In Saturday’s (8/1) Guardian (London), Vanessa Thorpe writes that in Europe a Save the Bassoon campaign “aims to remind the public of the importance of this engaging member of the woodwind section and to encourage young musicians to take it up…. The bassoon preservation campaign began in Amsterdam in June and is to spread across Europe through a network of professional players. At the head of the initiative is Bram van Sambeek, a virtuoso bassoonist who has often played with the London Symphony Orchestra. ‘The name of the campaign is deliberately quite dramatic because we want people to think about whether the bassoonist could be as endangered as the panda. There is a danger. And there is a danger to the future of the orchestra as a result,’ said van Sambeek…. For Sir Nicholas Kenyon, managing director of the Barbican Centre in London and a former bassoon player, the trick is to promote British youth orchestras…. ‘The supportive structures need to be there for those who want to take up more unusual instruments,’ [says] Kenyon.… Schemes such as the 25-year-old LSO Discovery project, which … reaches out to children in the London area, are doing crucial work.” The article also mentions In Harmony, founded by cellist Julian Lloyd Webber, and Big Noise, Sistema Scotland.
Posted August 3, 2015
