Sarah Burnett teaches at the Royal College of Music when not playing principal bassoon with the Britten Sinfonia and London Mozart Players. Here, she talks to Michael Pearce about the RCM's new Young Bassoon Programme and why it's needed.
Courtesy Harry Rankin

SB: I come from a rural community in south-west Scotland, where music is definitely not the thing, but I was completely addicted to BBC Young Musician. It was my only exposure to young people playing music at such a high standard and I was captivated. I knew I wanted to play a woodwind instrument. We had a family friend who was qualifying as a GP and decided he was going to buy himself a sports car or new bassoon. He bought the bassoon, and so I got his old one and just took to it like a duck to water. I was very fortunate. He started me off a wee bit and then I moved to the local peri teacher, who was incredibly supportive. I’d only been playing for a few months before he had me auditioning for the National Youth Orchestra (NYO), Chetham's School of Music, and Douglas Academy in Glasgow. I was completely out of my depth, but I got into all of them. I couldn't read tenor clef, I was about Grade 5, but they clearly saw something in me. So, aged 12, I went off to Chetham's and joined NYO, which was the first orchestra I’d ever seen in person. We played Shostakovich 5, and I still remember the tingles and being utterly overwhelmed and lost. But then I got the bug – and here we are!

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