BBC Young Musician: Classical competition or musical Masterchef?

Has the BBC's biennial Young Musician competition been reinvented as ‘Musical Masterchef’? Almost exactly paralleling the nation’s premier cook-off, 50 entrants made it through to the re-fashioned televised stages (via a new process of selection inviting contestants from eight UK regions) before giving short, live performances in Cardiff in front of the three judges (à la Masterchef). These determined who became quarter-finalists, semi-finalists and finalists (all, need I say, as in Masterchef), before the winner was decided at the Bristol Beacon finale.

The decisions of the jury – made up of virtuoso trumpeter Alison Balsom, ‘multi-disciplinary artist’ Hannah Catherine Jones and pianist Alexis Ffrench, whose music-making combines classical with roots music and R&B – were hotly contested, but adjudicating from the sofa is a mug’s game. The question is whether this new BBCYM serves the competitors well, starting with the decision to abandon the time-honoured practice of assembling qualifiers for the televised final stages into five instrumental categories (strings, percussion, brass, woodwind and keyboard). To my mind, this categorisation made for a more satisfyingly focused watch (more organised, more sequential) than the instrumental smorgasbord this new BBCYM threw up in each round. More importantly, though, the new framework didn’t allow for the very considerable cachet bestowed in times past on the winner of each category. Going further, the removal of this instrumental categorisation, together with the lowering of the number of finalists from five to three, enabled the not-so-desirable outcome of two out of those three 2024 finalists playing the same instrument, a fact made all the more undesirable (you might think) by both pianists choosing to play the same concerto.

Canadia pianist Ryan Wang won this year's top prize ©BBC/Betsan Evans

The previous process based on instrumental categorisation also provided the opportunity to bring in a wide variety of judges. In 2022, there were four such judges for each category, plus the constant presence of Anna Lapwood, before a completely new panel was revealed for the final. As noted, this year the same three judges made the decisions throughout (dare one point out that Masterchef judges at least enlist the opinions of food critics and past entrants?). This is not to impugn the integrity and diligence with which this trio carried out their task, but is it not in the interest of perceived fairness that fresh ears and new perspectives be brought to bear as the contest progresses? After all, the three 2024 judges clearly assessed only the performances heard in each round.

Talking of the judges, various musicians I’ve spoken with were, like me, disquieted by their physical positioning during performances up to the final – all too obvious, out on their own, directly in the eye-line of the performers. Why add to the inevitable pressures on these young performers with what felt like an almost deliberately confrontational configuration, designed purely for televisual effect? In the final, the judges were placed several rows from the front of the Bristol audience… yet with spotlights on them, as if some kind of competing attraction. Is it not in the best interests of competitors that judges should melt into the background?

2022 finalists Ethan Loch, Jaren Ziegler, Sofía Patterson-Gutiérrez, Jordan Ashman, Sasha Canter at Bridgewater Hall ©Dan Prince/BBC

I can’t be the only punter debating whether BBCYM should be a version of an ‘international competition’… not least when there’s hardly a shortage of those. As things stand, entry is open to all comers from abroad, provided they’re studying at a UK educational establishment. I’m the very least of jingoists, but I wonder what it feels like as a British entrant to see your national broadcaster pit you – at this young age – against musicians from around the world. The final featured the impressive Israeli-Ukrainian violinist Shlomi Shahaf and the winner, Canadian Ryan Wang. OK, British talent can’t ultimately be protected from the competitive realities of the international marketplace, but in the BBCYM age-group surely there’s a case for restricting entry to UK nationals. If BBCYM chooses to re-engage with the Eurovision Young Musicians contest (of which the BBC was a co-founder) would it be right for a non-UK national to represent this country?

We heard encouraging amounts of lesser-known repertoire in the course of the contest. My ears particularly pricked up when quarter-finalist Defne Anar, a harpist, explained her two repertoire choices were intended to reflect the troubled modern world – the first movement of Hindemith’s Harp Sonata (written on the cusp of the Second World War) and Philippe Hersant’s searching Bamyan, which heartrendingly reflects on the destruction of Buddhist temples by the Taliban. Brave, but mature-minded and intriguing. Anar didn’t make it into the semis, and one judge commented (yes, in a perhaps non-contextualised soundbite) that essentially the slow-moving Bamyan was inappropriate as a finale in a competition performance. But is it de rigeur to complete one’s competition programme with some technical show-stopper? How many concerts have you attended which end with searchingly reflective music? A good few, no doubt. A competition tests both technique and interpretative ability – and Bamyan was certainly demanding in the latter respect.

Such courage and independence of mind from Defne Anar in linking her music-making to ‘real life’ deserved better by way of appreciation. And her approach seemed all the more refreshing when it was revealed what the 2024 finalists would be playing. The Tchaikovsky violin concerto and (twice-over) the second Rachmaninov piano concerto. Masterpieces, yes, but in competition terms, knackered old warhorses.