Critic makes good speech, no pans for Peter
Very few critics can turn the pithiness of what they write into the extended pointedness of a good speech, but Richard Morrison of The Times — that paper’s chief music critic — did just that yesterday at a conference on the provision of music education in primary schools arranged by the John Lyon’s Charity in the Wigmore Hall.
I’ve always admired the battle waged by cellist Julian Lloyd Webber on behalf of music education at secondary school level, but Richard highlighted the scandal of a recent report claiming that only half of all primary schools were adequately serviced.
And, in synch with the conference as a whole, he suggested that exposure was the key. He quoted Liz Forgan, new Arts Council chair, saying that she was hooked for life by being exposed to Tristan und Isolde at the age of six.
I know Liz well and, while I admire her enormously, I’m not at all sure I’d want the world to be peopled by similar middle-class cultural do-gooders drenched in Wagnerian epiphanies and other over-ripe musical masturbations.
Richard spoke beautifully about the knock-on benefits of music in schools and was honest enough to admit — as he knows from experience — that musically educated children will always go through a rocky period of rejection in their early teens.
But I think music lays deep roots. My own son’s cultural outlook was transformed by a chance visit to a Glyndebourne schools performance of Prokofiev’s The Love of Three Oranges. My life was changed by an accidental encounter with a Janacek string quartet. You move on and move away, but that seismic implant remains.
The point is, though, that, in conference speak, susceptibility is key. And that will only happen for most people in school. The star of the conference was a primary school head from Kentish Town in Camden, Annie Williams.
Can you believe this…Annie insists not only that every single pupil plays a musical instrument (and not just a recorder) but that every staff teacher does, too. There’s no problem with money for such dedication. Authorities and charities, even in these dog days, are queueing up to fund concerts, musical programmes and the purchase of instruments.
Annie’s school, Holy Trinity and St Silas Primary, has an orchestra, a jazz band and two choirs. The jazz band played for us yesterday on the stage more usually populated by the likes of the Kronos Quartet and Bryn Terfel. They were magical.
So was Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, when I found him later in the evening. Ciaran Kellgren, the new PP, is a wonderful new actor, a sort of magical mix of James McElvoy, Daniel Ratcliffe and Mark Rylance.
I haven’t been able to establish whether or not he’s the son of a very good-looking theatre director, Ian Kellgren, who once ran the Liverpool Playhouse. His Wendy has genetic form, though. Abby Ford, equally splendid, is the daughter of Mick Ford.
Losing my way in the park, I came across right-wing columnist Peter Hitchens marching solemnly towards Paddington station. After he pointed me in the right direction, he accosted a hippie on a bike trangressing the cycling rules.
I didn’t want to get involved and carried on walking. Turning back, I watched a silent movie of Peter haranguing the hippie, the hippie haranguing him back, the hippie cycling away — and then Peter taking off in irate pursuit, like some comic cut-out from Monty Python. The hippie evaporated and Peter resumed his long march towards the railway station.
Well, it had been a trying day, with the tube strike and the muggy climate and all. But the magic of our musical conference somehow coalesced in the dream world of Peter Pan in the very same park where J M Barrie first imagined the story and Peter “Hook” Hitchens is still chasing down lost boys who threaten his place in the world and the view of his own civic supremacy.
June 11th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Yes, Ciaran Kellgren is indeed the son of director Ian — we met him at that launch lunch for the production at the Kensington Gardens Hotel a few months ago, and he told us (though you were sat on the other side of the table, so may have missed that bit of the conversation!).
June 11th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Thanks for info update, Mark.
June 12th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Excellent well written post.
I agree with you that music is important in primary education. Exposure IS the key. I have two children at primary school. They both play instruments, I have to pay for lessons and rent instruments but lessons are in school time, and we are well serviced with a free group after school of either woodwind or string one evening a week. Both children have performed in these groups on stage at the town hall and it was a wonderful experience for them. As I was waiting with my son, for my daughter to finish her group practice, I commented that the music they played seemed very boring. My son, who sings in the church choir, agreed emphatically and went on to list his favourite music, most of which was written in or before the 16th century. He’s rather pleased with himself that he not only sings his favourite piece in latin but can understand it (something the choirmaster is very particular about). Of course they are exposed to pop music too but why is it that educators automatically assume that children will only want mass marketed trash? How on earth can you encourage their own musical taste and genuine appreciation if you only serve up the musical equivalent of MacDonalds??
And music is important. As is literature, poetry, history and art. I got a talking to from their headmaster recently - they were not exactly pleased that I had taught my daughter what a noun, verb etc. is. They consider it too soon and are teaching them ‘wow words’. I cannot understand, when there is a perfectly good and useful collection of grammatical terms, thinking up new ones and making them un-learn those later.
Your adecdote about Hitchens was hilarious and I can imagine the scene. But I do think he has a point about education in this country. Although I’m sure he would not be in the least interested in my view, allow me to share my findings with you that in church my son has found the exposure to music, language and poetry that have only delighted and benefitted him. He joined the choir aged 8 and it was a very good thing - he loves it. And the choir is not made up of pious little angels but normal ordinary folk. You don’t have to be a religious fanatic for music to lift the soul.
Sorry about the length of my comment here.
June 23rd, 2009 at 3:05 pm
You’re right about schools exposure to music. Here in Norwich we’ve been running the Norfolk Schools Project twice yearly since 1997, trying to ensure that every primary schoolchild in the county has the opportunity to be involved in their own creation and performance of an adaptation of a classic opera. So over 2,000 children have made their own versions, using tropes from the scores, of Cosi, The Ring, Makropulos Case, Bartered Bride, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Figaro, Fidelio, Giovanni and a host of others. They’re led by Howard Moody, Jonathan Dove is the patron and the kids get to see, at our expense, the Glyndebourne or Opera North versions of the originals. Not trying to create Michael’s alliterative do-gooders; just trying to give them new horizons and tastes which they’ll come back to when they’re ready. But in spite of Michael’s assertion that there’s no problem with money, every project is a battle.