Ulster Orchestra under threat - the latest

UPDATE, SUNDAY 19 October: A petition has been organised online and you can sign it here. 

The Belfast-based Ulster Orchestra has become the latest UK ensemble to face closure due to financial dire straits. Its public funding cuts amount to a reduction of 28 per cent (about £1m), which threaten to bleed it to death by the middle of next month.



This orchestra has a long and distinguished history; since its founding in 1966 it has released around 100 recordings and a new principal conductor, the dynamic Rafael Payare (aka Mr Alisa Weilerstein) has just started with them. There's a Facebook group, Save the Ulster Orchestra - please join it here.

The UK has already lost the Guildford Philharmonic and the Bournemouth Sinfonietta; last year the Brighton Philharmonic was saved at the last moment with the help of its fans. As you'll note, these organisations serve(d) good-sized towns rather than the country's biggest cities and brought live orchestral music to places where it was otherwise in short supply. The London Mozart Players, based in Croydon, has managed to restructure itself rather than close down, and carries on with a new modus operandi. Not all have been able to follow suit.

But the end of the Ulster - which receives a chunk of BBC money every year, btw - would be catastrophic since it would mean essentially the end of live orchestral music in Northern Ireland. It is the city's biggest arts institution and only full-time professional orchestra. As Tom Service says here, its demise would mean the "instant and irreversible" annihilation of orchestral culture in the country.

Musicians on the Facebook page point out, furthermore, that if it goes it will take with it large quantities of Belfast's instrumental tuition for children, concerts in schools and other school music programmes.

The pianist Peter Donohoe writes:

"The...increasing financial pressure on the arts is in danger of ridding many communities of institutions like this without any possibility of them being started up again, whatever state the economy ends up in. Look at what happened to the Bournemouth Sinfonietta, and observe how many small communities that were served by that excellent chamber orchestra - including the mounting of education projects - and that are now not served at all.It is short-termist thinking on a vast scale, stupid to the point of lunacy, and not only will it put so many great musicians out of a job, but will be a tragedy for Northern Ireland."

Another musician on the Facebook page declares:

"There are so many of us from Belfast and Northern Ireland who through the darkest days of the troubles were inspired by the Ulster Orchestra.We were taught and encouraged by its members and my career is a result of that. This orchestra is a beacon in the cultural life of Northern Ireland and needs to be cherished by all the community."

And brass player Andrew Tovey adds that the closure of the UO would make Northern Ireland "the only developed nation without an orchestra".

In this piece from the US's WQXR, Oliver Condy, editor of BBC Music Magazine, reminisces about the way the Ulster Orchestra played on through the Troubles even though its offices were threatened daily with terrorist bombs.

More info from BBC News here. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-29637894

You can make a donation to the orchestra here, via Paypal. Please do.

A statement from the orchestra is expected towards the end of the week ahead.

DG SIGNS PIANO GOD

It's official: Grigory Sokolov has signed a recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon. For those of us who've known for donkey's years that this man is basically piano god and heir to Richter and Gilels, saying that this is seriously good news is kind of an understatement.

The first disc (and we hope not the last) is due out in January and will be a live recital from the 2008 Salzburg Festival. Sokolov doesn't do studios. Or concertos. Or the UK.

Here's a teeny taster so you can see what we all mean. This is the Bach-Siloti Prelude in B minor. The first time I heard Sokolov, in London at the Wigmore Hall many years ago (those were the days!), he performed this as an encore. It was heaven.

The secrets of the great Domingo

In case you missed this wonderful web stream from the Royal Opera House yesterday, watch it here now. Tony Pappano interviews Plácido Domingo about his extraordinary career, singing baritone instead of tenor, and much, much more.

Sober thank-yous...

Huge thanks to the friends and colleagues who have given generously to Macmillan Cancer Support via Go Sober for October, whether via my personal page or Team JDCMB! So far we have clocked up £211.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! to
Clare Stevens
Stephen Llewellyn
Brendan Carroll

Please keep on donating to this wonderful and very necessary charity - and if you have a website you'd like me to put in next week's acknowledgements, please send it to me when you make your donation and 'twill be done.

Or if you fancy joining the team, please do so whenever you like. You have to sign up first as an individual and then you can add yourself to our collective link. http://www.gosober.org.uk

Donate via my page
Donate to Team JDCMB

Seen at Macbeth...

The Met, bless its cotton socks, has a new project to display as an adjunct to its HD worldwide cinecasts. It says the intention is to expand its visual arts initiatives "with a new series of short films created by visual artists and set to music from operas in the Met’s current season." Macbeth (above) is a Toiletpaper project by Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari. Enjoy. 

Onwards. Yesterday's performance of Verdi's Macbeth itself was a treat of the first order thanks to the (mostly) superb singing, but above all for the mind-blowing performance of Anna Netrebko as Lady Macbeth. 

I wouldn't have recognised that glittery girl I interviewed the morning after her Barbican concert with Rolando Villazon all those years ago. Then, the diamond necklace she'd worn for the show was still around her throat. Now...they're inside her larynx. She's grown into a different kind of singer and a mature, glowing, towering artist; the colour, magnitude, range, depth and charisma of the voice have moved up to another level altogether, and her prowess as actress looks second to none. Joseph Calleja remarked, during my recent interview with him, that he "would sweep the streets to work with Anna" - and now we can see why. 

If you missed it, but there's an "encore" showing round your way, don't think - just go. Calleja, Pape and above all Lucic as Macbeth gave their everything too, and their everything is quite something.

A few little iffy things. Adrian Noble's often fine staging nevertheless turned the witches into the kind of gathering that gets handbags a bad name, and there were one or two unaccompanied moments in which certain people's intonation went seriously awry. The rest was so fine, though, that one managed not to mind too much, surprising though it was. 

Hooray for worldwide cinecasting - and there's plenty more lined up for the rest of the season. I can thoroughly recommend the Richmond Curzon for its comfy seats, friendly ambience and top-notch ice-cream.