The competition was established in 1978 by
Humphrey Burton, Walter Todds and Roy Tipping, former members of the BBC Television Music Department. The biennial competition is managed and produced by
BBC Cymru Wales. To date, there have been 22 winners, the youngest being 12-year-old
Peter Moore. In 2014, the BBC Young Musician Jazz Award was introduced;
Alexander Bone, a
saxophonist, was the inaugural winner. As a result of the success of the competition, the
Eurovision Young Musicians competition was initiated in
1982. and with former participants speaking to 2006 winner
Mark Simpson for
Young Musicians Grown Old on
BBC Radio 4. BBC Four's documentary
BBC Young Musician: Forty Years Young was aired on 3 April 2018. To celebrate the 40th anniversary, the first BBC Young Musician Prom was held at the
Royal Albert Hall and broadcast live on 15 July 2018. Presented by
Clemency Burton-Hill, the concert featured performances from past winners and finalists alongside the
BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by
Andrew Gourlay. The 2020 competition was affected by the
COVID-19 pandemic, after proceeding as normal up to and including the filming of the semi-final. The five category finals were broadcast in May and June 2020, with broadcast of the semi-final and recording of the final postponed, at first until the autumn, and then into 2021. The Jazz Award final was broadcast as planned on 22 November 2020, having been recorded at
Cadogan Hall in the absence of an audience. The grand final was recorded in April 2021 – also without an audience – and broadcast on 2 May, preceded on 30 April by the delayed broadcast of the semi-final. The 2022 competition was deferred from spring to early autumn and was broadcast in October; the semi-final stage of the competition (introduced in 2010) was discontinued for that year. For the 2024 competition, a new format was introduced: category finals were replaced by two quarter-finals each featuring six musicians. A total of six musicians progress to the semi-final, and then three to the grand final.
Broadcast Regional heats were televised in 1978; a round before the category final was aired until 1994, and again in 2002 and 2004. From 1978 to 1984, all programmes were broadcast on
BBC One until it was moved to
BBC Two in 1986; however from 2002 to 2012, the majority of the competition rounds were moved to
BBC Four, with only a highlights/preview show (in 2002 and 2004) and the final aired on BBC Two. Previously, additional programmes were broadcast as part of each competition alongside coverage in some later years on
BBC Radio 3. In 2010, highlights of the new semi-final stage were also broadcast on BBC Two. In 2014, all stages of the competition moved to BBC Four, and the category finals and the grand final were broadcast on BBC Radio 3. For the 2018 competition, Radio 3 broadcast a 30-minute concert starring each competitor in the week before their category final aired. For 2024, the grand final will be broadcast on BBC Two for the first time since 2012 in the form of highlights of the concerto performances, whilst the full concert programme is to be aired on BBC Four and BBC Radio 3.
Classical Award •
Humphrey Burton (1978–1992) •
Ernest Lush (1978) • 1978 regional finals •
Mary Marquis (Scotland) •
Alun Williams (Wales) •
Marian Foster (Midlands and East Anglia) • Margaret Percy (Northern Ireland) • Jeremy Carrad (South and West of England) •
Jane Glover (1986, 1988) • J Mervyn Williams (1990) •
Edward Gregson (1990 final) •
Paul Daniel (1992 final) •
Sarah Greene (1994) •
Christopher Warren-Green (1996) • Sarah Walker (1996) • Stephanie Hughes (1998–2004) •
Iain Burnside (2002–2004) •
Alistair Appleton (2004) •
Howard Goodall (2006, 2010 final) •
Gethin Jones (2008) •
Aled Jones (2008) •
Nicola Loud (2008) •
Clemency Burton-Hill (2010–12, 2014 final, 2016, 2018 final) •
Josie d'Arby (2012, 2016 final, 2018, 2020, 2022 final) •
Alison Balsom (2014, 2016, 2018 final) •
Miloš Karadaglić (2014) •
Anna Lapwood (2020) •
Jess Gillam (2020 final, 2022, 2024) •
Alexis Ffrench (2022)
Jazz Award •
Josie d'Arby (2014, 2016, 2018) •
Soweto Kinch (2014) •
Joe Stilgoe (2016) •
YolanDa Brown (2018, 2020, 2024) •
Jamz Supernova (2022) •
Huw Stephens (2022, 2024) ==Related awards==