INTRODUCTION

CONCERTGEBOUWORKEST YOUNG: A HIGH-QUALITY MUSIC AND SOCIAL PROGRAMME

Concertgebouworkest Young is the youth orchestra of the Concertgebouworkest. The first edition of Young, in 2019, kicked off a three-year pilot programme with the three intended outcomes:

▷ To provide access to a high-quality music programme for “hidden” talented youth. ▷ To support the musical, but also the social and personal development of the participating youth. ▷ To establish a community of active students and alumni who will inspire and help others through their music.

Connected to these outcomes are many elements of the Concertgebouworkest Young programme that make it unique and distinguish it from other (European) youth orchestras:

▷ Its target group of talented musicians between fourteen and seventeen years old; ▷ Its focus on including “hidden talent” and its multidimensional interpretation of hiddenness; ▷ The inclusion of seventy plus new talented musicians in each edition; ▷ Its pan-European reach (and beyond); ▷ Its two-and-a-half week long, intensive Summer School; ▷ The combination of a musical and social programme during the Summer School; ▷ The role of Young alumni as ambassadors for classical music (and the programme).

About this report As a leading cultural institution engaging in a project that is both musical and social, and is aimed at young people, diversity and hidden talent, Concertgebouworkest Young may function as an example for other orchestras and classical music organisations across the globe. For this reason, the three-year Young programme is supported with evaluation research, conducted by the Amsterdam-based research agency Urban Paradoxes. The evaluation research focuses on the extent to which the Young programme has been able to make progress towards the three abovementioned outcomes.

The report at hand is the Final Report in a series of research reports on Young and compares the first three editions of Young. Chapter 1 introduces Concertgebouworkest Young and offers an impression of the process and the Summer Schools. Chapter 2 analyses the extent to which the Concertgebouworkest was able to reach its target group (aim 1) and elaborates on the notion of ‘hiddenness’ to better understand the complexity and the interrelation of the various elements of hiddenness. Chapter 3 evaluates the learning experiences of the talented youth during the Young Summer Schools in Ede, The Netherlands (aim 2), and Chapter 4 zooms in on ambassadorship (aim 3). Chapter 5 returns to several participants from the first and second editions and illustrates ‘life after Young’ in a more qualitative manner through “portraits” of several alumni.

Research methodology The research was based on a mixed-method approach. The more quantitative side consisted of systematic analyses of the application forms and of five types of surveys that were sent out a total of nine times: the Baseline Surveys that all participants filled out before the start of the Summer School (enquiring about the participants’ backgrounds and musical achievements so far); the Summer School Surveys that were filled out at the end of their stay in the Netherlands (enquiring about their learning experiences); the Medium-term Effect Survey filled out by the 2019-participants half a year after the Summer School (including an enquiry about their ambassador activities); the Retrospective Survey sent out to the 2020-21 group to evaluate the COVID-year and online programme; and the Final Survey that the 2019 and the 2020-21 participants filled out in spring 2022 (enquiring about the longer-term effects of Young on their musical, social, personal and ambassadorship skills).

Number of participants and responses to the surveys 2019 group 2020-21 group 2022 group

Total number of participants Baseline Survey

Medium-term effect Survey (2019 participants only) Retrospective Survey (2020-21 participants only) Summer School Survey Final Survey (2019 and 2020-21 participants only) 59

73 48 66 71 48 73

The qualitative side of the research consisted of observations during the Summer Schools. Our almost full-time presence during the Summer Schools allowed us to observe the musical and social interactions and the growth among participants. It also allowed us to attend and observe all the programme elements: the rehearsals, the social programme, free-time activities, and so on. Our constant presence also offered room for many informal conversations as well as for formal interviews with participants, staff, Concertgebouworkest teachers, conductors, trainers of United World Colleges and the mentors. Additionally, interviews with participants were held around the time the Medium-term Effect Survey (winter) and the Final Survey (spring) were sent out in order to obtain further details on the mediumterm and longer-term effects of Young on the participants.

The data presented in the report are derived from the surveys. The quotes and portraits of the participants are based on their answers to open answer survey questions and/or the interviews with the alumni. For reasons of comparability, the methods of analyses were kept roughly the same throughout the years, but there was one significant difference. After a successful Young Summer School in 2019, and with the preparations for the 2020-edition in full swing (the selection was made and the young musicians already informed), the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent measures restricting mobility and social interaction, forced the Young team to cancel that year’s edition of Young and postpone it to the summer of 2021. Thereupon, the Young team devised an online programme, in collaboration with United World Colleges, to keep the selected young musicians involved in Young in the meantime. Even though Covid-19 was far from gone, and a number of the restrictions were still effective, the Summer School took place in the summer of 2021. One can only imagine the stress for the Young team that must have come with coordinating the journeys of 72 young musicians from all over Europe to the Netherlands, carrying the responsibility for their health and wellbeing once there, and with the daily testing and all other efforts to keep the ‘Young bubble’ intact (that, nonetheless, at one moment seemed about to burst). To integrate the activities during the pandemic in the evaluation, we expanded the research set-up to include the online programme: we observed the Zoom-sessions and devised an additional survey that was sent to the participants shortly before the Summer of 2021.

The three-year pilot programme ended with the 2022 edition of Young, and so did the research by Urban Paradoxes. The Young programme will be extended for (at least) another three years, starting with the fourth edition in 2023. The lessons learned from the evaluation research will feed into a concise, practical evaluation tool kit that will support the capacity of the Concertgebouworkest to continue the monitoring and evaluation of the impact its future Young activities.