Although there is a long-established history of music performance assessment in music colleges, there has been little systematic research into potential assessing biases and how criteria are actually arrived at by assessment panels in order for decisions to be made. Indeed, at best, it appears that assessment is established upon tradition and intUition, rather than any systematic procedure. The current paper examines such issues in detail by following the evaluation processes undertaken by a panel of four assessors (three internal and one external assessor) of mid-term recitals for the second year vocal studies students at the Guildhall School of Music, London. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data, the results suggest that the singer's physical appearance allied to their ability control of the voice in order to project emotional expression are the critical variables in the assessment procedure. The assessors in this study showed a high degree of correlation in their assessment grades and the way in which they discussed individuals, indicating that they shared similar ideas. The analysis revealed, however, that the criteria for the assessments were implicitly rather than explicitly held. At one level, the results suggest, therefore, that there is a clearly shared code of assessment criteria, even though it is not precisely articulated. However, at another level, this lack of articulation means that no individual assessor is really sure of what their own or another assessor's thoughts and beliefs lead to a particular decision about the performance. These results are discussed with regard to the GUildhall's approach to assessment procedure, and the broader implications of creating specific lists of assessment criteria are explored. (1) Young musician of the Year is televised annually in Great Britain and is a popular event. H (2) Acknowledgements. We wish to thank the students and assessors from the Guildhall School of Music for providing the data, revealing concern about the process and for not being afraid to offer their thoughts. We also thank Paul Norman from the Psychology Department at University of Sheffield for his useful comments on the text.

There is a positive relationship between learning music and academic achievement, although doubts remain regarding the mechanisms underlying this association. This research analyses the academic performance of music and non-music students from seventh to ninth grade. The study controls for socioeconomic status, intelligence, motivation and prior academic achievement. Data were collected from 110 adolescents at two time points, once when the students were between 11 and 14 years old in the seventh grade, and again 3 years later. Our results show that music students perform better academically than non-music students in the seventh grade (Cohen's d = 0.88) and in the ninth grade (Cohen's d = 1.05). This difference is particularly evident in their scores in Portuguese language and natural science; the difference is somewhat weaker in history and geography scores, and is least pronounced in mathematics and English scores (η 2 p from .09 to .21). A longitudinal analysis also revealed better academic performance by music students after controlling for prior academic achievement (η 2 p = .07). Furthermore, controlling for intelligence, socioeconomic status and motivation did not eliminate the positive association between music learning from the seventh to the ninth grade and students' academic achievement (η 2 p = .06). During the period, music students maintained better and more consistent academic standing. We conclude that, after controlling for intelligence, socioeconomic status and motivation, music training is positively associated with academic achievement.

It is well known that musicians are a group prone to suffer from playing-related musculoskeletal disorders. Professional orchestra musicians play for several hours a week and have to fight against pain caused by their profession. The aim of this study was to explore and describe self-reported complaints among professional orchestra musicians and to compare its intensity and the prevalence between string and wind instruments. Material and Methods: Hundred and twelve professional orchestra musicians from the three main professional orchestras from the North of Portugal were individually interviewed about the prevalence and the intensity (measured by verbal numerical scale for pain) of their playing-related musculoskeletal disorders. Results: About two third (62.5%) of the interviewed musicians presented playing-related musculoskeletal disorders during the time of the interview. Despite there are no significant statistic values between groups, results suggested that playing-related musculoskeletal disorders are more common in string players and more intense in wind players. Discussion: Referring to the prevalence of playing-related musculoskeletal disorders, our data is in line with other studies from different countries. More than half of professional orchestra musicians in the North of Portugal are playing with a mild to moderate pain. Conclusion:Future studies focusing on working-related problems among professional orchestra musicians in Portugal would be useful to better describe the problem of occupational diseases among performing artist.

Although results showed that Tuina techniques are effectively reducing WRMD in professional orchestra musicians of the north of Portugal, further investigations with stronger measurements, double-blinding designs and bigger simple sizes are needed.