Contemporary music rule
For those of you finding the task of researching pieces written in the last 10 years by living composers difficult, the British Music Information Centre is an invaluable resource. They have a large collection of scores and recordings of contemporary work by British composers which can be used by performers to find new repertoire.

The BMIC is in central London, so can be visited and used free of charge like a public library. Or it can be visited on-line at www.bmic.co.uk, there is an easy-to-use, searchable database of all the music there, with viewable PDF's of many scores on the site. Knowledgeable staff are also there to help.

The BMIC is one of several such centres in the UK, with MIC's in Scotland,Wales and Ireland (for N. Ireland).
Performances available to view on line.

Age limit lowered from 19
When the competition was launched the age limit was originally 18, however during the late 1980's and early 1990's the age limit was raised to 19 to help raise the standard of performances. In recent years though the standard of performance amongst the younger competitors has been so high, the 2004 winner Nicola Benedetti was 16, and the 2002 winner Jennifer Pike was only 12, that it was decided to lower the age limit back to 18. The age limit cut off point of 1st January was chosen to lower the age limit back to 18. The age limit cut off point of 1st January was chosen to be the same as the Eurovision Young Musician competition rules. The first day of the year that the competition is due to be held in was chosen as a clear and obvious cut off point. Musicians aged 19 and above are eligible to enter adult competitions irrespective of their academic status, so lowering the age limit to 18 makes BBC Young Musician of the Year truly a youth competition.

Videos/ dvd's
The BBC is unable to distribute videos or DVDs of the Young Musician programmes.

TV Coverage
Thank you to everyone who has posted their comments about the TV coverage on the message board. TV coverage of returning strands such as BBC Young Musician are always subject to evolution and chance in reaction to developing audience tastes and viewing habits. The overall approach this year was to look behind the polished performances and to understand more of the process that the young musicians have to go through and to get to know more of the character and personalities of those involved. We wanted to achieve this by going back further into the competition and include the quarter finals - a round that has not been featured on TV in recent years.

The way to achieve our aims was to take a more documentary and story telling approach to the competition which we also applied to the semi finals. This approach may not have appealed to everybody, but there was a strong audience for the programmes across the week and we achieved our best audience figures for the competition on BBC 4 so far. After we have reviewed this series in detail, undoubtedly the programmes will take on a different hew when the competition comes around again in 2008. As with other competitions on TV we think hearing some of the jury deliberations is interesting and informative. The members of the jury are picked for their expertise and are all respected musicians in their field. The respective juries reach their conclusions about who should win or go onto the next round - their decisions are based purely on what they have seen and heard in the concert hall and they have no access or regard to any of the TV production. Since 2002 TV coverage of the competition has been split across BBC 2 and BBC 4 - with the semi finals and Eurovision Young Musician on BBC 4 and the final of BBC Young Musician of the Year on BBC 2. It is worth noting that by the time of the next competition in 2008, analogue switch off will have begun and viewers in some areas will only have access to digital TV through and aerial, satellite or cable.