Cultural Dessert

BBC Young Musician 2022

14 October 2022

One of the lesser-noticed impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic was how it broke my proud record of having reviewed here every one of the biennial BBC Young Musician competitions since 2006. The 2020 competition was interrupted by lockdown, with the Concerto Final eventually going ahead in May 2021. I did manage to watch it - and percussionist Fang Zhang was a worthy winner - but it took place while we were away on holiday and I wasn’t able to post my review. I am delighted to say that normal service has been resumed in 2022, and even more delighted to say that the television coverage of this year’s BBC Young Musician was the best I can remember. Wonderfully the BBC bowed to the inevitable and asked Jess Gillam (a finalist in 2016) to present the coverage, as a double-hander with the equally impressive Alexis Ffrench. And remarkably (and I like to think this must be in part a result of my moaning here since 2008) they have finally reinstated a final that features five full concertos - rather than cruelly depriving two of the five category winners from their moment on stage accompanied by an orchestra, as has happened since 2010. It was brilliant to watch the live broadcast, on Sunday evening, of five full back-to-back concertos - a thrilling, incredibly varied and fantastically moving concert. I was very smug at having correctly predicted all five finalists from watching their category finals (which moved me to tears several times). But I must admit I was completely wrong-footed by the decision to award the overall title of BBC Young Musician 2022 to the percussionist Jordan Ashman. He was brilliant, and gave a very impressive performance of the spectacular Percussion Concerto  by Jennifer Higdon, but I really thought the choice was going to be between two of the other finalists. Nevertheless the whole competition was really enjoyable and very fully and respectfully presented. Finally BBC Young Musician is once again as good as it used to be!

You can read all my previous posts about BBC Young Musician at: http://culturaldessert.blogspot.com/search/label/BBCYoungMusician

Labels: BBCYoungMusician, Music, TV

posted by Robin Simpson @ 4:09 pm