The government's £332 million funding announcement has brought even more supporters to the Music Manifesto, including cellist Julian Lloyd Webber and his brother Andrew. We caught up with Julian to talk about the challenges ahead, the importance of music teachers and why these are exciting times for music education.
MM: We're really pleased to have you on board with the Music Manifesto...
JLW: I always thought the Manifesto was incredibly worthy and there were wonderful things in it but it was never clear to me whether the money was really there. But now the government has made, in historic terms, a terrific commitment.
What response have you seen to the funding announcements?
Everyone on the ground that I've had contact with thinks it's great. A lot of thought has gone into this. It's very hard to bring something back. It's very easy to get rid of it - to cut grants, to cut youth orchestras - and that's what happened, but it's really tough to bring it back. And I think the government deserves immense credit for that. They've listened to what people said; they've taken it seriously. We have been very fortunate, particularly with Gordon Brown, and I think we need to acknowledge that. I think he has made a personal intervention here.
Have you spoken directly to Gordon Brown?
Yes, he's very, very behind it. What he said was, when Labour got in, 20% of children were doing sport, now it's 80%. We want to do the same for music. He was very clear about it.
What part of the announcement are you most excited about?
This idea of testing the El Sistema project is very good. What has happened in Venezuela has been extraordinary, and has changed the way that people think about music and what it's for and the place of music in their lives.
It is a social project and is based on trying to improve people's lives, which I think is a very interesting way of looking at it - giving children something constructive to do, working together towards something great. If the pilot works I'm sure it will get rolled out, which will be a wonderful thing. It's an opportunity to see the benefits of music in a way that has never really been seen before.
What do you think are the challenges thrown up by the new funding?
There will have to be a rethink of the whole music education system. You've got something happening at primary age now but that does force us to look at what happens all the way through the system.
And there is a question over the number of teachers necessary to actually do this work. At the moment people coming out of music college with their teaching diplomas are not qualified to teach in schools. And obviously there's something missing there - there has to be some link up.
There has always been the feeling that if you took up an instrument the great goal was to be a soloist. If you weren't a soloist you'd be in an orchestra, if you weren't in an orchestra you'd teach. And I think that actually is the wrong way of looking at things, it's counterproductive.
I think a teacher [at music college] perhaps needs to study child psychology and that sort of thing as well as teaching an instrument. That changes the emphasis, it actually elevates the role of the teacher to a much greater degree than ever before. And I think if that message could be put across in a way so that people really believe it, that's a big change. We've got to have people to teach and inspire.
Who was your most inspiring teacher?
When I was nine or ten I had a teacher called Rhuna Martin and her enthusiasm for the instrument really changed the way I thought of it. Way beyond the call of her duty she actually took me to concerts where I saw and heard great cellists for the first time - Pierre Fournier, for example, who later turned out to be my teacher! I found watching those players incredibly inspiring.
Rhuna was the one who switched me on to the instrument, rather than a big-name soloist. That is backing up exactly what I'm saying - the role of the music teacher is crucially important.
You've always advocated the importance of a classical music education. Why classical?
You may know that I was talked into taking part in a debate at the State of Play conference and I lost the debate. My proposal was that classical music had to be the basis of music education. I was surprised at the strength of opinion against what I was saying from the majority of music teachers there, which was very eye opening for me in a way.
I still think that basically my position is correct. I actually had a wonderful quote from Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood who said he listens to Bach every day and classical theory is the basis of his music, he said that once you understand the system you can go anywhere. It helps massively to know the names of notes and keys. If you don't know your A-B-C it's very difficult to communicate.
But the whole term 'classical music' seems to me increasingly meaningless because you're talking about 800 years of music in completely different styles.
So where do you stand on the classical question now?
Perhaps I was slightly blinkered because there are other styles of music that are extremely valid. I think I've shifted my thinking slightly, and I would ask people in the classical world to reconsider theirs a little bit as well. Otherwise we do polarise ourselves which I don't think at this moment is a very clever thing to do.
But what is also interesting is that El Sistema is totally based on the principle of the symphony orchestra. So I don't think us 'classical people' have got anything to worry about! But perhaps we have to be slightly more catholic in the way we think about music.
What piece would you play to students to show them the power of classical music?
I would play a movement of one of the pieces El Sistema's Simon Bolivar Orchestra played when they played here last August, the fast second movement of Shostakovich 10. It is probably five or six minutes long, an amazingly exciting piece of music - and I'd play it really loud!
You play and teach all around the world, how does music education abroad compare with England?
Apart from Venezuela, the most extraordinary country is China where an amazing number of children are learning music. Apparently there are 10 million children playing the piano. In fact I've just been to Shanghai and there's a street there which I call the Classical Music Street, near the conservatoire, where there are all these CD and DVD stalls only selling classical music. You have concert halls packed with young people and it's often because they're learning instruments. They don't seem to see it in isolation, they learn an instrument alongside learning all their other subjects at school.
Where do you think the Music Manifesto should go next?
I personally think it has to proceed on as many levels as possible all at the same time. And I would like to issue an appeal to everyone in the music profession to really get behind this and not worry about our own little corners and positions.
The thing I'd most like to see is an overview of how music education works in this country - if we've enthused these children at primary level you then have to ask what's going to happen next, at secondary, and what is happening with the teacher situation.
We really must seize this opportunity and work together at every single level of music. We need a collective enthusiasm to bring this about. I don't think there's ever been such an exciting time for music education and we have to grasp it now.
Read more about El Sistema and the Simon Bolivar Orchestra
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