Latest news with #musicEducation
The National
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The National
Shadi's take on rising oil prices
Favourite piece of music: Verdi's Requiem. It's awe-inspiring. Biggest inspiration: My father, as I grew up in a house where music was constantly played on a wind-up gramophone. I had amazing music teachers in primary and secondary school who inspired me to take my music further. They encouraged me to take up music as a profession and I follow in their footsteps, encouraging others to do the same. Favourite book: Ian McEwan's Atonement – the ending alone knocked me for six. Favourite holiday destination: Italy - music and opera is so much part of the life there. I love it.
BBC News
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Welsh folk music could die within a generation, report warns
Wales' "fragile" folk music tradition could "die within a generation" without urgent action, a new report has commissioned by Arts Council Wales found fewer young people were learning or growing up with traditional music Iwan, who has brought Welsh folk music to millions through the success of his song Yma o Hyd, described the situation as "very worrying". Arts Council Wales said folk music had not "been supported as it should have been", but it had now tripled its investment in the art form. The review into the traditional music scene in Wales found traditional music sectors in England, Scotland and Ireland benefited from a "wide range of music industry support structures" that were "largely absent in Wales".It noted that Scotland's traditional folk scene received 4.8% of its arts council's overall pot of money, compared with the Welsh folk scene which - at the time of the review - received 0.66%. "People told us quite clearly, if we don't do something now, it's going to die within a generation," said the report author Angharad Wynne."There won't be any young people coming through the tradition. Things have been as serious as that."She said the traditional way in which folk music was handed down from generation to generation had changed."Certainly there are some amazing people all over Wales who give their time free of charge... but increasingly the ecosystem has changed," she said."Everybody's got a second job because not many people can make a full-time living from being musicians."She added: "That kind of handing down of traditional tunes and traditional style of playing just isn't happening anymore. "And so what we saw was interventions are really needed, some funding is really needed, to shore up and enable some of those really great practices." Iwan, whose 1983 song Yma o Hyd has been streamed more than three million times and has become a Wales football anthem, said the digital revolution had helped to take Welsh music "to all corners of the earth".But he said young people did not usually stay in the industry beyond a few years because there was not enough support to help them build a career. "At the moment, we're lagging well behind, and it's very worrying," he added."We must have government support to make sure that the young, especially the young people, have the backing to make the best of their talents and to make sure that their music is heard all over the world." One of Taylor Swift's best-selling and most critically acclaimed albums is her 2020 folk offering, Folklore. Mari Mathias, a songwriter from Preseli in west Wales, said there was an appetite for folk music from young people, adding: "We need to give them what they want."She said Welsh folk artists rarely took to big stages."There's a lot of bands that have started playing and performing in bigger shows, and traditional folk musicians... like Lankum and The Mary Wallopers [an Irish folk band]. They're performing on big stages like Glastonbury, and people really want to hear it."Does she think the folk scene gets enough attention in Wales? "I don't think so, no. If you look at Ireland, they've got so much support for young musicians, they've got schools and programmes with folk music. I don't think there's anything in Wales. "We want community, we want to come together with folk music so there should be lots more support in my opinion." David Grubb is a fiddle player with an emerging folk band from Cardiff called Taff Rapids. They fuse traditional Welsh folk music with the faster pace of American bluegrass. He said he initially struggled to find the folk scene when he moved to Wales' capital. "It's taken many years for me to find people," he said. He said it was evident Wales' folk scene had received less funding than Scotland, where he grew up. "Having come from Scotland and growing up in that scene, it was much more obvious where that funding was going. There were folk groups, there was a folk course in the Royal College in Glasgow and whatnot," he said."The money that's been put into the folk scene is much more visible up there. When I came down to Cardiff, from the outside looking in at it, it didn't feel like there was much." Dafydd Rhys, chief executive of Arts Council Wales, said the review's findings were "significant"."I think it's true to say that in the past this art form hasn't been supported as it should have been," he said."But what I'm delighted to see now having considered the review's findings and having discussed it in the council, we are now actually almost trebling our investment as core funding, and on top of that there are additional opportunities for musicians and organisations to get more support as well."We've done the review, we've looked at the implications, we've considered it and - in a period where everybody is under financial strains - we've managed to come out and trebled the investment in this art form."The Welsh government said supporting traditional music was one of its "ambitions"."We note the Arts Council of Wales' response and will consider the report in its entirety," a spokesperson added.
South China Morning Post
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
A wonderful life for radio host, musician and educator, Harry Wong
I WAS BORN IN 1963. When I was six years old, Dr Yip Wai-hong (the late composer and music educator) asked me to join the Hong Kong Children's Choir. It was the first children's choir in Hong Kong and at the beginning there were 20 kids. But they rehearsed on a Sunday, so I had to choose between going to choir rehearsal or joining my dad, Calvin Wong, when he did his television programme for kids on Rediffusion. (Wong opted to join his father.) It was called Happy Birthday and he was 'Uncle Calvin'. A lot of poor kids would be invited. And whoever was having a birthday, the (Russian bakery) Cherikoff would sponsor a little cake or a little toy for those children. His co-host, Lai Yuen-ling, would arrive in her high heels just before the show went live. She was one of the 'Three Blossoms of Rediffusion'. My dad would wear white trousers and very colourful shirts, very contrasting, you see, it was black and white TV. I would be in the 'cave', right in the middle of the set, and I'd watch my dad through a slit in the curtain as he entertained the children with puppets, and sometimes I would pass him things. Harry Wong with his father, Calvin, who provided the first generation of children's TV shows in Hong Kong. Photo: courtesy Harry Wong I WENT TO ST PAUL'S Co-educational College for a few years. I was often in detention. The teachers liked me but I was way too naughty. One day, my music teacher, Miss Chan, asked us all to bring an item – a favourite toy – to share with the class. I brought in a few puppets and did a show and everyone was laughing. Miss Chan loved that and she asked the principal if I could perform for the whole school at our morning assembly. Miss Chan had long hair and was basically a goddess I worshipped. She put me on stage. Up until that point I had been a loser. That was the moment I found myself and I knew what I was going to do for the rest of my life. I was eight years old. Harry Wong studied at the Royal Northern College of Music and his son followed suit. Photo: Jocelyn Tam MY FIRST INSTRUMENT was the recorder and it is still the one I love the most. I always return to it. After the recorder, I learned the clarinet, the flute and then the oboe – it looks like a Chinese instrument, I love the sound. I borrowed an oboe and spent good money on a very expensive reed. You need a different embouchure for these different woodwind instruments but I was able to do it. In England, I first went to study in a small place called Leek, near Stoke-on-Trent, to do my O-levels. I studied at the Royal Northern College of Music and also music education and commercial music at the University of Liverpool. I joined the Society of Recorder Players and they told me they had never had a Chinese player before. Then the French International School here invited me to be a music teacher. Harry Wong with FM Select host Teresa Norton in 1993. Photo: SCMP Archives My son, (pianist) Chiyan, also later studied at the Royal Northern College of Music. I got married when I was 24. My ex was a ballet teacher who became an examiner for the Royal Academy of Dance. We established the Hong Kong Children's Arts Academy in 1986, the same year we got married. It is now the Agnes Huang School of Ballet. ON THE RECORDER I play Renaissance and Baroque music. I created a series of textbooks called 'Music Today' for primary school children that shows them my recorder method. In 1986, I had my first children's TV programme with RTHK. Then in 1991, when Metro (radio station) started, (radio personality and playwright) Teresa Norton invited me to join for the morning show, and I would be bilingual on it. We ended up being the first programme on air for FM Select and the first song I chose was Alan Tam's 朋友, 'Friends'. Harry Wong and DJ Steve James when they had their first collaboration at Metro Radio. Photo: courtesy Harry Wong DJ Steve James then came across the road from Commercial Radio and worked with Sandra Lang, and then we created 'Steve and Harry'. (James) has such a great sense of humour, he and I are very different, and there's a lot of energy to it, you never know what to expect. In 2006, one week after my (second) marriage, I joined Steve again. And we still do it. He likes to control the buttons (in the studio) and I just walk in and out and talk! Harry Wong with his long-time collaborator DJ Steve James. Photo: courtesy Harry Wong THERE ARE ONLY THREE THINGS I embrace: peace, love and happiness. I've started a thing called the 3M. It's got nothing to do with Scotch tape, it's music therapy, magic therapy and mindfulness. I work with music therapists and also a lady who has been working with children for 20 years. She's a beautiful person who knows exactly how to tell stories and communicate with children with respect and bring out the best in them. We do this 'play shop' with schools, kids, teachers, parents, educators. So, I teach the kids breathing exercises, meditation, magic tricks. But at the heart of it is only one purpose – to bring out that person inside everyone, because a lot of us are a bit lost now and we all have questions we try to seek answers to. I started meditating in 2013 with Brahma Kumaris (a spiritual movement). I began to get up at 4am to meditate. Now I just naturally get up. Maybe it's my age. Harry Wong at the sixth anniversary celebrations of Metro Broadcast Corporation at Queen Elizabeth Stadium, Wan Chai, in 1997. Photo: SCMP Archives I'VE DONE A LOT of concerts with symphony orchestras and there's loads of mayhem when I introduce a piece inspired by Danny Kaye and Victor Borge – it's that kind of comedy. We'll do 'Flight of the Bumblebee' and I'll conduct with a fly swat and suddenly all the people on double bass stand up and sing and dance. And then I do 'The Dying Swan' (from Swan Lake). Suddenly I take off my T-shirt and put on a tutu and a straitjacket, and I'll try to get out of that straitjacket during the dying of the swan. I don't know where that idea came from, it's not particularly family material. I think it was The Rocky Horror Show that gave me some ideas. But anyway, I do a lot of really crazy stuff. A young Harry Wong sitting on his father's lap outside HSBC in Central. Photo: courtesy Harry Wong WHEN I WAS VERY LITTLE, I used to study all my magic tricks from a Japanese magic book. I didn't understand the words but I somehow got through and knew the secret, don't ask me how. I got married for the second time (to Japanese violinist Ayako Ichimaru). We have a son, Yuji, who is 16. In 2022, we moved to Japan and eventually we bought a piece of land and a farm in Tsukuba. I work three days a week here (in Hong Kong) on Radio 5, so I go to Japan once a month. My daughter Joelle (a lawyer, from his first marriage) is working in Hong Kong now. I can go to her place and cook her salmon and she makes salad. And then on a Friday night, we go and listen to jazz together. Advertisement
