The report demands that top musicians be encouraged to teach and calls on university music schools and conservatoires to ensure that graduates are trained to work with young people.

Creating A Land with Music was published this week by the government-funded Youth Music charity - set up to rescue school music after a TES campaign highlighted years of budget cuts.

Commissioned by the Higher Education Funding Council and written with the help of pianist Joanna MacGregor and Sir Simon, conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, it identifies a shortage of teachers as a major problem.

“Encouraging more talented musicians into some kind of specialist teaching role is an urgent task,” it says. Music is a shortage subject in teacher training for secondary schools, and recruitment consistently misses its target. Moreover, the number of specialist training places for music has dropped by more than a fifth in the past year - more than for any other subject.

Without more teachers, it concludes, disadvantaged groups, such as black and Asian students, will not get involved in classical music.

Contemporary composer Errollyn Wallen told a Youth Music conference at which the report was launched that she had come to love music through the dedication of her teachers and council music services.

“I know of five-year-olds who have half-an-hour of music a week. That is rubbish. I grew up in Tottenham when we had peripatetic teachers and I could borrow a violin. We are in a crisis now.”

Conductor and oboist Nicholas Daniel criticised primary tests and targets for driving music and creativity out of the curriculum.

“We care more about targets than we do about producing happy, productive, creative and well-balanced children,” he said.

“Creating a Land with Music: the work, education and training of professional musicians in the 21st century”. For copies ring Youth Music on 020 7902 1060 or see www.youthmusic.org.uk