James MacMillan on Channel 4 News

[ardcarp]

Channel 4 News at 6.30pm today devoted a sizeable slot to James MacMillan bemoaning the parlous state of instrumental music teaching in state schools. Good for him. He asserted that the opportunities given to him as a working class child at Crummock school are not available today, and that as a result, the greater proportion of players in our professional orchestras are from the privileged middle classes, or as he put it, the bourgeois.

Those thumbs up signs are heartfelt. Good on yer James. I do wonder, however, if James is beginning to veer leftwards in his politics, given that most of the cuts (though not all) in school music and the peripatetic services have taken place under Conservative governments?

(I seem to remember an interview with James MacMillan in which he seemed quite cross that there was a general assumption that everyone in the Arts was left-wing, the implication being that he wasn't.)

Anyway, good on Channel 4 News too.

https://www.channel4.com/news/programmes/2018/10/06/1830

Sadly the News bulletin in question seems unavailable on catch-up...unless anyone can work out how to get it....

[JimD]

Maybe he just judges issues on their merits or (tries to)?

[ardcarp]

Maybe. One couldn't help wondering about his views (now) on how cuts in health care, social care and social housing have affected the citizens of Crummock, not to mention the recently introduced Universal Credit and the Personal Indepenence Plan? Or maybe they do things differently in Scotland.

[LMcD]

Channel 4 News at 6.30pm today devoted a sizeable slot to James MacMillan bemoaning the parlous state of instrumental music teaching in state schools. Good for him. He asserted that the opportunities given to him as a working class child at Crummock school are not available today, and that as a result, the greater proportion of players in our professional orchestras are from the privileged middle classes, or as he put it, the bourgeois.

Those thumbs up signs are heartfelt. Good on yer James. I do wonder, however, if James is beginning to veer leftwards in his politics, given that most of the cuts (though not all) in school music and the peripatetic services have taken place under Conservative governments?

(I seem to remember an interview with James MacMillan in which he seemed quite cross that there was a general assumption that everyone in the Arts was left-wing, the implication being that he wasn't.)

Anyway, good on Channel 4 News too.

https://www.channel4.com/news/programmes/2018/10/06/1830

Sadly the News bulletin in question seems unavailable on catch-up...unless anyone can work out how to get it....

If you go to the official Channel 4 News website you'll find a 4-minute clip.

[BBMmk2]

A welcome for the precarious state of music services in the state system. It’s fast becoming only for the privileged.

[Cockney Sparrow]

If you go to the official Channel 4 News website you'll find a 4-minute clip.

https://www.channel4.com/news/cuts-to-musical-education-a-scandal-says-renowned-scottish-composer

[DracoM]

A sobering paragraph:

Music Education in Schools
All learners have music as a subject in the compulsory school system every school year from 6 until 16. Kindergarten is not compulsory but it does provide music training. In primary school (years 1-7) at least 285 hours (60 minutes units) should be taught and for lower secondary school (years 8-10) 85 hours. The municipalities fund primary and lower secondary education and have a great deal of freedom when it comes to organising the education. For example they are allowed to decide not to have music all of the years but to make a free distribution of hours between the years.

The organisation and the content of music as a compulsory subject is the result of a major national curriculum reform project starting in the mid-1990s. The objectives and the areas of study within the music curriculum are organized around forms of activity: making music, dancing, composing and listening, and modes of cognition: experiencing and understanding. There is no clear dividing line between the forms of activity and the modes of cognition; they interlock and supplement and support one another.

Approximately 20% of the learners between ages 6 and 16 have instrumental and vocal training in music and culture schools, for the most part outside school hours, but also as an integrated and added elective of a normal school day. Music or culture schools are compulsory by law in every municipality. From ages 16-19 young learners can choose music as an important elective within the upper secondary school system. The number of upper secondary schools providing this option has been rising in all regions during the nineties.

At the tertiary level learners can study music as part of teacher education, as preparation for a performing career, as a scientific study programme, and a number of other ways.

And where is this?


Norway.

[ardcarp]

Yes. And a small (in population) country like Norway has two major symphony orchestras, a thriving choral scene and many internationally famous soloists. Iceland, even smaller, also does rather well.

On wider matters, social care is excellent as one would expect from a Scandinavian country. Personal taxation is higher, and so are prices (ouch) but then wages/salaries are higher too. Norway seems to have an excellent relationship with the EU. Our EHIC cards are recognised there as are the mobile phone advantages currently accordded to us as EU Members.

[teamsaint]

I’m guessing that oil may have something to do with their ability and willingness to invest.
Not that our efforts aren’t pitiful.

http://www.businessforscotland.com/uks-oil-gas-revenues-dwarfed-norways/