Tony Haynes, Composer and Director of Grand Union Orchestra
One of the oddest things about the National Plan for Music Education is the role of the Arts Council – both in being given responsibility for selecting the hub leaders from competing bids and in being charged with devising appropriate accreditation for musicians to work in music education.
These are surely outside the Arts Council's brief and it has no particular expertise in this field; it also comes at a time when it is supposed to be drastically reducing staff!
It is questionable in any case whether such accreditation is necessary or desirable and it could lead to serious anomalies unless experienced professional musicians are involved in the process. A school teacher who has been on a weekend course at the Guildhall, for instance, may be deemed more qualified than a tabla player born in India who has been performing and teaching in Britain for 30 years.
Indeed, the whole question of the involvement that Black, Asian and other minority ethnic musicians could or should play in music education for the benefit of young people has not been properly considered and this is crucial to the plan's otherwise admirable ambition to provide a wide range of ensemble opportunities for young musicians – presumably beyond the obvious mainstream ones (which, of course, everyone is keen to see continue to flourish also).
The question of diversity runs even deeper. There is a worrying tendency to homogenisation in music education, an orthodoxy behind which all institutions are inclined to line up, promoting a common set of values that it is difficult to challenge.
An artist's job is to present a radical or oppositional view, if necessary, and it is surely also the job of education to encourage informed criticism? Anything less leads to complacency and stagnation. Only if it manages to hitch a variety of creative, progressive and, above all, artistically sound and effective ideas and individuals to its bandwagon, will the plan succeed to the benefit of young musicians.