Young Musician of the Year

Revision as of 18:44, 27 November 2020

Synopsis

Lest you should think that UKGameshows.com is just about rip-off phone-ins, people eating creepy-crawlies, and badly-thought-out lottery promotions, we bring you... Culture! With a capital C.

The title is a complete misnomer as its only held every other year, but "Young Musician of the 24 Months" sounds rubbish. The instrumental portion of the BBC's brace of high-brow musical contests (this runs in even numbered years, Cardiff Singer of the World in odd numbered) consists of a series of category finals for Brass, Woodwind, Keyboards, Strings and (since 1994) Percussion, with the winners progressing to the Concerto Final where they play with a full orchestra, invariably prompting letters to the Radio Times asking rhetorically how you judge a violinist against a percussionist anyway. The champion goes on to the Eurovision Young Musicians competition, where they're beaten by the Austrian contender.

In each category final, the competitors perform a solo piece, or a concerto - a work that spotlights their solo instrument with orchestral accompaniment. The category winners progress to the gala final. This format was altered slightly in 2010, with the introduction of a new semi-final stage between the category finals, and the gala final, which reduced the field from five to three.

Champions

A Jazz award was inaugrated in 2014:

Inventor

The contest was established in 1978 by BBC Music employees Humphrey Burton and Walter Todds.

Trivia

Regional heats were shown in 1978; a round before the category final was shown until 1994, and again in 2002 and 2004. Until 2000, all programmes were shown on BBC2; since 2002, the heats have been shown on digital channel BBC4, with only the final going out on BBC2.

In 2010, with the introduction of a new semi-final stage, the contest got a little more mainstream coverage with highlights of the new stage also being shown on BBC2. By 2014, the pendulum had swung highbrow: the television contest was stuck on BBC4, but all the category finals and the grand final were broadcast on Radio 3. For 2018, Radio 3 broadcast a 30-minute concert starring each competitor in the week before their category heat aired.

The 2020 contest was affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Category finals aired in May, as originally planned. The semi-final had been taped in March, but was held over until the live final could be staged.

Web links

Official site

Wikipedia entry

See also

Eurovision Young Musicians

Weaver's Week review (2008)

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