2.3 The results of the Hiddenness Index

With this aggregation of nine factors in five dimensions, the Hiddenness Index allows for the objective comparison of the backgrounds and experiences of all participants. As such, we strove for a Hiddenness Index with the following characteristics: measurable, objective, multidimensional, and weighed. The overall hiddenness score of a participant is the sum of the score of each of these nine weighed factors. This overall score is expressed as a percentage of the maximum possible score of 8,75 (i.e., the sum of the maximum score for each factor). The higher a participant’s score on the Hiddenness Index, the more hidden the talent of the participant is likely to be. Scores gravitating towards 0 signify talent that is likely to be far less hidden, or not hidden at all.

We present these factors with some trepidation because not all factors are unambiguous. It remains to be seen to what extent the answers to the questions we added to our surveys gave the right kind of information to support our assumptions. For instance, the Young team considers it an important factor whether or not the parents are musicians, but we miss data on level and quality–are they musicians in an internationally renowned orchestra or music teachers at a (local) music school? The extent of their networks in the field of music will vary accordingly, but by how much is unknown to us. With reference to the question about where the participants currently attend music lessons, it is difficult to make a distinction between public and private lessons. Generally speaking, we could say that this is an indicator of hiddenness as in certain countries private institutions offer better quality education than public institutions, but are more expensive and therefore less accessible to some talented individuals. In other countries, public institutions or conservatories may be of high standard, although sometimes these may be limited to the capital and the country’s prominent cities, leaving less significant cities with poor public musical services. Although the situation in European countries is too diverse to be entirely certain, we assumed that a person who takes lessons with a private teacher and at a music institution is the least hidden of all. Another example is the cultural-ethnic dimension. As we did not ask the participants directly about the history of migration in their families in the surveys, we most certainly must have missed this information for those participants that did not (want to) refer to their cultural affiliation in their answers to the open-answer survey questions. Moreover, not every family that has experienced migration at some point in their family history discourages their children from pursuing a career in Western classical music. Keeping this in mind, let us look at the results.

2.3 THE RESULTS OF THE HIDDENNESS INDEX

Overall hiddenness Analysis of the results from the Hiddenness Index for the three editions of Young show that the 2020-21 group was the most hidden group overall. This group differed significantly, statistically, from the 2019 group (with a probability of a false conclusion of ≤ 5 per cent). The 2022 group was more similar to the 2020-21 group than to the 2019 group, but there was no significant difference between the 2022 group and the other two years. In short, the Concertgebouworkest Young team was able to increase the level of hiddenness in the second edition of Young and to roughly maintain that level in the third edition.

Descriptive Statistics Overall Hiddenness 2019 2020-21 2022

Mean 0.29

Maximum score of hiddenness (1=completely hidden) Minimum score of hiddenness (0= completely not hidden)

0.77 0.00 Participants scoring above the mean (= more than average hidden) 32% 0.36 0.34 0.63 0.80 0.14 0.03 52% 53%

The table above illustrates this outcome in a different manner. It indicates that the 2020-21 group was most hidden, as it has the highest mean as well as a smaller discrepancy (i.e., difference in their situation) between the most and the least hidden talent (2020-21: 49%; 2019 and 2022: 77%), and between the most hidden talent and the average for the group (2020-21: 27%: 2019: 48%; 2022: 46%). The table also shows that the 2020-21 and 2022 groups were more similar to one another than to the 2019 group: their means are higher and lie close together, and in both years, a little over half of the participants scored above the mean and were thus more hidden than the average of their respective groups.

The hiddenness score on the dimensions To better understand the overall hiddenness at the group level, we have to look at how the three groups