A young musician speaks

Mark Simpson, 17 years old, was named the BBC’s Young

Musician of the Year in Britain

this summer. He’s a clarinetist, and also a composer; is principal clarinet

with the National Youth Orchestra in

w:st="on">Britain; played the Nielsen

Clarinet Concerto at the major Sage Gateshead concert

hall. And he’s working on some major compositions, including one for the new

music group of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

And here’s how he was quoted, when I read about him in

style='mso-bidi-font-style:normal'>The Guardian on July 17:

I’ve stood in front of audiences,

including at the Sage, and you just see a sea of white hair. When I watched the

final [of the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition] on TV, I could see

only a few people who were my age — and they were mostly my friends. It annoys

me so much that classical music is pigeonholed as something aristocratic and

uptight, snobby and above itself. Ultimately things will have to change,

because once the current group of concertgoers are

dead, no one will be listening.

So. This supports reports I’ve

heard about a survey of young British classical musicians, who said they didn’t

want to go to classical concerts. Too many older people, they said, not enough

younger ones.

And it also supports my own idea, which I’ve certainly

talked about in this blog and in my online

book, that classical music education won’t bring young

people into the classical concert hall. The problem, I’ve argued, isn’t the

music; it’s the atmosphere. Even if you love the music, you still have to buy

into the ambience of classical concerts. Mark Simpson might be living proof of

this. He loves classical music, obviously. But he seems to have major problems

with the classical concert hall. And if he — a top teen classical musician — has

problems, other people his age, without his commitment to the music, must feel

the problems even more strongly.