would cost you 10,000 pounds, but how many times would you use them?

Our standard rate is 10 percent. No win, no fee…..