Yesterday I spent most of the day at our village eisteddfod. There were singers there who had started their performing careers at the age of three or four singing very simple nursery songs there and now, years later they are giving prefessional style performances, full of confidence and with great stage skills.
These small festivals are held on a weekly basis at so many of the towns and villages in the area and they provide a wonderful platform for young performers. They are very informal but the standard is high and everyone learns from the experience. Bryn Terfel started his stage career in the same way and I remember him singing in our village hall years ago. Gwyn Hughes-Jones used to sing here regularly too and some of the singers that I saw yesterday will go on to become as well known as these two stars.
Some festivals are run in a very much more formal way than our eisteddfodau which can be rather daunting for youngsters starting out. Our village events are just informal gatherings where most of the villagers go for a good day out, to meet friends and to have a cup of tea and a chat between items and to have a jolly good concert. Perhaps some of the more formal festivals could learn from our events?

Your village events sound brilliant, Petra. I know I've always been put off entering festivals because it seems quite formal and rigid. A friendly, local event would have been more my scene.

Yes, quite! All of the little school childrebn have a go at ours. All of the very young ones get prozes too, just for taking part. By the time they reach nine or ten they are old hands and so full of confidence.

Again, I think that's excellent. I think younger children need, in many cases, to see music as something accessible.

It sounds like a lovely event, pity there are not more like it.

These sound great. How does one find out where these are taking place?

My daughter's school always fields plenty of entries for the Devizes Eisteddfod, but I got the impression that was for children only. Are there any which adults can go in for too?

I'm afraid my experience of festivals has been less than positive. I've only entered one once, and it ended up depriving me of the confidence I had when I went in. I didn't feel the criticism in front of an audience was terribly encouraging. I haven't played my piece since! It is not staffed by the most friendly of people, and the system often seems slightly... unjust. I suppose coming out armed with trophies for classes where there has only been one entrant is just life, though... I realise that you do actually have to meet a standard to get the award.

I don't mean to put anyone off. The events Petra speaks of sound so lovely! If only there were more like this. The stiflingly formal atmosphere I found myself playing under was not a positive thing at all.

I'm entering the Devizes Eisteddfod this year! I also did work experience at devizes school back in may! If your daughter did music last accademic year, then i probably taught her!
Is she doing music, or one of the other subject areas? I'm competing in the 16 and unders piano solo category.

Jacob.

I should have said 'old school' which was in Pewsey, as she left last summer, but she competed for 5 years in various music competitions - piano solo, piano duet, flute solo, wind ensemble and choir. The choir won on a couple of occasions and the wind ensemble won last year (though I have to say there weren't an awful lot of entries, as her brother constantly reminds her!).
I watched a lot of the entries whilst waiting to see her, so I probably saw you. Very best of luck in this year's contest - it must be soon now - and let us klnow how you got on.

Actually, this is my first year competing in the Eisteddfod, i missed the entry deadline last year! I'm also accompanying my friend in the flute category (shes playing the 2nd movement of the Poulenc flute sonata, if you know it), and i'm accompanying our schools flute group.

I'll post here after the competition!

Jacob.

This all sounds so good and positive
I haven't really had much experience with festivals, which is a shame, although I did enter one very formal one ages ago when I was about 8. I nearly gave my mum a heart attack, when as I went up to the stage, I told her that I didn't need my music and would do it from memory. Which I did, but I don't think she was too happy!
Tomorrow and Wednesday we have a "Young Musician of the Year" style competition going on at college, in which I'm playing piano. It's a really nice idea actually, they've got some really good people in to adjudicate it, but I suspect there will be some pretty fierce competition in some catagories, for instance I'm quite glad I'm not doing the strings catagory But in general, it will be nice to get to know other musicians in the college, especially pianists and singers who I don't see through orchestras. I better get practising...!

What are you playing in the competition?
We have our competition in March, and i'm thinking of either doing goliwogs cake walk by debussy, "pathetique" sonata 1st movement by beethoven, or prelude in C# minor by Rachmaninov.

Have fun tomorow!

Jacob.

I like those small local festivals. It's not really too formal. The're good for confidence and it woudn't matter as much as an exam if you play badly. I sometimes make very big mistakes/slips when playing in festivals but it's good for getting used to performing. I wouldn't want to make the same mistakes in an exam though... Like I played the wrong note at the very end of a mozart sonata movement and there's no way of covering that up lol

Sorry petrat, i've gone completely off topic each time i've posted!

These smaller Eisteddfod's sound fantastic, getting all these young children into performing early, giving them lots of confidence. We only have the Devizes Eisteddfod once a year, and a yearly festival in somerset, i wish they'd happen as often as you have them, they sound like great fun!

Jacob.

I'm playing the Brahms Intermezzo in Emaj, that was on the alternative C list for grade 8, it's a gorgeous piece
Good luck to you as well

How did you get on in the Devizes eisteddfor Jacob?
I saw various competitors walking about in Devizes on Saturday, and felt quite nostalgic as it's the first one I've not attended for several years.

You are so lucky to have festivals! And so lucky to have festivals that encourage young players!

Naturally, western music is not what's played at Japanese festivals, but the 2-3 people who play at the local festival are local geezers who don't involve anybody else. What they can't do, is provided by a group of younger traditional musicians from a couple of towns away...in other words, some other town's geezers teach their young folk what our geezers don't teach our own young kids.

Because western music is foreign, it's been hogtied by its high-status affiliations with the rich and powerful, just like other musical forms imported from Asia before it. We have the cut-throat national competitions - but no low-key, strictly local western music events.

In the same way, we have only a tiny handful of public universities teaching performance...so the competition is crazily intense, and without the tradition of live classical western music at grassroots level, from the local orchestra to the wedding trio, upcoming young musicians have few amateur groups to play with, and middle-rank professionals have few job opportunities...leading to the famed East Asian "soloist or nothing" obsessiveness.

Makes me realize more and more how important it is for music, however rarefied, to have deep roots in the soil where it lives!

It was great thankyou!

My piano solo went well, and i got 86%, which is a distinction. The girl who won the section was an 11 year old playing octobre from the grade 7 pieces. I was a little upset i was beaten by the 11 year old, but she played well, and she had been playing the town hall piano all day, where as i was new to the piano, so my pedalling was slightly heavy at times, and a lot of us found that. It was a great experience though and i thoroughly enjoyed it!

I was also accompanying a flautist at st. Johns, and she won joint 1st place with 90%. She played poulenc. I think my accompanying went well, although there were a few interesting notes that weren't written down, but they werent that noticeable!

It was our school flute group that did the best. We played a piece for flutes and piano, with me playing the piano, and it went brilliantly! We came home with 2 trophies, one for the best senior performance of the day, and one for the best group performance of the day! I got some lovely comments too! Apparently i have a talent that should be nurtured, and that it was so nice to have a talented accompanist.

I fell over outside the town hall on the sloping pavement in the same spot 3 times in the day though! You'd have though i'd have learnt after the first time, but apparently not! I also fell over on the green oposite morrisons because i stepped in a hole!

Jacob.

Well, done, that's fantastic - you did really really well.
I look forward to reading about it in the Gazette & Herald on Thursday - they always give it a good write up.