Look what Mark Elder did with his speech at the Last Night of the Proms! Good man.
Unfortunately this report also shows the total intransigence and stupidity of the Department of Transport. Looks like the UK will soon be 'Das Land ohne Musik' once more.
UPDATE: Monday morning: Mark's high-profile broadcast has certainly attracted the attention it needed. For the first time there are serious rumblings that something may, at some point, be done, when anybody can be bothered to come back to Westminster and run the country. Here' The Guardian's report on the subject.
The Independent's report is particularly good.
And The Daily Telegraph has made it the subject of a leader today too.
Next, here's what The Times says.
3 comments:
when this all started I thought that it would soon be over and common sense would return. Sadly this is not the case, and reports from everywhere report that particularly flights from the UK are troublesome.
Unfortunately the low priority music has in British politics (just look at our politicians) means that it may not now change for a while. The crazy thing is that large orchestras can travel, since they have travel cases, but soloists and small groups have no such chances.
Concerts should simply be cancelled if booked soloists cannot get to the UK, but would the orchestras really carry out such a threat? The members might not be able to afford it
No, they couldn't afford it. And for every soloist who can't make it, there are 10 in the UK desperate for a chance to relace them! But it's one hell of an anxiety for anybody who needs to pay a mortgage and feed a family through his/her earnings as an international chamber music player or not-yet-Anne-Sophie-Mutter-level soloist...
I think the problem isn't so much getting into the UK as getting out of it. We were stuck in a baggage hall in Heathrow a week ago for an hour and a half - understaffing on a desperately busy weekend, apparently - and while there we met a Finnish cellist and a violinist from Berlin who had both managed to travel in with their instruments. They both seemed to think they'd been lucky, and were dreading their return journeys. I've also heard of a violin soloist who travelled with her Strad on her lap, wrapped in a silk scarf...
I can understand all this. Strikes are fine in principle....but in practice one must also sometimes make a stand.
The first orchestra that is having to play for a concert which T Blair officially attends (he'll hardly do so otherwise) should find a way of producing a collective protest, eg by walking on the stage without their instruments for the first piece, and the conductor giving a relevant speech....
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