Young Musicians of the Year

[redtrain123]

Anyone watching?

Quite enjoying the auditions, although not sure if it a dumbing down from the previous format.

The presenter and judges are good.

who does everyone like from last week and this week?

I'm watching but I'm too distracted by the howling wind to pay proper attention.

Rooting for Jacky here. Amazing!

Tough tough choice! Jacky and Shlomi had technical issues but were exciting.
Ryan is the most mature performer but his rachmsninov was forgettable, especially movement 2 and 3. Think he might win though.

Have it on in the background.

Pre-final, Shlomi was my favourite. However, Wang is impressing me.

(not technical, just judging on what I hear)

I found Shlomi’s intonation slips distracting, I prefer it when you believe the musician is finding it all easy.

I managed to watch all of it. Ryan Wang I felt was far and away the best on the night, IMO the other two sounded like they were out of their depth compared to him. I don't for a moment think they were but he was far more assured and he played the music, didn't "wallow" or rush and the orchestra didn't struggle with his personal indulgences. Real maturity in his playing and far and away had the best rapport with the orchestra.

I seethed at the observation from the judge -"vibing with the orchestra" but thought her comment about Jacky being a "disruptor" rather accurate. And as for the commentator's "let's give it up one more time for..." well 🤢🤮 I nearly choked on my roast dinner 😂

@Londonmummy66
Hugo the cellist will go far I'm sure, his father is principal cellist of Bournemouth symphony orchestra.

@CrotchetyQuaver I agree and look forward to seeing him in the future.

Ryan and my DD had the same teacher and she could really see the "Gareth Owen" in his performance. She felt he was definitely the right winner as much more musical that Jacky (whom she knows well) and played with the orchestra rather than just as a soloist Shlomi did that too but had technical issues that Ryan didn't have.BTW she thought that they should have been told to go away and have a different concerto each.

Only just found this thread. Better late than never.
I have been very dismayed with this new format. I haven't even watched very much as there were so few wind players.
The three finalists all came from the South East, so how did that work? I thought the idea was to have more of the UK represented??
BBC - PLEASE RETURN TO THE OLD FORMAT.
Why wasn't a pianist and violinist on the panel?
Very disappointed this year. Although obviously the players were stunning.

It's so tricky to comment on this without detracting from the amazing performances. I think that it's discouraging for younger players not to hear the category finals and for the players to be judged against more similar instruments by professionals who know the challenges of the particular instruments. I think the judges weren't all the best for the job, and now the players can't say they were a category winner or finalist. I'm not sure they will have had the best feedback either. I have listened to a few previous category or grand finalists live and loved it, hopefully will be able to hear more of these players too. I hope the BBC reads a lot of the feedback as many people have felt this format has not been successful.

Just caught up with the final. Obviously the musicians gave outstanding performances, and it's great to see classical music on telly at any point, but I also disliked the new format. As someone who's DC play music in the regions, we've never noticed a lack of representation from those outside of the SE - Peter Moore, Jennifer Pike, Sheku Kanneh Mason, Lauren Zhang as winners just off the top of my head, and plenty of finalists/category finalists as well. Plus as previous posters noted we ended up with three SE based musicians in the final anyway.

I think the old categories evened things up a little - lots of serious pianists and violinists start at 3 and will be diploma level before high school. Lots of wind/brass instruments aren't typically started before 8 at the youngest due to the physical and technical demands. There's also a problem with lots of wind and brass instruments dying out, particularly within state schools, and to see bassoons and French horns and oboes being featured properly on telly is a great way to spark interest.

And if the format change was about providing better entertainment for the viewer then the final was a big flop - I'm pretty keen on music but I can't imagine I'm alone in not relishing Rach 2 being played twice in the space of two hours. Again, this is not to take anything away from the incredible performances from the lads in the final - Ryan is absolutely a worthy winner regardless of format, but the journey could have been more interesting for the participants and the viewers IMO.

I do wonder how the BBC can fix the format without admitting they got it wrong.

Maybe have regional, mixed-instrument semi-finals, rather than orchestra-section finals?

I found the whole thing rather underwhelming. Is there anywhere we can complain to about the new format?
It was not a good idea having the same judges throughout. I was fed up hearing their same comments time and time again - "Jackie is a disrupter" whatever that means. As for someone "Vibing with the orchestra" - that is the kind of dumbed down stuff that has ruined it for me.

If we'd had category finals, we wouldn't have had the farce of two competitors playing exactly the same concerto. I fine piano very hard to judge as they're both playing the same instrument and you can't have intonation problems on a piano. I didn't gel Alison's fulsome praise that Shlomi is going to be one of the world's great soloists - maybe I missed something and will be proved wrong.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/complaints/make-a-complaint/#/Complaint

BBC complaints

Also,

“BBC Young Musician 2024 and BBC Young Jazz Musician 2024 are managed and produced by BBC Studios Music and Entertainment Wales and the Commissioning Editor is Stephen James-Yeoman.‘,

so contact Stephen James-Yeoman

Thanks very much

It did serve to highlight the lack of funding in early years music education in the UK. All 3 finalists had started their music education elsewhere....

@redtrain123 - thank you - I've submitted a complaint - will no doubt get a bit of waffly mansplaining about diversity back.

What makes me spit tacks is that the lacklustre nature of the judges does not reflect the depth of talent in the firmament of musicians of colour in the UK. A jury of composer Errollyn Wallen, pianist Clara Rodrigues and double bassist Chi-chi Nwanoku plus Alison Balsam as the BBC presenter turned head judge and* *Ben Gernon to bring the conductor's viewpoint as has happened in previous years would have sent a much better message.

I didn't like the new format either. I preferred the old one that was like musical Crufts!

I do understand that if you ranked every participant from first to last you probably would have more string and piano players at the top.

I think it's more important to show all the sections though. There was a girl a few years ago who played the recorder absolutely beautifully, and I thought it was brilliant because so many children could relate to it.

I'd also prefer the variety of sound you get from having the category finalists. You don't often get to hear (and see!) a bassoon concerto, whereas you get a lot of piano
and strings on the radio. (I'm a bit biased I admit, because I'm a wind band player, and I'd love to see more brass and woodwind.)

Yes, hopefully thry will learn from their mistakes.
I think that honestly, this year there just were no brass players they could have put through. There was a specialist brass player on the panel and she was clearly struggling to stay positive about the brass competitors.

The oboist really didn't help himself by being the only quarter finalist to not play from memory. I loved the clarinettist and she was I my top 6 but I seem to have missed the issues she experienced that they referred to.

I suspect that the bbc are very happy with themselves and are not going to change the format. I personally liked the Jess Gillam as a presenter, I thought she did great.
Not changing the panel for the final was a real disappointment.

Yes, I thought Jess Gillam was a good presenter as well.

As anticipated got a rather meaningless drivel reply back from the BBC - I do think though that a few people complaining might encourage them to reconsider how they went about reshaping this (obviously financial cuts were part of it) given that the broader representation clearly didn't emerge....

Their reply:-

Thanks for watching 'BBC Young Musician '.

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Nonetheless, we appreciate your perspective, and we very much value your feedback. Complaints are sent to senior management and we’ve included your points in our overnight reports. These reports are among the most widely read sources of feedback in the BBC. This ensures that your concerns have been seen by the right people quickly, and helps to inform decisions about current and future content.