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Chetham's School of Music
| Article
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20526 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1992 |
1,810 Words |
| Author
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Herb Greer
Herb Greer is an American writer and playwright who lives in
Britain and on the Continent. |
It is not uncommon to take talented children, train them like circus animals in the forcing house of a music conservatory, and produce bright, sometimes brilliant performers. To begin with gifted children, develop their talents, and at the same time encourage their growth into rounded human beings--that is not so straightforward. Given the pressures in today's world of the arts, the accomplishment may be something of a miracle. In the unlikely ambience of a former manufacturing city--Manchester in the north of England--there is a school where this miracle has very nearly become a matter of routine.
Chetham's (pronounced "Cheetham's") School of Music is unique in the United Kingdom and probably in the Western world. It is an elite institution supported by the state where gifted children from primary school age through the equivalent of high school graduation receive first-class specialist training across the whole field of musical endeavor, so carefully and skillfully combined with a normal academic education that neither field suffers.
There are other music schools for the young in the United Kingdom, though none of them are like "Chet's." The most famous is the Yehudi Menuhin School in Surrey. But the Menuhin School is narrowly focused on music, and specifically on string playing, giving its teenage students a somewhat cloistered existence, complete with vegetarian diet. Like the Menuhin, Chet's is a boarding school; but there the resemblance ends. Entrance is not restricted to string players; any sort of musical talent will find a home here. A student might show talent for the piano, the violin, or the accordion, the harpsichord, the guitar, or even the xylophone; nothing is excluded. There also are young singers, composers and conductors, all given instruction of the highest caliber.
Will and Commitment
Entrance to Chetham's is by audition only, and musical skill is not the only criterion. One of the most important qualities for admission is notoriously hard to measure but indispensable: the will and sense of commitment that enable a musician to survive in a profession whose barriers are formidable and that often requires many qualities besides musical talent and fair.
Julian Clayton, head on the strings department and conductor of the school symphony orchestra, stresses the importance of exposure to a wide variety of fine teachers. In addition to resident staff, the musical faculty is drawn from full-time professional artists
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