BBC Music Magazine
May 2006

It’s the first year that the BBC Young Musician semi-finals and final have taken place at the Sage, Gateshead.  The surroundings may be different from two years ago when the competition came from Edinburgh, but the same intense, nail-nibbling atmosphere lingers.  Which isn’t terribly surprising: as past experience shows, the ultimate winner has a good deal to gain (as do all the finalists), so there is a fair bit of adrenalin pumping as, one by one, the musicians steel themselves of their nerve-jangling turn in the spotlight.

This particular musical spotlight certainly jangles the nerves more than most.  Apart from the obvious pressures of the competition itself, the broadcast element brings completely new challenges to the young musicians.  Not only does the BBC film the performances from the stage, but the backstage areas at the Sage are also awash with camera crews for a BBC documentary on the competition – competitors and accompanists are followed about as they rehearse and prepare for the evening’s semis.  “The cameras do take a bit of getting used to, but they have a job of their own to do and it kind of adds to the excitement I suppose!” says Sarah Oliver, an 18-year-old cellist from Surrey.  Even the accompanists have their work cut out to try and ignore the pressure created by the cameras as Chetham’s accompanist Brenda Blewett confesses: “They do add a strangeness because if you are doing a concert of course you don’t have cameras there, and sometimes when they are on stage you can hear them creaking and moving about.”

With cameras, of course, comes the promise of a huge audience.  All the competitors admit that, along with a swathe of the British public, they’ve watched the semi-finals on television since they can remember.  Sarah Oliver was so enthralled by Natalie Clein’s playing in the 1994 finals that, at just six years old, she bullied her parents to let her play too – even though no one else in the family had ever shown any musical prowess.  “It’s very bizarre to be here,” she admits.  “It’s like a bubble. A day feels like a week, so I feel as though I’ve been here for ages.  The main thing is just to concentrate on rehearsing and practising.”  There’s a lot of practising to be done – as well as repertoire for the local, regional and quarter-finals, each semi-finalist has to have a varied programme lasting 15 minutes, including one piece written in the last ten years.

Elizabeth Burley, the competition’s official accompanist for the musicians who haven’t brought their own accompanist along, knows all about he huge workload in store.  “We have to get to work straight away as there are a lot of notes to learn, but it’s such an incredible experience for them; by the end they’ve all played under top pressure with everything recorded live on camera.”

Eighteen-year-old double-bassist Meherban Gillett, however, sees the broadcast element as a real advantage over and above simply providing experience for future stressful performances. “Because it’s all done so publicly, it’s about the most open competition around.  I’ve seen some very strange results in competitions which are more “closed” where things can sometimes become a political minefield of who went to what music school and had what teacher, and so on.  It’s not exactly Fame Academy but, rather than pandering to a very specialist jury with specialist opinions, in this competition the most important thing for both jury and public is to have good music presented well.”

What BBC Young Musician does share with all major competitions, however, is its gift to talented performers to focus their energies and to provide a first-class post-competition experience.  The five concerto finalists will all get Young Concert Artist Trust (YCAT) representation and the chance to perform in world-class venues including the main stage of the Sage with Yan Pascal Tortelier and the Northern Sinfonia (for the final) an the Wigmore Hall.  Big stuff indeed, and that’s why the judges have to get it right.  “Choosing the winner is a responsibility,” advises Richard Watkins, head of the brass adjudicating panel.  “You hear the level of performance and they could be professional, but really they are still very young,  The top priority is to find the musician who really has something to say but nonetheless if you had two equals that you were struck by but you feel one is a bit uncomfortable, and the other is naturally at the right age and mentally in the right place where they can handle it, then I think you have to push that person forward.”

That said, Watkins is keen for competitors to take the long view.  “Ultimately the classical music industry is all about longevity, That’s why it doesn’t matter who wins really – the main things is that it’s all part of a slow learning curve.  You can’t suddenly get the experience of a 40-year-old when you’re 16.  By the time they’ve got into the quarter or semi finals most of them are going to be at the standard of going to a music college which is the first leg into a professional career, if that is what they so wish.  They have to keep it all in perspective.”

But that underestimates the determination of a certain Meherban Gillett.  The double-bassist isn’t afraid to say exactly how much the BBC Young musician of the Year means to him:  “I’ve got tot the stage where I’ve stopped doing competitions just for experience.  I have to be able to pull off a performance that I’m happy with.  I won’t be able to go off afterwards and say, ‘Oh well, it was just a good experience.’  This is one of those close competitions that anyone would like to win.”

And Welsh trumpeter Huw Morgan, 18, suggests that on top of their determination these young musicians aren’t fazed by the cameras after all – he finds the whole event less terrifying than he thought he might,  “In some ways it was a bit of an anticlimax.  On TV they make out that it’s the most special 15 minutes of your life, but when you actually do it you come down to earth and just get on with it.  It’s all much more normal in reality.’

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BBC Music Magazine
May 2006

It’s the first year that the BBC Young Musician semi-finals and final have taken place at the Sage, Gateshead.  The surroundings may be different from two years ago when the competition came from Edinburgh, but the same intense, nail-nibbling atmosphere lingers.  Which isn’t terribly surprising: as past experience shows, the ultimate winner has a good deal to gain (as do all the finalists), so there is a fair bit of adrenalin pumping as, one by one, the musicians steel themselves of their nerve-jangling turn in the spotlight.

This particular musical spotlight certainly jangles the nerves more than most.  Apart from the obvious pressures of the competition itself, the broadcast element brings completely new challenges to the young musicians.  Not only does the BBC film the performances from the stage, but the backstage areas at the Sage are also awash with camera crews for a BBC documentary on the competition – competitors and accompanists are followed about as they rehearse and prepare for the evening’s semis.  “The cameras do take a bit of getting used to, but they have a job of their own to do and it kind of adds to the excitement I suppose!” says Sarah Oliver, an 18-year-old cellist from Surrey.  Even the accompanists have their work cut out to try and ignore the pressure created by the cameras as Chetham’s accompanist Brenda Blewett confesses: “They do add a strangeness because if you are doing a concert of course you don’t have cameras there, and sometimes when they are on stage you can hear them creaking and moving about.”

With cameras, of course, comes the promise of a huge audience.  All the competitors admit that, along with a swathe of the British public, they’ve watched the semi-finals on television since they can remember.  Sarah Oliver was so enthralled by Natalie Clein’s playing in the 1994 finals that, at just six years old, she bullied her parents to let her play too – even though no one else in the family had ever shown any musical prowess.  “It’s very bizarre to be here,” she admits.  “It’s like a bubble. A day feels like a week, so I feel as though I’ve been here for ages.  The main thing is just to concentrate on rehearsing and practising.”  There’s a lot of practising to be done – as well as repertoire for the local, regional and quarter-finals, each semi-finalist has to have a varied programme lasting 15 minutes, including one piece written in the last ten years.

Elizabeth Burley, the competition’s official accompanist for the musicians who haven’t brought their own accompanist along, knows all about he huge workload in store.  “We have to get to work straight away as there are a lot of notes to learn, but it’s such an incredible experience for them; by the end they’ve all played under top pressure with everything recorded live on camera.”

Eighteen-year-old double-bassist Meherban Gillett, however, sees the broadcast element as a real advantage over and above simply providing experience for future stressful performances. “Because it’s all done so publicly, it’s about the most open competition around.  I’ve seen some very strange results in competitions which are more “closed” where things can sometimes become a political minefield of who went to what music school and had what teacher, and so on.  It’s not exactly Fame Academy but, rather than pandering to a very specialist jury with specialist opinions, in this competition the most important thing for both jury and public is to have good music presented well.”

What BBC Young Musician does share with all major competitions, however, is its gift to talented performers to focus their energies and to provide a first-class post-competition experience.  The five concerto finalists will all get Young Concert Artist Trust (YCAT) representation and the chance to perform in world-class venues including the main stage of the Sage with Yan Pascal Tortelier and the Northern Sinfonia (for the final) an the Wigmore Hall.  Big stuff indeed, and that’s why the judges have to get it right.  “Choosing the winner is a responsibility,” advises Richard Watkins, head of the brass adjudicating panel.  “You hear the level of performance and they could be professional, but really they are still very young,  The top priority is to find the musician who really has something to say but nonetheless if you had two equals that you were struck by but you feel one is a bit uncomfortable, and the other is naturally at the right age and mentally in the right place where they can handle it, then I think you have to push that person forward.”

That said, Watkins is keen for competitors to take the long view.  “Ultimately the classical music industry is all about longevity, That’s why it doesn’t matter who wins really – the main things is that it’s all part of a slow learning curve.  You can’t suddenly get the experience of a 40-year-old when you’re 16.  By the time they’ve got into the quarter or semi finals most of them are going to be at the standard of going to a music college which is the first leg into a professional career, if that is what they so wish.  They have to keep it all in perspective.”

But that underestimates the determination of a certain Meherban Gillett.  The double-bassist isn’t afraid to say exactly how much the BBC Young musician of the Year means to him:  “I’ve got tot the stage where I’ve stopped doing competitions just for experience.  I have to be able to pull off a performance that I’m happy with.  I won’t be able to go off afterwards and say, ‘Oh well, it was just a good experience.’  This is one of those close competitions that anyone would like to win.”

And Welsh trumpeter Huw Morgan, 18, suggests that on top of their determination these young musicians aren’t fazed by the cameras after all – he finds the whole event less terrifying than he thought he might,  “In some ways it was a bit of an anticlimax.  On TV they make out that it’s the most special 15 minutes of your life, but when you actually do it you come down to earth and just get on with it.  It’s all much more normal in reality.’

Back to top / Back to gallery

BBC Music Magazine
May 2006

It’s the first year that the BBC Young Musician semi-finals and final have taken place at the Sage, Gateshead.  The surroundings may be different from two years ago when the competition came from Edinburgh, but the same intense, nail-nibbling atmosphere lingers.  Which isn’t terribly surprising: as past experience shows, the ultimate winner has a good deal to gain (as do all the finalists), so there is a fair bit of adrenalin pumping as, one by one, the musicians steel themselves of their nerve-jangling turn in the spotlight.

This particular musical spotlight certainly jangles the nerves more than most.  Apart from the obvious pressures of the competition itself, the broadcast element brings completely new challenges to the young musicians.  Not only does the BBC film the performances from the stage, but the backstage areas at the Sage are also awash with camera crews for a BBC documentary on the competition – competitors and accompanists are followed about as they rehearse and prepare for the evening’s semis.  “The cameras do take a bit of getting used to, but they have a job of their own to do and it kind of adds to the excitement I suppose!” says Sarah Oliver, an 18-year-old cellist from Surrey.  Even the accompanists have their work cut out to try and ignore the pressure created by the cameras as Chetham’s accompanist Brenda Blewett confesses: “They do add a strangeness because if you are doing a concert of course you don’t have cameras there, and sometimes when they are on stage you can hear them creaking and moving about.”

With cameras, of course, comes the promise of a huge audience.  All the competitors admit that, along with a swathe of the British public, they’ve watched the semi-finals on television since they can remember.  Sarah Oliver was so enthralled by Natalie Clein’s playing in the 1994 finals that, at just six years old, she bullied her parents to let her play too – even though no one else in the family had ever shown any musical prowess.  “It’s very bizarre to be here,” she admits.  “It’s like a bubble. A day feels like a week, so I feel as though I’ve been here for ages.  The main thing is just to concentrate on rehearsing and practising.”  There’s a lot of practising to be done – as well as repertoire for the local, regional and quarter-finals, each semi-finalist has to have a varied programme lasting 15 minutes, including one piece written in the last ten years.

Elizabeth Burley, the competition’s official accompanist for the musicians who haven’t brought their own accompanist along, knows all about he huge workload in store.  “We have to get to work straight away as there are a lot of notes to learn, but it’s such an incredible experience for them; by the end they’ve all played under top pressure with everything recorded live on camera.”

Eighteen-year-old double-bassist Meherban Gillett, however, sees the broadcast element as a real advantage over and above simply providing experience for future stressful performances. “Because it’s all done so publicly, it’s about the most open competition around.  I’ve seen some very strange results in competitions which are more “closed” where things can sometimes become a political minefield of who went to what music school and had what teacher, and so on.  It’s not exactly Fame Academy but, rather than pandering to a very specialist jury with specialist opinions, in this competition the most important thing for both jury and public is to have good music presented well.”

What BBC Young Musician does share with all major competitions, however, is its gift to talented performers to focus their energies and to provide a first-class post-competition experience.  The five concerto finalists will all get Young Concert Artist Trust (YCAT) representation and the chance to perform in world-class venues including the main stage of the Sage with Yan Pascal Tortelier and the Northern Sinfonia (for the final) an the Wigmore Hall.  Big stuff indeed, and that’s why the judges have to get it right.  “Choosing the winner is a responsibility,” advises Richard Watkins, head of the brass adjudicating panel.  “You hear the level of performance and they could be professional, but really they are still very young,  The top priority is to find the musician who really has something to say but nonetheless if you had two equals that you were struck by but you feel one is a bit uncomfortable, and the other is naturally at the right age and mentally in the right place where they can handle it, then I think you have to push that person forward.”

That said, Watkins is keen for competitors to take the long view.  “Ultimately the classical music industry is all about longevity, That’s why it doesn’t matter who wins really – the main things is that it’s all part of a slow learning curve.  You can’t suddenly get the experience of a 40-year-old when you’re 16.  By the time they’ve got into the quarter or semi finals most of them are going to be at the standard of going to a music college which is the first leg into a professional career, if that is what they so wish.  They have to keep it all in perspective.”

But that underestimates the determination of a certain Meherban Gillett.  The double-bassist isn’t afraid to say exactly how much the BBC Young musician of the Year means to him:  “I’ve got tot the stage where I’ve stopped doing competitions just for experience.  I have to be able to pull off a performance that I’m happy with.  I won’t be able to go off afterwards and say, ‘Oh well, it was just a good experience.’  This is one of those close competitions that anyone would like to win.”

And Welsh trumpeter Huw Morgan, 18, suggests that on top of their determination these young musicians aren’t fazed by the cameras after all – he finds the whole event less terrifying than he thought he might,  “In some ways it was a bit of an anticlimax.  On TV they make out that it’s the most special 15 minutes of your life, but when you actually do it you come down to earth and just get on with it.  It’s all much more normal in reality.’

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BBC Music Magazine
June 2008

The BBC Young Musician of the Year is not so young any more.  It was, in fact, in 1978 that the competition first aired on BBC One, gripping the UK public’s imagination as young, talented soloists were whittled down to battle it out in the concerto final.  Time, then, to look back.
Apart from local music society competitions which were generally for a lower standard, there were actually very few opportunities for young instrumentalists back in the 1970s. As series producer Roy Tipping says it was ‘a complete vacuum’.  For him, the crunch came when he was asked to make a series of programmes of the Leeds Piano Competition in 1976, and both he and presenter Humphrey Burton were disappointed to see that there were no British finalists competing.  ‘This wasn’t a fair reflection of the talent in Britain,’ he says.  ‘We knew there was a tremendous wealth of youngsters out there – not just pianists – but wind, brass and string players too.  So we set about finding them, and by golly we did!’ 

And so the idea was borne out of discussion between Burton, Tipping and the late director Walter Todds to create a series of programmes which would showcase the cream of young British talent in a completely new way.  Grouping the competitors by their instrument was specifically designed to ensure that there were four different types of instrument and not, say, four violinists in the final (the fifth category, percussion, was not added until 1994). That first year the finalists included pianist Stephen Hough and clarinettist Michael Collin – now world-class soloists, both were beaten by to the title, by trombonist Michael Hext.

With the series following the musicians right from the first round to the final the public had the chance to see a completely different side to classical music and get right into the thick of the competition.  As Anna Crookes remembers from her piano win in 1982: ‘We pretty much had a captive audience because there were only three TV channels to choose from and because it was broadcast on a Sunday night.  Young Musician was by default like the equivalent of the X Factor and everybody watched it.’  Presenter Humphrey Burton encouraged viewers to make their own opinions about the players and debate in homes across the UK became heated over who should win.  ‘The general public really got involved,’ he remembers.  ‘Kids at school took an interest and families would all watch it together.  I tried to make challenges to the viewers to make them think about the players themselves. And even if I didn’t agree with the jury’s opinion I still tried to make sense of it for the viewers.’

The series was supposed to be a one-off but the response was so overwhelming that the controllers at BBC asked for another.  ‘We were flabbergasted at how much it took the public imagination,’ says Tipping.  ‘But we said we’d die young if we did it every year! Since it took about 18 months to organise we said we would only do one every other year, and that’s the way it has stayed ever since.  We also felt that there wasn’t enough serious talent to justify a yearly competition and we would see the same people re-entering.  A two year gap would give people a real chance for improvement and justify re-entry.”

By the second competition in 1980 a massive 18 million viewers tuned into watch oboist Nicolas Daniel win the final.  Compare that to the top BBC TV viewing figure for any programme in 2007: just 13 million for a special episode of The Vicar of Dibley.  Daniel recalls:  ‘The fact that an instrument like mine could be seen for substantial length of time in peoples living rooms was really important.’

Of course with those sort of viewing figures the pressure on the winner was inevitable.  Crookes remembers people stopping her as she walked down the street: “I had celebrity status overnight and I was completely bemused by it.  Suddenly I had all these people writing to me asking my fee for a concert.  I didn’t even know that people got paid to play, I thought they did it for the love of it!’  Daniel had a similar experience:  ‘I was forwarded hundreds of letters a week from the BBC with all sorts of offers that were financially tempting.’  Luckily he had a wise mentor in his teacher Janet Craxton:  ‘After doing a number of concerts that were all great opportunities she said, “That’s quite enough work. Don’t take any more until I say - now lets concentrate on lessons.”  And she clicked the diary shut.’

It became clear that an element of support and guidance was needed for the winner – something both Tipping and Burton got involved in – and post-competition care of the finalists became formalised in 1992 when the Young Concert Artists Trust (YCAT) took over the role, offering a level of support quite unique for a competition.

Like Daniel, other winners including Natalie Clein in 1994 and Jennifer Pike in 2002, have chosen to retreat from the tempting offers of stardom and concentrate on their studies before feeling ready to perform more consistently in the public eye.  ‘I needed to capitalise on what I’d achieved but doing concerts was not best way of doing that. What I needed to do was improve more and practise hard which is probably what the most successful winners have done,’ says Daniel.

There is no question that winning the competition was giving these young performers the chance of a lifetime, but the debate was whether that exposure was actually too soon.
Was the competition being aimed at players who, for all their Wunderkind talent, were simply too young?  There were never picket lines outside television centre but there was certainly opposition, most notably from the European String Teacher’s Association in the 1980s.  Others argued that an older age range going up to 22 or 23 would be more beneficial to the winner who might at that age be more ready step into the spotlight.

Though Pike was the youngest winner to date, at just 12 years old, there have been winners for whom the competition was part and parcel of the path they were already on. By the time of her win in 2004, 16-year-old Nicola Benedetti had been the subject of a BBC Scotland documentary, had had serious interest from record companies and signed with IMG Artists.  But even she acknowledges the ‘musical circus’ which ensued after her win.  ‘I had to suss out the right advice and I learnt a lot very quickly who to listen to,’ she says.  ‘I had to stay very headstrong and remember who I was, why I was doing it, where my focus was and how serious I was about being not just “good” but “great” by time I got to 35.  It was hard not to listen to everybody’s judgement.’

None the less it seems that for all of the winners, the experience has been one which has changed their lives, and largely for the right reasons.  The competition remains unique in its ability to allow young artists huge public and media exposure in whatever way they choose to use it, whether it’s straight away or after a few years.  Besides enjoying the success of a varied career the thing Daniels is most proud of his personal part in expanding the oboe repertory.  ‘I got a newsletter from Faber the other day listing the pieces they publish for the oboe, and I realised that three-quarters of pieces on it were written for me.  It is a great feeling to have done something really positive – I simply would not have been able to get to a place where I could start to do that without Young Musician.’

‘Nothing can compare to it, both in terms of experience, and exposure,’ agrees Benedetti who watched the competition as a child and felt inspired by violinist Nicola Loud’s 1990 win to try and get there herself.  For all the competitors, one of the most exciting elements is getting to play with a major British orchestra in the final and Benedetti was no exception. ‘At end of my performance I was happy enough – the whole thing had given me a great orchestra, amazing conductor, a great hall, a great concerto… I couldn’t ask for more.’ 

Pianist Freddy Kempf won in 1992, a time when the competition expanded to embrace a wider range of young talent including televised masterclasses with competitors from previous years and the introduction of Young Composer of the Year.  Alongside the music there was also a fashion show and semi-finalists were given the chance to wear clothes designed by Paul Smith.  ‘The early 1990’s were a really exciting time and I feel very lucky to have done it in that year - It was a very important time in my life,’ he remembers. 

The balance of the programme content was also beginning to concentrate more on the personalities of the players which, some argued, was at the expense of broadcasting the music.  The current executive producer Tina Fletcher explains:  ‘TV has developed and these days the audience expect to be able to relate to the characters they see.  It is important that we can engage with the players as ordinary teenagers who have a passion to perform classical music.’  But, she insists, this is not at the cost of the music, as this year saw more performance aired than ever before:  early rounds were on Radio 3 and online, where there is also be an archive for people to access whenever they want.

‘All successful “brands” have to move with the times,’ says Fletcher. ‘But this has to be done without losing integrity.  The restructure and reshape of Young Musician 2008 has the essence of the original concept at its heart: that is identifying musical excellence in young British performers today.’

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