Cuts to arts education cast a shadow over the future of our culture

Sir John Eliot Gardiner, on the BBC, is not afraid to tell it how it is. Bravo! @thoroughlygood @nfmusic @mrjamesob @nicholascollon pic.twitter.com/PxrFi3Smud

— David Coronel (@King_Ouf_I) May 6, 2023

The wonderful music at the Coronation gave rise to pride at this country's achievements in the field, but also to foreboding.

As Britain becomes more unequal, there are fears that musicmaking - both pop and classical - may follow the theatre, cricket and rugby union in becoming largely a preserve of the products of wealthy families.

And cuts to BBC arts funding mean there will be fewer career prospects even for them.

Sir John Eliot Gardiner, as you can see above, took the opportunity of the BBC's Coronation coverage to express his concerns.

A debate held by the BBC Radio 4 arts programme Front Row at a Leicester comprehensive four years ago provided good coverage of the issues here.

The fear is expressed that knowledge of the arts will become what knowledge of Classics is now: a mark of an exclusive education.

But musical education goes beyond formal teaching in schools or organised through them. And I have noticed that many of the pop and rock musicians of the Sixties shared two more forms of it.

They had fathers who played in jazz bands, so they grew up familiar with black American music. And they sang in church choirs as boys.

Both these forms of education have dwindled to nothing or close to it in the years since.