Spring / Summer 2026 music thread

[northerngoldilocks]

Time for a new thread as the old one is filling up and think we can claim its spring now!

Come and talk about music lessons, choosing instruments, exams, auditions, specialist schools, orchestras or whatever other music activities are going on. Everyone is welcome, from those with total beginners to those whose children are studying music at advanced levels. Ask for advice or share successes or struggles.

Yep! I’m so impressed with NYO tbh. The support, help and admin is simply mindblowing.

Absolutely. DD has learned a lot with Inspire and the audition process already. They manage to make it feel personal despite being such a huge programme.

We are about 35 miles south of London and have had Lewes and Brighton for Inspire. I would also recommend the LPO overture days in London - just one day though.

Those of you feeling miffed about distance, spare a thought for those of us with a 28+ hour plane flight to get to Heathrow to come to anything.

Our local secondary schools' orchestra now has as its minimum level for entry diplomas on 2 instruments. While DS may actually have done that by the time he's old enough to audition, I'm not sure the 6-day course is worth it given how nakedly competitive the atmosphere is. More worth coming over to the UK for a better course with less pressured people who actually like music rather than CV adornments...

@DitheringMusicParent crikey to both, poor you! Two diplomas….our orchestras would be empty! County is post grade 5 (by audition and probably fairly carefully pre selected by the tutors who also have full teaching timetables in the county. And the very well respected youth orchestra is in theory grade 6 for strings and 8 for most
other things although it has two feeder orchestras and I suspect it is far more likely to be grade 8 across the board really but for that one main instrument although many have more than one of course. Lots of NYO and NCO children too.

The majority of pupils in our secondary school orchestra would be grade 2-4. The regional schools orchestra would mostly be grade 4-6. Hence the part things like NYO inspire and other experience days has played in allowing them to play with better players, especially before they started at a junior department. There's not a big focus on classical music or youth orchestra in our area.

Whoah, that's crazy Dithering. And quite the compliment to the UK music scene that it's worth flying halfway round the globe for!

Do they play really well as an orchestra?

Sorry, by "local" I meant country, i.e. National Secondary Schools Orchestra is the one with minimum 2 diplomas entry. Our country is small though so it's the step beyond the local youth orchestra.

There is also a National youth orchestra which seems to be populated by university students only, despite having the same minimum age as the secondary school orchestra, and indeed as our local youth orchestra.

Our local youth orchestra is somewhat less illustrious, with a range from about Grade 4 in the violas to post-diploma university performance level in the front desks of violins and brass. Though as it's now run by DS9's organ teacher (who is absolutely not having a single hemidemisemiquaver out of place or used unstylistically), the standard has shot up impressively in the past year. There are a few disgruntled forever-at-grade-5 teenagers we know who didn't get in this year!

@Ubertomusic they don't gel particularly in the secondary schools national orchestra as far as I know - far too pushy and competitive to be able to get it together in 6 days... however the big city 350km away has a set of youth orchestras run by the local professional orchestra where there is a lot of emphasis on cohesion and people actually being nice to one another, and the two orchestras there where we know people (ages 12 and 13) definitely do play well.

I thought that would be an unusual formal requirement for just a school orchestra :)

I guess it's difficult in any case to put an advanced rep together in 6 days. NCO didn't quite manage some of the pieces in their first residential but I reckon it's normal at their age. Many violins even in seconds have done diplomas aged 10-11, lots do second and third instruments so it's not very dissimilar standard wise. Not sure about social dynamics though, perhaps more relaxed but there was some upset about seating, inevitably.

Professional orchestras are not always a paradise either 😂

Popping in after a long absence. My DD, having done US conservatoires for bachelor's and master's, is about to start a PhD, still in the USA. If anyone wants any views on US studies, I'm happy to chat.

That’s wild! My kid is a fledgling professional and doesn’t have a diploma in any instrument! Got grade 8 distinction aged 15 and since then hasn’t done formal exams apart from degree recitals and assessments.

Ooh I'm very interested! Don't know where to start though 😁 Are the standards for bachelor's higher than in the UK? Are there more options for joint first or combined music+academic studies or classical+jazz? How many ensembles do they do? Are job prospects any good?

Well done on the PhD post for your DD. Very interested too. DD is considering a double major with music and something else and also conservatoires. Did you find that they had good recognition/ appreciation of UK music extracurriculars?

Welcome back and congrats to your DD! I'm really curious, if you've done a performance degree what sort of thing do you research for a PhD? Does she have a research proposal, or does that come later? Must be fascinating.

Hi - just curious as starting to think re sixth forms etc. Do Purcell and Cheethams give a real
advantage when applying to a conservatoire? Doubt we could afford them even with a bursary tbh and I’m a bit nervous re closing down options so early, especially when his school has a good music dept and his teacher is phenomenal. Wondered re others’ experiences?

@chocolateisnecessary our experience is of mine getting in from a bog standard secondary with an enthusiastic and supportive music department, but not full of high performing musicians. However, they did go to a JD from S3 and in NYO inspire then full NYO for two years which was much more influential than the school. The instrumental teacher prepares students meticulously. All her friends who were at JD also got offers. A couple of young people who applied from the school who didn't have that support and had in-school lessons only didn't get in. Sadly in our experience the school lessons are not enough for many kids, which feels wrong. Music is the only subject you can get an A, or even full marks in and still not get a conservatoire offer for undergraduate. Other subjects prepare you much better for undergraduate applications. The certificate subject doesn't prepare you for auditions, in Scotland, the level is just too low.
Do remember that the auditions are in November though, so you are not getting much advantage from the last year for audition purposes. Obviously there are other benefits of these schools which others are far more qualified than me to talk about. Hopefully some others will chime in!

@chocolateisnecessary my kids are too young to have peers there but I’ve got loads of friends who went to those schools, in and out of the profession, and loads of friends in the profession who didn’t go, and a good friend is now head of music at one of the specialist schools (not mentioned in your message).

I think the main benefit of the specialist ones is that music is core to the school experience - so your DC have loads of time to practise and focus on that, and prepare for conservatoire auditions, without as much competition from the academic side as you might get from a normal school, plus lots of experience/advice on tap in terms of the audition process/differences between the institutions, teachers etc.

From what I’ve seen it isn’t really make or break either way though - I had a few Chets friends at Cambridge studying music and non-music subjects, and overall more of the professional musicians I know (inc DH) went to normal schools. DH considered going to Chets for 6th form but didn’t because they didn’t offer further maths (at the time!) - I think sometimes they limit the number of subjects you can do/may have fewer options.

It’s probably quite instrument dependent as well - I did brass so could quite easily fit my practise in but imagine it is a lot harder for strings and piano, and so the benefits of a school where it was part of the day could be more important.

Hi, sorry to jump on this thread,
Anyone who has DC in junior conservatoire, what sort of bag do they need to bring with them? My DD is starting at a JD for the first time in September, so I have no idea how much they have to carry with them other than their instruments!

Depends on the instruments, how many of them, and other classes. DD used a standard school backpack but her music books looked almost like Bible. Standard set was grade book, grade scales, studies book, choir music booklet, notebook for composition, these can fit in a music bag if only one instrument.

Fab, thanks both! That really helps. Appreciated.

Sadly in our experience the school lessons are not enough for many kids, which feels wrong. Music is the only subject you can get an A, or even full marks in and still not get a conservatoire offer for undergraduate. Other subjects prepare you much better for undergraduate applications. The certificate subject doesn't prepare you for auditions, in Scotland, the level is just too low.

Is school supposed to prepare them for conservatoires though? School music I would have thought is supposed to prepare you for a university music degree, which it more or less does. I'm sure a student with an A grade in music would be able to get a music university course place.

Performing is a vocational track not an academic one, more comparable to trying to get into professional sport or dance. Nobody's making the national gymnastics development squads off the back of school PE lessons.

I guess you have a point. You can get to art school just from doing art in the curriculum though. no one to one lessons. The one-to-one music lessons are not enough in most schools. I suppose I wouldn't expect core PE or exam PE to get you into a performance sport career so I'm probably be unreasonable to think a child should be able to get into conservatoire without junior department input or specialist music school. Almost need a foundation year option but it wouldn't really help as auditions are so early.

I got into conservatoire without a JD or specialist school @horseymum - these things don’t exist where I’m from - we had more the equivalent of the county/borough music service - and still to this day plenty of people get into conservatoire and then the profession from my home city. I agree it doesn’t really happen in the rest of the U.K. though, probably because JDs etc do exist and so most talented kids must end up there somehow.

Interestingly I was talking to someone recently who runs a harmony course over the summer for incoming music undergrads at Cambridge, to get them up to scratch/try to level the playing field between those (limited few!) who have had proper harmony teaching vs those who have just done the music A level (which isn’t enough really for their purposes) which seems a great idea, and may be useful info for prospective applicants on this thread!