The UK leads the way in music education and there is a lot being done to tackle social and diversity issues in classical music. But funding cuts are threatening this, warns Meurig Bowen.
For a week in early March, I had the privilege of witnessing 25 young people display their musical talents at Cardiff’s Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama. It was the Category Finals and Semi-Final of the 2014 BBC Young Musician competition, and I was the "General Adjudicator" for all these six evenings. For each separate category I was joined by specialist judges, and each night we had to make often hair’s breadth decisions about who would progress to the next stage, and who wouldn’t. There was no revolving red chair or disrespectful buzzer - just the extensive, careful deliberation that such performances deserved, and mostly away from the cameras. (You can catch up with the programmes already aired on BBC4 (the keyboard, strings, percussion and woodwind finals are all on iPlayer until the end of this month, the brass final airs tonight, 16 May, and the competition on Sunday 18 May, on BBC Four and BBC Radio 3.)
The whole experience was hugely refreshing. Here was a bunch of pretty ordinary teenagers from – according to the BBC family portraits – pretty ordinary backgrounds achieving extraordinary things. From my brief encounters with them post-adjudication they all seemed poised, personable, and with their sights set on a long-lasting career rather than the trappings of BGT-type celebrity. It confirmed for me yet again that classical music has the ability to create grounded, wholesome people – even when they are almost unfeasibly gifted for people so young. I have no doubt that classical performance at the highest level in this country is in excellent hands with this next generation... Keep reading on The Guardian
For a week in early March, I had the privilege of witnessing 25 young people display their musical talents at Cardiff’s Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama. It was the Category Finals and Semi-Final of the 2014 BBC Young Musician competition, and I was the "General Adjudicator" for all these six evenings. For each separate category I was joined by specialist judges, and each night we had to make often hair’s breadth decisions about who would progress to the next stage, and who wouldn’t. There was no revolving red chair or disrespectful buzzer - just the extensive, careful deliberation that such performances deserved, and mostly away from the cameras. (You can catch up with the programmes already aired on BBC4 (the keyboard, strings, percussion and woodwind finals are all on iPlayer until the end of this month, the brass final airs tonight, 16 May, and the competition on Sunday 18 May, on BBC Four and BBC Radio 3.)
The whole experience was hugely refreshing. Here was a bunch of pretty ordinary teenagers from – according to the BBC family portraits – pretty ordinary backgrounds achieving extraordinary things. From my brief encounters with them post-adjudication they all seemed poised, personable, and with their sights set on a long-lasting career rather than the trappings of BGT-type celebrity. It confirmed for me yet again that classical music has the ability to create grounded, wholesome people – even when they are almost unfeasibly gifted for people so young. I have no doubt that classical performance at the highest level in this country is in excellent hands with this next generation... Keep reading on The Guardian