Jessica Duchen of Jessica Duchen’s Classical Music Blog fame was recently granted the esteemed position of judge for this year’s BBC Music Magazine CD awards and has written a blog about her experience, including this year’s winners. It seems as though she had a fantastic evening and, after working her way through what equates to roughly 187 discs worth of material, she has certainly earned it!

Jessica also includes an interesting link to Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s speech for the Incorporated Society of Musicians’ conference. Maxwell Davies has a lot to say about the current state of classical musical appreciation and paints a rather bleak picture of the future. ArtsWom take some exception to this attitude and would like to point to the thriving communities of classical music fans across the net. Jessica Duchen’s blog itself is a fantastic example of the quality of resources available to people willing to look. As the popularity of digital radio increases, dedicated stations are becoming more widespread and on digital television, Sky Arts offer classical music programming daily and there are several other channels offering similar possibilities. With such support, it is hard to envisage the culturally dystopian future Maxwell Davies warns of.

ArtsWom would like to hear your thoughts on the speech and, to follow on from Sir Maxwell Davies’s message of successful education, we would like to hear about any initiatives happening in your locality for future features.