A few strips of an article I wrote about corruption in music competitions have made it into the Indy today. Most of the piece didn't.
The original would have made your hair stand on end, then curl laughing. The lawyers weren't having it, though. It was all true, nonetheless - I mean, you just couldn't make this stuff up.
Let me tell it like it is: most music competitions *suck*. The outrage they cause among the hapless people they manipulate is phenomenal. The barefaced cheek of certain individuals' behaviour leaves me gasping for adequate words. The psychological damage to gifted young competitors is immeasurable. The public is being cheated - they think that the finest young musicians in the world are being found for them - oh, if only. Yes, a lot of the stories are very funny (the funniest having, of course, been excised from print). And I would laugh harder if they didn't also make me cry.
Nobody has been able to do anything serious to remedy corruption in competitions, for fear of lawsuits. Even if the accusations are true. We have all been rendered toothless.
The various stylistic infelicities in the piece, by the way, are the result of the lawyers' red pen and do not appear in my original. Besides, I never put in the line saying that competitions are one of the best arenas for star-spotting available to whoeveritis. Indeed, I think my actual words were 'please excuse me while I slip out the back way'. As for "Further, there is a juror who adjudicates at contests all over the world and some successful candidates among his students apparently go home wondering what has become of their prize money" - no, they don't. They know exactly where it is, they just pretend, when people ask them, that they don't. My words were that they go home 'slightly cagey about' what has happened to it...
Here's the Facebook group that is mentioned in the piece. And here is a cool petition to sign.
4 comments:
Unfortunately this behaviour has been with us since year dot - in the far less sexy world of Eisteddfodau you can generally tell who will win a prize by checking the contestants home addresses or the background of their choir masters...Locals usually win is what I'm trying to say.
Jeez - after twenty years I still haven't gotten over the bloody things!
If only judges were as honest as Olympic Boxing judges, or lawyers, then everything would be groovy...
One day I must tell you about my experiences at a singing competition in Warsaw ten years ago which was so corrupt, it took my breath away. The culprits were not the Poles who, bless them, were trying to keep things honest, but the Chinese jurors. These formidable ladies were determined to push any Chinese entrant (no matter how awful) to the final of the contest by loading the votes at the expense of the really talented young singers trying to win. It made me realise that all these events are basically crooked and I have never attended one again, in spite of being invited with all expenses paid!
Speaking of competitions...a friend asks if there is a good book about music competitions. I told him I didn't know but I bet Jessica Duchen would. So here I am, asking.
I entered the Essex Young Musician of the Year when I was in my teens. I was a finalist and came second overall. I was in the audience watching the other finalists and I saw one of the judges SLEEPING through the winners performance. I am curious to know how they could have given a score!!!
Post a Comment