Simon Rattle can’t save music education alone

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/mar/08/simon-rattle-cant-save-music-education-alone

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Your Editorial refers to Simon Rattle’s impact on teenagers of the 2020s (Simon Rattle’s return can be good for music, for London and for the national status of the arts, 4 March). These teenagers are the toddlers of today, being patiently taught by devoted teachers. As Rattle himself has said, on receiving the Artist of the Year prize at the Gramophone Awards some years ago, “passionate musicians only come from passionate five-year-olds”.

There is much enthusiastic and solid hard work taking place in the UK leading to children participating in youth orchestras, choirs and bands. They get a huge thrill from achieving. But for one reason or another, they are a favoured minority. Just as in sport, everyone can do something, but the chronic dumbing down, in far too many schools, of the subject of music at the academic level chokes the spark of interest at the practical level. Just as Shakespeare requires a knowledge of language to appreciate his plays, so the playing of an instrument helps in the understanding of music. But thousands of children have been robbed of the chance to learn an instrument because of school funding cuts. To quote but one example, Redbridge music service faces a cut of £185,000 for 2016-17.

In Kodaly’s Hungary, music lessons were regarded as key and were given two to three times a week, thus becoming part of that country’s culture. Most executant musicians in the UK would love to have such a solid musical infrastructure.

Rattle’s return should bring an upsurge of talent and enthusiasm – along with the means to sustain it.Kathleen SimansGlasgow

• Simon Rattle is set to return to the UK and a focus on musical education comes with him. His reputation for good in this area is well deserved – but if we are to lay the hopes of every child’s musical education on his shoulders he definitely has an impossible job. There is no doubt that he could wow an audience of adolescents, but he is going to be the musical director of the London Symphony Orchestra, not the whole of the United Kingdom. If people are going to focus on involving young people in classical music, that’s great – but it shouldn’t be limited to those who can make it to the Barbican centre.

Schools and musical festivals routinely fail to provide opportunities for pupils to thrive on the wonders of classical music. Filmed proms (with the exception of the last night) are restricted to BBC Four. There is simply not enough done to make classical music accessible to all. So as well as building a concert hall, the government should put money back into arts funding to benefit young people. Simon Rattle is a great music educator, but one man cannot teach the whole nation.Gabriel OsborneBristol

• Rattlemania, egged on by a self-interested cultural mafia, has got out of hand. The problem with the arts in the UK is there is no concrete policy for music and the other art forms.

The opera companies, the orchestras, the national companies such as the Royal Shakespeare Company, like the banks, are too big to fail. The brunt of the cost of this deluded exercise of a new concert hall for London will fall on the smaller companies and art forms. Meanwhile pubs are closing at the rate of 30 a day and musicians coming out from colleges and conservatoires are finding it difficult to find work.

Even with a cut in ENO funding, opera funding increased from £50.5m in 2012-13 to £59.2m in 2015-16. Classical music funding was reduced from £18.9m in 2012-13 to £16.9m in 2015-16. Jazz funding increased from £1.25m in 2012-13 to £1.67m in 2015-16. The audience for opera is 1.67 million attenders, for classical music 3.29 million and for jazz 2.67 million.

A policy for the arts would identify nationally and regionally what resources are required and ensure equitable distribution of funding. London does not need another concert hall – and the country needs a chain of publicly funded small-scale venues in town centres catering for jazz, folk, indie, urban and other musics.Chris HodgkinsLondon

• The Fairfield Halls would like to join in congratulating Simon Rattle on his appointment as music director of the LSO from 2017 and in welcoming him back to our capital city. Does London need a new venue? Simon Rattle commented in an interview that the “musicians of London deserve a hall as good as the Fairfield Halls in Croydon”. We consider ourselves very much part of London: Croydon is only 15 minutes by train from the City. The Fairfield Halls is a much-loved multipurpose complex at the heart of its community. It is the centre of an important music education hub and is a home to many excellent professional orchestras who perform, rehearse and record here.Performances reflect the vibrant social and ethnic diversity of Croydon. We are now at a pivotal moment, following the decision of the London borough of Croydon to commit an initial £12m over the next three years for refurbishment. So instead of building an expensive new shell with no connections to the community, how about London saving a few hundred million quid and getting behind its best concert venue?Kate VennellChair of the board of trustees, Fairfield Halls, Croydon