Julian Lloyd-Webber has come out in The Times against competitions, and accused them of being corrupt. That’s quite a broad brush with which to tar them all. Having been to a fair few string ones during my twelve years at The Strad magazine, and commissioned reports from even more, I’d beg to differ. Admittedly, I tried only to visit competitions myself if I knew they were well-respected, but I don’t remember seeing someone win who didn’t deserve to, from some perspective. Th