JDCMB is 15 TODAY

They certainly didn't tell me I'd be doing this for 15 years when I signed up to Blogger on 2 March 2004.

Here's a little glimpse into the State of the Art, involving one of those "you couldn't make it up" moments that happened to me the other day when I

David Dolan coaches YMS cellists
on structure in Bach

went down to the Yehudi Menuhin School to look around, talk to the head, watch some teaching and hear a lunchtime concert by some of the students.

To a visiting journo, the school seems a haven of peace. It has impressive facilities: a magnificent wood-lined concert hall, a Fazioli grand, a range of super studios. And here you can meet the absolute values of musicianship at the highest, specialised level, matters communicated exceptionally effectively in the lesson on Bach I listened to, given by pianist, analyst and classical improvisation guru David Dolan.

This place - one of sadly few specialist music schools in this country - has been subjected to some serious misrepresentation in the press, in particular ridiculous charges of that pernicious concept "elitism", which leaves you wondering how, if a young person has a talent and vocation, he or she would ever to be permitted to develop it with the necessary hard work. The vast majority of the children - around 90 per cent of them, according to the head teacher, Kate Clanchy - are on close-to-full scholarships, as talent does not correlate to a parent's economic situation, unless it correlates by landing upon those who can't afford to fork out for instruments and lessons. And it's a struggle to provide the scholarships, because the support from the government's Music and Dance Scheme does not increase at even half the same speed as the spiralling costs of running the place. These schools, including (but not limited to) YMS, Purcell, Chets and some of the cathedral schools, are the engine-room of musical life. Remove them and you cut off the nurture at the source, a future that many young musicians need in order to grow and flourish.

There's no doubt that boarding schools are not for everyone at the best of times; and some exciting young musicians simply attended their local comprehensive (the Kanneh-Masons) or ended up being home schooled from about 14 (Benjamin Grosvenor). I know one exceptionally successful musician, now in her sixties, who ran away from music school. But in the meantime the Menuhin School can count among its alumni such figures as Tasmin Little, Alina Ibragimova, Melvyn Tan, Nicola Benedetti and many, many more, figures without whom musical life in the UK would not be all it is today (which is, seriously, among the world's finest. Enjoy it before Brexit rips out its heart.)

Yehudi Menuhin's grave, in the school grounds. The inscription reads:
"He who makes music in this life makes music in the next".

Then came the "you couldn't make it up" incident. I was just waiting for my lift back to the station when my phone rang. There's a journalist on the line from BBC Radio Essex. They have a story on their patch, he said, and were looking for a comment. There's a primary school in Basildon at which the pupils are asked to listen to ten minutes of classical music every day over lunch. What did I think about music being used to discipline kids? I explained that I don't really feel qualified to talk about that, as it's not something of which I have direct experience. Well, then, he said, what about "why should we give classical music the time of day in any case?"

I looked around at the young people off to their next lessons, and Menuhin's grave (pictured above) just in front of me. And I cracked. I gave him a bit of an earful about how I was speaking to him from a specialist music school that's chock-full of some of the most talented kids in the country, youngsters who simply live and breathe music, and hearing them play, hearing the joy oozing out of their music-making, is so inspiring - it's simply incomprehensible that anyone could think that playing and listening to music is, in principle, not a wonderful thing.

It highlighted the extreme divides in opportunity that our kids face in the rather haphazard lottery of the UK's educational life. But it also highlighted something possibly even worse: a divide in attitude based on misinformation, misunderstanding and prejudice. The school in Basildon has sparked "controversy" in some tabloids. Apparently getting children to listen to music for ten minutes a day is controversial. (Funny, it used to be called "music lessons"...) Trumpeting this as controversial is the triumph of the type of playground bullies we've all met.

I think the programme used a snip of my interview very early yesterday morning (here), but the most interesting thing I heard listening back was an interview with the primary school's head, explaining that the children were not being asked to listen in silence, only to "use quiet voices"; that no parent has removed a child from the school because of this; that a few parents shouting about not liking the idea are not speaking for everyone; and that basically the whole thing has been badly distorted in a way that doesn't reflect its reality. Their lunchtime sessions introduce a "composer of the week", with pictures and information: they've just had Vivaldi and she says the kids absolutely loved it.

It still seems incomprehensible that anyone would think kids shouldn't have the chance to encounter music. Without any opportunity to be introduced to it, you risk missing out on one of the most wonderful experiences available to us.

And then I came home to the news that André Previn had died. We will never forget such a musician. Where are today's communicators on a comparable level? I know of no total, top-level  all-rounders of that calibre: composer, conductor, broadcaster, jazz pianist and equally magnificent in every one of them.

"Something must be done," says Jess, but what? How to keep the communication of the marvel of music alive? Diversifying the imagery certainly helps to get the word out, but it's only the beginning; it won't solve  everything. International Women's Day next week has sparked a celebration of women in music that gets bigger every year, and seems - to me - to be taking root in our culture at long last. It certainly didn't exist 15 years ago. The arrival of Chineke! and Sheku Kanneh-Mason and his family are helping, too, and the communicative joys expounded by orchestras like the format-pioneering Aurora and Manchester Camerata, and the repertoire-busting Southbank Sinfonia, are making waves as well. None of this was happening 15 years ago. Next I think some of the things we need to tackle are the issue of concert start times, the availability of food and drink at venues - affordable, with choice and quality, and not too much queuing, please. And call a meeting with the Department of Transport (once they get rid of their current minister...). But above all, music education. Of quality. For all. We can dream...

So there is hope. One might argue that the playground bullies have always been with us and always will be, and it's up to us to be tough enough to hang on in there. Still, it's not getting any easier.

And yet, and yet...let's finish with the thought of a little Menuhin School pianist, 11 years old, performing in the lunchtime concert the other day: she played the Schumann Abegg Variations and part of Mozart's K414 with gorgeous tone and absolute identification with the idiom, which seemed remarkable. She's Anglo-Chinese and her name is Claire Wang. I keep thinking she's called Clara.