The price of producing a prodigy

Many parents make sure that their children have a chance to learn an instrument as a way of enriching their lives - even when the parents themselves haven't a note. But what do you do if your child picks up a violin or a cello at the age of six and soon proves to be a prodigy? You have a problem so overwhelming you may wish you could put the violin back into the box.

"Every week I have parents sitting in my office looking at me with baffled expressions and saying, `what do I do with my gifted child?' It's an awesome responsibility - both for the parents and for the child," says Nicholas Chisholm, director of the Yehudi Menuhin School in Surrey in England.

"Musically gifted children having parents with no musical background is fairly common," he says. "The ones that are really gifted come from families where there doesn't appear to be any musical background at all. And don't ask me to explain it because I can't. It does prove that musical ability is born; it's not quite so environmental as people would say."

Call it a genetic fluke or a Godgiven gift, although Susan Cashell of Balbriggan, Co Dublin is convinced that it's nothing more than "hard work". She and her husband Alan, a teacher at Sandford Park School in Dublin, have not a scrap of musical talent between them, yet they've produced three exceptionally gifted children - Anna (16), a violinist and student at the prestigious Yehudi Menuhin School in Surrey; Ben (12) a cellist and pianist who has also just been offered a place at the Menuhin school, and Sophie (9) a violinist and pianist. The fourth sibling, Hugh (15), a flautist, has decided that cricket, not music, will be his life. For the rest of the family music has taken over their lives, devouring all their money and much of their time. Between them, the three children have impressive CVs whose A4 pages are packed with awards, master classes and public performances, including Royal Irish Academy scholarships, numerous Feis Ceoil prizes, Arklow Festival prizes and appearances at the National Concert Hall, National Gallery and on RTE's Late Late Show.

Anna and Ben will perform a joint concert at the Boyle Music Festival in Co Roscommon on July 31st at 1.10 p.m., with Anna taking the first half (playing Tartini, Faust and Prokofiev) and Ben the second (playing Bach, Faure and Saint-Saens. Ben and Sophie (the latter on violin rather than piano) will perform with the pianist John O'Conor, director of the Royal Irish Academy of Music, on RTE television in the autumn.

Susan and Alan are proud - but they have paid a price which many parents might balk at. The time commitment has been heroic, especially for Susan who left her teaching job to devote herself to bringing the children to lessons - at one stage travelling back and forth to Cork on buses and trains one day a week for Anna's lessons with the renowned Romanian player and teacher Adrian Petcu. Susan sat in on lessons, taking notes so that she could monitor her children's long hours of practising at home, cajoling them to work when they were reluctant to go into a cold room and start the three to five hours of daily practice.

The Cashells cannot eat out, take holidays or even buy clothes because every penny which Alan earns goes to the children's musical educations. Even with scholarships - and the children have won many at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and through the Fitzwilton Trust - the couple have to scrape together the cash even to buy tickets to celebrity recitals for the children. It's a constant problem for them to find the money for the 12 return flights home per year required by their eldest Anna, who has been a student at the Yehudi Menuhin School since she was 12 years old. And after years of sacrifice, Susan and Alan cannot even afford to fly to the UK to hear one of her many public performances there.

Susan, who is calm and practical, wastes no tears over it. She was landed with three prodigies and she's done all she can to nurture them. While the public has the joy of hearing the Cashell children play, Susan and Alan have had to put up with the noise. Visitors to the Cashells' house this summer are being greeted with the cacophony of all three children practising simultaneously - as well as fighting over which room has the best acoustics (it's the dining room).

Most Children would be fighting over what TV programme to watch, but Susan Cashell decided early on to remove TV from her children's lives. The hours other children spend being programmed by TV rubbish, Anna, Ben and Sophie have spent being programmed by Bach and the best violin, cello and piano teachers the Republic has to offer - including several at the RIAM who are the cream of Europe. In their free time they read and play cricket, tennis and football - nipping next door to their grandparents' house to view the World Cup.

"Are our lives normal? What's normal, anyway?" asks Ben. "Reading a book? No, I suppose not. I suppose `normal' is watching TV for three or four hours a day. It just turns you into a TV addict."

Ben realised he wanted to play the cello at the age of five when he heard a recording by the cellist, Tortelier, on the day his death was announced. It was the deep, complex, intense sound of the instrument that attracted Ben, who has a desire not just to play the music, but to be the music. Ask Ben what it feels like to perform a favourite piece of music, such as Bach's first cello suite, which he is working on in preparation for the Boyle concert, and he cannot tell you. That's because when a performance goes really, really well, he cannot remember it. This ability to communicate directly between the brain and the music without the body getting in the way is what sets Ben apart, says Nicholas Chisholm, director of the Yehudi Menuhin School, who wants Ben to join his sister at the school in September if the money can be found. "It's a most extraordinary thing. For Ben, there's no interruption between the musical thought and the sound that comes out. With many other young performers, something gets in the way. "We see a lot of unusual children here and Ben's one of those. He's so focused on what he wants to do - that's what makes these gifted children so unusual. They know exactly what they want to do, how to do it, when to do it, they're unshakeable."

Ben's parents and the school need to find the £50,000 sterling which his first two and a half years will cost (after seven terms, the British Arts Council will contribute a large grant to Ben's education). The school has only 50 pupils - all exceptional - and accepts only a handful each year from 20 countries around the world. The school is unique because it allows children to combine their musical education with an academic one so that they get their GCSEs and A-levels without sacrificing practice time, which is built into the day.

Normal secondary schooling in the Republic would be impossible if Ben were to continue his musical education, Susan believes. Just imagine leaving Balbriggan for Sandford park at 7 a.m. and returning home at 6 p.m., only to face a combined eight hours of homework and cello practice. It couldn't be done. If the money for the Menuhin school cannot be found, Susan will probably educate Ben at home. The Cashells' dilemma illustrates the lack of resources for music education at primary and secondary level in this country, and there is no Arts Council funding for gifted children to study abroad; their only hope is private sponsorship.

For parents who haven't been through it, the Cashells' over-riding commitment to their children's music may seem overly enthusiastic, maybe even pushy, but you only have to meet Ben and Anna to realise that they have never had to be pushed. They're the ones pushing their parents to help them succeed.