Country United Kingdom | First awarded 1978 | |
Awarded for Exceptional musical talent Presented by British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Official website BBC Young Musician website | ||
The BBC Young Musician of the Year, simply BBC Young Musician since 2010, is a televised national music competition and despite the name, is broadcast biennially on BBC Television and BBC Radio 3.
Contents
The competition, a former member of the European Union of Music Competitions for Youth (EMCY), is designed for British percussion, keyboard, string, brass and woodwind players, all of whom must be eighteen years of age or under on 1 January in the relevant year. A competitive dance version, BBC Young Dancer, was launched in October 2014 and first awarded in May 2015.
History
The competition was established in 1978 by Humphrey Burton, Walter Todds and Roy Tipping, former members of the BBC Television Music Department. Michael Hext, a trombonist, was the inaugural winner. In 1994, the usage of percussion instruments was first permitted, alongside the existing keyboard, string, brass and woodwind categories. Since its introduction, the allowance of percussion instruments has increased interest in the competition among young people. The competition has five stages, which consist of regional auditions, category auditions, category finals, semi-finals and the final. The biennial competition is managed and produced by BBC Cymru Wales.
To date, there have been 20 winners, the most recent being Sheku Kanneh-Mason in 2016. At the age of 12, Peter Moore became the youngest winner of the competition. In 2014, the BBC Young Musician Jazz Award was introduced. Alexander Bone, a saxophonist, was the inaugural winner.
As a result of the success of the competition, the Eurovision Young Musicians competition was initiated in 1982. The first edition was broadcast live from Manchester's Free Trade Hall. The presenter was Humphrey Burton and the producer was Roy Tipping. The winner of the show often proceeded to represent the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Young Musicians.
Broadcast
Regional heats were televised in 1978; a round before the category final was aired until 1994, and again in 2002 and 2004. From 1978 to 1984, all programmes were broadcast on BBC One until it was moved to BBC Two in 1986; however from 2002 to 2012, the heats were moved to BBC Four, with only the final aired on BBC Two.
In 2010, highlights of the new semi-final stage were also broadcast on BBC Two. In 2014, all stages of the competition moved to BBC Four, however the category finals and the grand final were broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
Hosts
The following have hosted stages of the competition:
Past finalists
2004
Finals for the 2004 competition took place on 2 May at the Usher Hall, Edinburgh and were televised on BBC Two. The trophy used for this year's competition was designed by John Rocha at Waterford Crystal.
2006
The 2006 finals were held at The Sage Gateshead on 20 May 2006. The adjudicators for this competition were Marin Alsop, Carlos Bonell, Peter Sadlo, Thea King, Sergei Nakariakov, Angela Hewitt and Kathryn McDowell. The overall number of finalists was significantly smaller for this competition.
2008
The 2008 finals took place at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff on 10 and 11 May 2008. In celebration of thirty years of the competition broadcasting, the performances lasted for two days.