Sir James MacMillan and Nicola Benedetti are asking for your help. Please show your support and add your voice. 

James MacMillan says:

After 22 years, BBC Radio Scotland is about to axe its Classical Music programme from the schedule.This decision must be reversed. I ask that you to sign up to show your support for this campaign and to show your support for the two other ‘specialist’ music shows, Jazz Nights and Pipelines which are also facing the axe. 

Classics Unwrapped (and before that Grace Notes) presented by Jamie MacDougall has always been a platform for Scottish musical excellence. It’s been a launchpad for the next generation of classical music stars as well as a platform for establised international stars. The voices of NYCOS and the instrumentalists of NYOS have been heard on the National station thanks to Classics Unwrapped.  This would not happen on BBC Radio 3. 

For the wider classical music community, the programme has a vital role to play and it seems almost an act of artistic and cultural vandalism to stop it. And it’s not just classical music. As Tommy Smith has voiced so eloquently regarding the same fate that awaits Jazz Nights, these programmes give Scottish artists a much needed platform. It’s not enough to tell people to listen to Radio 3. This is a silencing of Scotland’s unique musical voice and a stamping out of creativity at a time creativity is most needed. 
The thriving music scene in Scotland, the many international and award winning classical music festivals, will suffer from this silence. 
 
Without Classics Unwrapped, there will be fewer live music sessions with visiting artists, fewer opportunities for young musicians to broadcast, fewer opportunities to nurture the artists of tomorrow.  There will be less air-time for in-depth interviews and features on projects, new music and underrepresented musicians, as well as coverage of festivals and performances across Scotland. The programme has been a great and loyal friend to my festival, The Cumnock Tryst, and was able to alert many around the country of our existence and activities. That impact cannot be underestimated.
 
Classics Unwrapped aims to bring listeners, musicians and the wider classical sector together with wonderful, vibrant music that entices us to listen.  I’m sorry to say that this will stop later this year. By April it will be all over. We must fight to save this and the other shows. The BBC is renowned the world over for its support for culture and the arts. Why is BBC Scotland abandoning this vital activity and damaging its own reputation? 

I ask you to sign up to the petition below to help stop this from happening. 

 

Nicola Benedetti says:

I am shocked and deeply disappointed to hear the news of BBC Radio Scotland’s decision to axe their specialist music programmes Classics Unwrapped, Jazz Nights and Pipelines.

My first ever true professional invitation came from BBC radio Scotland. They reached out to provide a supportive, encouraging yet professional platform before anyone else in the industry. They had, and still have, their eye on the future of music, and were willing to take the risk on a young unknown musician. 

Every long standing institution always needs to be revolutionised. But the deepest and truest of revolution comes when traditions of quality and greatness are preserved, whilst new voices and contemporary ideas are sought out and given a platform. 

I urge everyone at BBC Scotland to work ‘with’ the seminal figures that have presented and safeguarded these programmes for so long, and to create an even deeper and more meaningful presence into the future. 

Axing these programmes is to perform a heartbreaking disservice to the irreplaceable role they have played in the lives of musicians and music lovers across the country and all parts of society. 

——————

James MacMillan is the pre-eminent Scottish composer of his generation. He first attracted attention with the acclaimed BBC Proms premiere of The Confession of Isobel Gowdie (1990). His percussion concerto Veni, Veni Emmanuel (1992) has received over 500 performances worldwide by orchestras including London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics and Cleveland Orchestra. In 2014 he founded his festival, The Cumnock Tryst which brings international and local musicians together in a major hub of creativity in East Ayrshire. He was knighted in 2015 for his services to music.

Nicola Benedetti is one of the world’s leading violinists and also the Director of The Edinburgh International Festival. Having worked with many of the world’s leading conductors and orchestras, she is also deeply committed to nurturing the next generation of young musicians. Her Benedetti Foundation works around the globe with young people, students, teachers and adult learners. Nicola is Patron of The Cumnock Tryst.