Page 940 - Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Coverage Book 2023-24

Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason is a passionate advocate for music education

Starting this week, in six BBC Radio 3 Music Matters programmes titled The Land Without

Music? I look at this sad state of affairs with the help of such thoughtful British musicians as the
violinist (and Edinburgh International Festival boss) Nicola Benedetti, the music education

champion Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason, the composers James MacMillan and Judith Weir, and the

conductor Martyn Brabbins. It’s fair to say that words are not minced, nor punches pulled.

Weir laments the fact that, as Master of the King’s Music, she constantly finds herself writing
letters of protest to politicians and funders about cuts to classical music, to no effect whatsoever.

Brabbins speaks with heartbreaking sincerity about the tragic demolition of English National

Opera, from which he resigned as music director in sorrow and anger. Benedetti laments the

“stupidity” of Brexit and the tangles of red tape imposed on touring British musicians. Kanneh-

Mason and MacMillan despair at the unfair disparities of music education. And so on.

Sam Lee’s new folk songs are part of the wonderful British music scene
DOM TYLER
It’s not all gloom and doom. The series also includes lots of wonderful British music, from

Henry Purcell to Sam Lee’s newly minted folk songs. That reflects how much fine music still

gets made in Britain, despite everything. But how much longer can the show be kept on the
road? In 1904 the German critic Oscar Schmitz hurled the accusation that Britain was “the land