Post by Richard on Jul 10, 2012 13:51:34 GMT
Here's a very interesting article from The Telegraph:
Richard
Nicola Benedetti: Today’s children need culture, not celebrity obsession
Children need more exposure to culture to combat their obsession with the vacuous world of celebrity, one of Britain’s best young violinists, Nicola Benedetti, has said.
By Sam Richardson
6:00AM BST 10 Jul 2012
Nicola Benedetti, 25, a former BBC Young Musician of the Year, told Radio Times that many children are “aimless” and do not understand the value of hard work.
Benedetti, from Ayrshire, has performed at the BBC Proms, and secured a £2 million recording deal aged only 16.
“Now, more than ever, we need a cultural identity for youth in this country,” she said. “If children don’t have very strong parenting and don’t have an activity to replace the aimlessness that can go on after school hours, they end up accepting what’s shoved in their face. Which is celebrity culture and this obsessive chasing to become famous.
“But famous for what? None of it is promoting anything of true substance or quality. It’s not promoting the message that we’re better people if we work hard at something.”
She attributes her success to the values instilled in her by her father, Gio, a self-made millionaire with a chain of dry cleaners who emigrated from Italy to Scotland as a child. At 10, she left home to attend the Yehudi Menuhin School in Surrey, and says that, while she missed her family, she was most excited by playing the violin. She practises for five hours a day, and said she could not understand those who complain about having to work hard.
“I just don’t get why anyone would think of effort as a negative thing,” she said.
She will perform three times during this season’s BBC Proms, including the Last Night, and said that although her life was hectic she finds solace in music. “That, for me, is a time of peace.”
Benedetti is keen to bridge the divide between popular and classical music.
On July 8 she was the opening act at T in the Park, a rock festival in Scotland, and she is also involved in Sistema Scotland, an offshoot of the Venezuelan programme in which children from deprived backgrounds play classical music.
She was instrumental in setting up the Big Noise orchestra in Raploch, a community in Stirlingshire that faces high levels of deprivation. Last month, Gustovao Dudamel, the acclaimed Venezuelan conductor, led a performance by the children at the biggest outdoor classical event ever held in Scotland.
Benedetti, who believes that the more “exposure” classical music gets, the “better it is for humanity”, said she was “furious” about the standard of music education and feared that funding cuts would have a “catastrophic” impact on the future of Britain. Earlier this year, Ofsted reported that children were being prevented from playing instruments in music lessons as classes were increasingly turned over to tedious writing exercises.
Inspectors found that music teaching was not good enough in almost two thirds of primaries and secondaries. A quarter of schools had inadequate standards of music teaching — Ofsted’s worst possible rating.
In one case, a group of 14-year-olds was required to spend a lesson copying out information about the lives of Eric Clapton and Johnny Cash without listening to — or playing — their music.
Children need more exposure to culture to combat their obsession with the vacuous world of celebrity, one of Britain’s best young violinists, Nicola Benedetti, has said.
By Sam Richardson
6:00AM BST 10 Jul 2012
Nicola Benedetti, 25, a former BBC Young Musician of the Year, told Radio Times that many children are “aimless” and do not understand the value of hard work.
Benedetti, from Ayrshire, has performed at the BBC Proms, and secured a £2 million recording deal aged only 16.
“Now, more than ever, we need a cultural identity for youth in this country,” she said. “If children don’t have very strong parenting and don’t have an activity to replace the aimlessness that can go on after school hours, they end up accepting what’s shoved in their face. Which is celebrity culture and this obsessive chasing to become famous.
“But famous for what? None of it is promoting anything of true substance or quality. It’s not promoting the message that we’re better people if we work hard at something.”
She attributes her success to the values instilled in her by her father, Gio, a self-made millionaire with a chain of dry cleaners who emigrated from Italy to Scotland as a child. At 10, she left home to attend the Yehudi Menuhin School in Surrey, and says that, while she missed her family, she was most excited by playing the violin. She practises for five hours a day, and said she could not understand those who complain about having to work hard.
“I just don’t get why anyone would think of effort as a negative thing,” she said.
She will perform three times during this season’s BBC Proms, including the Last Night, and said that although her life was hectic she finds solace in music. “That, for me, is a time of peace.”
Benedetti is keen to bridge the divide between popular and classical music.
On July 8 she was the opening act at T in the Park, a rock festival in Scotland, and she is also involved in Sistema Scotland, an offshoot of the Venezuelan programme in which children from deprived backgrounds play classical music.
She was instrumental in setting up the Big Noise orchestra in Raploch, a community in Stirlingshire that faces high levels of deprivation. Last month, Gustovao Dudamel, the acclaimed Venezuelan conductor, led a performance by the children at the biggest outdoor classical event ever held in Scotland.
Benedetti, who believes that the more “exposure” classical music gets, the “better it is for humanity”, said she was “furious” about the standard of music education and feared that funding cuts would have a “catastrophic” impact on the future of Britain. Earlier this year, Ofsted reported that children were being prevented from playing instruments in music lessons as classes were increasingly turned over to tedious writing exercises.
Inspectors found that music teaching was not good enough in almost two thirds of primaries and secondaries. A quarter of schools had inadequate standards of music teaching — Ofsted’s worst possible rating.
In one case, a group of 14-year-olds was required to spend a lesson copying out information about the lives of Eric Clapton and Johnny Cash without listening to — or playing — their music.
Richard
