In music, two respected chamber orchestras, the City of London Sinfonia and the London Mozart Players, have been told to brace themselves for the worst.
The word 'Olympics' does not feature in this article, but I don't think it can be far off. Odd to think now that when we first heard the news that London had won the 2012 'Orrific Games, we were actually pleased. Ho ho ho.
3 comments:
I was so infuriated by this that I couldn't think of anything coherent to say. The London Mozart Players hit me particularly because I am of an age at which the name immediately makes me think of Harry Blech. For 58 years they have been with us. But now I see no one else has chipped in, so I must say something, and it is this. I should like some detailed reasoning from the Council. The statement quoted says that the decisions were based on excellence, access, and breadth of audience. Can they argue that these orchestras are not excellent and not accessible? Of course they can't. So that leaves breadth of audience, and what the hell is that supposed to mean? The people who attend classical concerts are people who like classical music. That is as broad as it is going to get, unless you drag in people who don't like classical music. And the same is true of jazz orchestras, photography exhibitions, modern art displays, poetry readings, Shakespeare festivals...Of course it is, and if you did truly apply the criterion of breath of audience, there would be scarely anything that would qualify for funding. I am expatriate in Canada (Vancouver, where we have the 2010 Winter Olympics coming up) and here we have the Canada Council, in part the equivalent of the Arts Council, and I have always thought that outfit sees the arts as a tool for political and social engineering. I think the same is true of the Arts Council, and now we have the additional curse of funding being tailored, in London and in Vancouver, to the hypothetical tastes of hypothetical audiences who will be around temporarily in 2010 and 2012. Wretched, short-sighted, manipulative policies. The article mentions that petitions are circulating and I shall looking for such in support of the Sinfonia and the Mozart Players.
Well said, Pamos1949. Having expected a storm of protest - or at least a few expressions of astonishment and horror - I'm heartbroken to find that nobody seems to be commenting anywhere else on the likely demise of two superb and historically significant chamber orchestras.
Now, there's hope - if the bands avail themselves of the services of a first-rate fundraiser. There's a lot of money floating around in this country, just not in the coffers of the Arts Council. Unlike fellow bloggers Norman Lebrecht and Stephen Pollard I am mightily against the idea of withdrawing public funding from the arts and privatising the lot. But arts organisations can attract private sponsorship if they have the knowhow and the will and it can sometimes result in better money and even in more artistic freedom, depending. Rather than rolling over to die, the CLS and the LMP need to focus their artistic visions, snaz up their images and then go out and start shouting to the right individuals about how bloody marvellous they are. And they could do it. They really could. Go, chaps, go!!! WE BELIEVE IN YOU!
Forgive my ignorance of UK music funding from government sources on this side of the pond, but what percentage for each orchestra's annual budget is the Arts Council slice? I thought I'd read somewhere 6% for the LMP, but I may well be mistaken. We have here the National Endowment for the Arts and such, not that I understand a huge amount about US funding either. But from what I can tell, it's mainly the wealthy here (who tend to be far from the most musically open-minded) who sustain US orchestras, with smaller donations from modest-income schlubs like me.
I often remember what one former orchestra player here once said: "if a donor gives us $1 million, that's great. But I think I'd be happier if a million people gave us $1 each." The point is, of course, to have a community music organization that has broad-based support from people at all income levels, and not just sustained by the super-rich. Henry Fogel addresses this topic in one of his recent blog entries (here). Maybe that's what the LMP and the City of London Sinfonia need to ramp up, with regard to fund-raising.
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