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Juries ... from the other side of the table

November 15, 2005 at 3:08 PM

Yesterday was my first time being a jurymember. This week there is a local competition in the town my parents live and I am adjudicating all rounds. For the first at the other end of the table. I like playing better. It is so difficult. The kids ranged yesterday in age from 6 through 18 and I mainly heard piano. Some of them had only half a year lessons, others were already well on their way preparing for a possible future job in music.
But they all one thing in common. I was so intensely moved by every person. I find it so special that these kids are persuing classical music. One 14 year old flutist was asked in the little interview that was held with every candidate what his classmates thought of him playing the flute. He told the audience they admired him for it. Who said anything about classical music dying among the children?

Next week I am playing as a member of Amsterdam Sinfonietta. I just got a mail from them about a project where they are going to bring classical music into the class room. All these initiatives are so great.

In the Netherlands you can not learn to play an instrument at your primary or high school, just as we don't offer sports at school in a way that is being done in the US. Therefor you could say that classical music is maybe not everywhere in Holland geographically represented. BEcause there are still the more upscale beighbourhoods (read Westchester) where it is very normal for children to go to musiclessons, play hockey (I am going to get in trouble with a lot of Dutch people). However, both these projects, the one of the orchestra (innercity) as well as the competition (suburbs, read New Jersey) (more trouble now I think) are at places where it is not so cool to be a classical musician. I used to get into trouble for it, quite a bit at my primary school. But these kids yesterday played with their heart and soul. I really applaud them for that. Every single one of them moved me.

Only one of every age category can move to the next round. There are threee different categories. Immediately we had a close one with the younger ones: only 0.1 point difference. Since I am the only judge adjudicating all selection rounds, I get to decide on 3 extra people for the finals on saturday. I wanted this girl to go on badly, I felt so bad about ).1 points. However then I immediately got into another problem that evening: the oldest agecategory had a ex aequo and officially only one could pass to the finals. It is an impossible task. Luckily I was able to decide right then and there that they both got to play in the finals. But my generally quite not compromising opinion on juries has completely changed. I now know first hand how difficult this is and how difficult it is to make good decisions. I just want these kids to have fun and want this to be an inspiration to work harder and enjoy themselves more. I hope that will come through. Impossible to do.... but also very rewarding to see these kids play.

And even the ex aequo resulted from unavoidably subjective opinions. And it's not necessarily fair even to just let the audience vote instead. The contestants are liable to stack the audience with thier supporters. I see this all the time in amateur contests...
Carla, I know that classical music is appreciated more widely in Europe and other places than it is in the US. The only public radio station in Washington DC which played classical music changed to all-talk a few months ago. The owner of the station said that there is no future in classical music. I feel ashamed and outraged. I keep thinking about your recent blog entry about riding your bicycle through Amsterdam, stopping at the Concertgebouw to see whether they had any tickets for that evening's performance, and then attending the performance. It couldn't happen here. I'm happy whenever and wherever people teach classical music to schoolkids and encourage their interest.
No classical music station in DC? Oh my! I thought certainly the nation's capitol would have a classical station. I'm surprised, and sad.
don't be sad. doesn't necessarily mean what you think. could also be politics. classical means NPR and they went to all talk, and you know what that means. all you hear anyplace here is country music. feel sad for me. but there's a classical station here and you can pull in a dozen others with a good tuner. but no Howard Stern anymore, which I almost can't handle. No country station in NYC btw, though the CMAs were just held there the other night.
Hey, where are you, Carla? I, for one, have missed seeing your updates. Let us know what's going on when you get a chance, okay? :)