Please does anyone know if the category finals (March, I think) are televised?

Usually they are, in recent years on BBC4. No mention on the YMOTY website yet of any broadcast details though.

I found the following which provides info on when the category finals and semi-finals are taking place but there's no TV schedule on the BBC website for March yet. I think they were on BBC Four last in the past.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/youngmusician/sites/n...nal_dates.shtml

Many thanks!

I hope this year we get plenty of music instead of half the programme on the biographies of the candidates

2010 was marginally better on this than the lamentable 2008 coverage, but I'll be very surprised if much changes for 2012, to be honest...

From the BBC website -



BBC Young Musician

Woodwind and Brass line up are interesting this year... just one candidate per instrument.

Woodwind: flute, clarinet, bassoon, saxophone and recorder!! No Oboe
Brass: E flat Tenor Horn, Brass Trombone, Tuba, French Horn and Trumpet.

On the other hand, Strings have got FOUR Violins and two Cellos. No Violas and Harps this time.

I assume the Rayners in Percussion are brothers. Is this a first? (and can you imagine being their parents!)

Awwwwww

agree completely!! The height of excitement seems to be when one of them goes to see a movie "like a normal teenager", for all the world as though s/he were a giraffe or something

Now if you want to see a compelling real life drama, reality/documentary on teenager music making, try "Mrs Carey's Concert" which headlined the Adelaide music festival recently. It's about a concert put on every 2 years at the Sydney Opera House, by a posh girl's school in Sydney, with highly acclaimed directors etc

-- I was absolutely riveted

here's the url Mrs Carey's concert

I don't mind a short biography, just to show their family, teachers etc. It's inspiring, especially if the candidate is from a challenging background.

2008 programme was the worst! I remember them showing an Edinburgh flautist shopping at Jenners! Why would I want to know that?



I think so....I am sure the parents would be delighted but a little worried. There can only be one winner!

Thanks, Chime

We have one clarinettist through then...

I enjoyed this and so did my daughters
And there is some very good playing as well as some more average playing and some totally disinterested pupils too.

Oh, goodness, I see that one of my ex-students from Guildhall is through to the Brass final - tuba player Christopher Dunn. I taught him between the ages of 4 to 11. Wow!

And I think the sister of the percussionist Rayner brothers, who also plays percussion, used to be in the Junior Choir at Guildhall.

There were 2 sisters in the string final once, I remember. I don't think either of them won. They had another sister who played the oboe - I think she had been a finalist previously, also.

A recorder won the woodwind final. It will be interesting to hear a recorder concerto if she makes it to the final three!!

Ahhh nooo *pretends she didn't hear that*

It would be a good start if they updated the 2012 webpage.


That's great news.

Oh no!! I didn't want to know that ... you should have put ****SPOILER ALERT****

Does anyone know who won the strings?

I knew about the woodwind winner, but deliberately didn't post so as not to spoil the surprise for others if they wanted to watch it unfold on TV.....

You can find the results on-line if you want to look at http://eyesometric.wordpress.com/

Sorry if I created disappointment for some. Don't look if you don't want to know yet!

The first episode is being broadcast tonight on BBC 4 at 19.30 (Friday, April 13).
They will be showing the Keyboard category final.

Just in case anyone wants to look out for it

BBC Young Musician

Anyone else watching this? No girls/ women either competing in or judging the piano semi final. I find that a bit odd to be honest.

Interestingly over the other 4 categories it is split exactly 50:50 between girls and boys.

That didn't occur to me until you mentioned it!...

Thoroughly deserving winner I thought though.

Absolutely : and second time lucky for him, too.

I thought so too

I thought all five of the pianists were wonderful. If you shut your eyes you could imagine any of them as professional pianists. I think the right chap won though - how can anyone be so musical at just 15?! The future of classical music in this country looks assured!

I have to admit, it made me feel there is little point in my playing, because I would never be as good as those five. Still, give me a day or two and I'll get back to it!

I still thought it was a bit slow to get going though - they had little introduction to every new section e.g. meeting the judges or meeting the pianists. Hopefully the next episode won't go through the same process, but you never know.

I, as a woman, was quite glad to see just boys as finalsits - it showed that they had (almost) certainly been picked purely on musical merit and not trying to respect some political correctness thingy.

Statistically, you would expect 3 - 2 in favour of one or the other (difficult to get exactly 50:50!), but 5 - 0 is not that far off, especially just as a one-off year - you'd have to look back over all the years to make any judgement as to whether overall (a) less girls play piano to a high standard or (b) girls play as well but are somehow discriminated against.

No idea about the judges - there too you'd expect 2 - 1 - but if nearly all the principals and directors of the major music colleges etc. are men, then you'll get more men as adjudicators. That, however, obviously begs another question . . . .

.

I don't think it was luck: I first saw and met Yanfuan when he was 11 and in the cabaret at the end of Chethams Piano Summer School (with at least a dozen professional concert pianists in the audience) he played the Chopin Black Note Etude . . . blindfold! Two years ago when he was 13 I thought he was very unlucky not to win the keyboard category (although the girl that did gave a stunning concerto performance in the final and was a clear winner there, where Yanfuan might not have been so successful). In the 2 years since then, as Murray McLachlan said in the program, he has developed enormously: He has also won a lot of competitions and played a lot of concertos with orchestras, which experience should help him in the final (I suspect the result is probably already out there somewhere but I prefer to wait for the recorded highlights, a bit like watching Match Of The Day but taking care not to watch the sports report on the news first).

All the players in the category final had at least one piece that they played brilliantly, but all the others had at least one piece that didn't quite dazzle. Yanfuan had no such weaker pieces, not even the one he wrote himself (although I didn't like it - but that's a matter of my taste, not his skill). He is already, at 15, very nearly the finished article as concert pianist: The others weren't (though my word they were close!).

Roll on the rest!

The final is on 13 May at The Sage Gateshead, and will presumably be transmitted live.

It's at 3pm on 13 May at The Sage Gateshead (not sure whether this will be reflected on the TV, as it is usually an evening thing, isn't it?)

Also, there is the semi-final to get through first as only three musicians can make the final.

As always, the five piano finalists all played superbly, and Yuanfan exceptionally so ... but some of the repertoire they chose (Beethoven and Haydn sonatas excepted) was just horrible - and probably incomprehensible at a first hearing. It is little wonder that so many young people are not attracted to classical music if they think this is what it is all about.

But it's not a "popular music" competition. It's about finding the best musicians - and they will need to demonstrate their competence in a variety of styles and periods.

Missed it, through being away!

Are any dates published for the other category finals, or the semi-final?

I think it depends on your personal preferences and we don't all like the same things. Interestingly my OH is not a Classical music fan and he particularly dislikes Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn and all other things that we may assume to be more accessible. But he really, really liked the piece that the winner had composed himself. He thought it was really exciting and different and not what he expected from "classical" music.

The Category finals are on every Friday night for the next few weeks.

Thank you!

Looking forward to the woodwind! We have tickets for the final in Gateshead, so I am following it all with great interest.

It'll be spot the fellow forumite then

Will you be there too?

It's still available on BBC iPlayer!!

I watched it last night on BBC iplayer. Very much looking forward to watching the woodwind round even though I already know the result, and am also looking forward to the final, which I have put that in my diary to make sure I don't miss it. I'll see if I can spot you in the audience Chris H. Some people I know were in the audience for the piano finals but I didn't manage to see them.

I missed the programme but just read about the piano player who started at age 6 and passed grade 8 at 8 years old. This is amazing but I can't help wondering how this was achieved. Obviously lots of hard work and I genuinely feel happy for him that it paid off, but how on earth can others compete with this. Does anybody know what sort of background and routine this player comes from.

The adjudicators for the strings and woodwind categories (Rosie Biss, Lesley Hatfield, Emma Johnson, and Juliette Bausor) are all women, which I find fairly unremarkable. We could equally have had, say, Boris Garlitsky, Pieter Schoeman, John Anderson, and Michael Collins, which I would have found similarly unremarkable. When we are looking at panels of two category specialists it would be unreasonable to expect to balance, say, Vasko Vassilev with Alina Ibragimova.

It might be more interesting to ask why out of 14 judges (7 men and 7 women) all 14 are white. Looking at the ethnic breakdown of the UK (about 8 percent non-white) we might have expect to see at least one black or Asian member of the judging panel. On the other hand, we of course would not expect to see any black or Asian judges, as the senior ranks of the British music world are almost uniformly white, exceptions such as Sir Willard White, Wayne Marshall, and Chi-chi Nwanoku being few and far between. Looking at the competitors, 4 or 5 out of 25 appear to have east Asian origins, which is hugely disproportionate considering that these ethnic groups make up less than 1 percent of the population of the UK. One competitor appears to have some sort of black heritage, which statistically is about right. With nearly 4 percent of people in the UK being of south Asian ethnicity we ought perhaps to be surprised that there is no competitor representing these ethnic groups.

Of course, I am well aware that the problem is not that the BBC has shown any prejudice in favour of or against any particular ethnic group, but that musical achievement in this country is heavily biased towards white and east Asian ethnicities. In fact, a similar pattern is replicated even in the breakdown of concert audiences. Here in London, a city with a population that is nearly one-quarter black and south Asian, I am able to go to sell-out performances at the Royal Opera House and at all of the main concert halls and count the number of black and south Asian people in single figures, if any. Does this trend strike anybody else as worrying? As a white Londoner I feel a considerable unease when I am able to count as remarkable the fact that I once sat behind two black people at the London Coliseum.

On the contrary, I find biographical details fascinating. I am thoroughly bored of those dreadful programme notes that simply list the concert halls and music festivals at which a musician has performed, the orchestras and conductors with whom he or she has performed, recordings he or she has made, etc. I think it is really interesting when one finds out something about a musician's real life. I find it so much more interesting when a musician shares a larger part of his or her life with the public (e.g. Stephen Hough). I don't want to be short-changed on the music, but understanding where somebody is coming from just enhances my enjoyment of it.

They do however make up far more than 1% of the students at UK music schools and conservatoires.

Is that bias by the classical music establishment or lack of interest by the ethnic groups you mention?

I live in an area with a very high proportion of white people, but have found that when I go to jazz concerts there is usually quite a large number of black people in the audience.