Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien

Prof. Dr. Franz Riemer, Johannes Hasselhorn

Since its founding in 1963, the Jugend musiziert competition has developed
into one of the most important institutions for the advancement of young
musicians. The empirical research abbout the competition has, until now, been
nearly exclusively descriptive. In our project, that was begun with a pilot study
in November 2009, two questions have arisen that should be investigated
more thoroughly.

1. How is the Lower Saxony State Music Council's support for young people in
the music field structured?

The first question treats the structures of the support for young people in the
music field in Lower Saxony. State youth ensembles were first founded in
1964. There the most successful participants in "Jugend musiziert" were
brought together and were given structured support. We want to find out if this
model (see diagram 1), which has been subsumed without reflection into the
contemporary literature, is still appropriate. At the same time we want to test
an alternative model (see diagram 2), which we developed during the pilot
study.

2. Which factors influence success in the competition and how big are they?

The second question calls for the examination of the influences on the quality
of playing in the competition. In 1993 Peter Linzenkirchner and Gudrun Eger-
Harsch attempted to identify factors that might influence the awarding of
points (gender, age, federal state, etc.) by using a questionnaire. But their
study was not primarily concerned with this question. Our goal is to identify
the variables that influence success in the competition, and to determine how
large the influence is. This knowledge would give us a better and more detailed
understanding of Jugend musiziert and music competitions in general, and
could also positively influence instrumental music education. The results would
also allow a prediction model for individual success at Jugend musiziert to be
constructed.