The ACE is busy sending those emails even now. Results are filtering through on Twitter with the hashtag #ACEfunding. So far early winners include Tete a Tete Opera and the Manchester International Festival. It's worth pointing out that some organisations that have never received ACE funding before are now getting some - a fact that's been a bit overlooked by many of us - though there will be losers too. The Guardian has rolling updates here and you can set the page to refresh automatically: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/culture-cuts-blog/2011/mar/30/arts-council-funding-decision-day-cuts
Let's have some Bach while we wait. This is the piece that the MD used to play in the office when he was doling out clear-your-desk-right-away redundancies in a company I worked for in 1989. But it wasn't being played like this...
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
ROBERT TEAR (1939-2011)
Extremely sad this morning to hear about the death of Robert Tear, one of the greatest singers and 'characters' in the British opera world over the past half century. He was 72.
[Update, Tuesday 29th, 6.45pm A Telegraph obituary is now up on site here]
I've been listening to Bob singing for as long as I can remember, but certain occasions stand out as utterly unforgettable. His Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw can scarcely have been bettered: while his presence could emanate sinister power almost effortlessly, the beauty of his voice gave the character its essential extra dimension of seductiveness. At the opposite end of the spectrum, he was in Glyndebourne's Die Fledermaus a few years ago singing Dr Falke the lawyer - a production which included a little coup-de-theatre in the last act when Falke's cloak was pulled off him, abruptly revealing that he was wearing a petticoat. "What's that?" bellowed Eisenstein. The reply: "It's my Freudian slip!" And at the UK premiere of Korngold's Das Wunder der Heliane at the RFH in 2007, Bob sang the short role of the Blind Judge. His was the finest voice on the platform.
It was on that occasion that I met him for the first time. I'd just been in France for the premiere of my play about Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time; Bob became very interested since he had known Messiaen well and worked with him. He said that he was winding down his singing career (and his last operatic appearance was in Turandot at the ROH two years ago), but was still interested in performing as an actor or reader. The upshot was that he and I gave the UK premiere of the play together at Lake District Summer Music 2008, in the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick.
It was astonishing to be on stage with him. The stage is not my natural environment and appearing alongside such a legend is a tall order. But he was such a strong, reassuring, comforting presence - able to inhabit a role so entirely, even when simply reading - that I was able to "lose myself", forget nerves and respond with all I could muster. With his wife, Hilary, and our team of musicians including Charles Owen and Philippe Graffin, we had a ball in the festival, too, huddling together for warmth in Lake District pubs and watching the rain...
Bob was not just a great singer, but a Renaissance man, fascinated by literature, art and issues mystical. His favourite pastime seemed, indeed, to be painting and he also wrote some amazing texts, short stories which I was privileged to read; his poetry also featured in a Christmas carol, 'Winter's Wait', which was performed at King's College Cambridge last year. He was a vivacious and irrepressible dinner guest, regaling us with hilarious stories from his time as a larger-than-life figure in a larger-than-life profession; and his West London home seemed to buzz with the spirits of all the creative powerhouses who had passed through its portals over the years.
I phoned him just before Christmas to ask whether he would be interested in doing another reading of the play this spring. He told me he wasn't taking on any more work of any kind and mentioned that he hadn't been very well, but if this was in fact a serious illness he gave no indication of the fact. My thoughts today are very much with Hilary and their two daughters.
And here is his official biography from his agent's website.
[Update, Tuesday 29th, 6.45pm A Telegraph obituary is now up on site here]
I've been listening to Bob singing for as long as I can remember, but certain occasions stand out as utterly unforgettable. His Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw can scarcely have been bettered: while his presence could emanate sinister power almost effortlessly, the beauty of his voice gave the character its essential extra dimension of seductiveness. At the opposite end of the spectrum, he was in Glyndebourne's Die Fledermaus a few years ago singing Dr Falke the lawyer - a production which included a little coup-de-theatre in the last act when Falke's cloak was pulled off him, abruptly revealing that he was wearing a petticoat. "What's that?" bellowed Eisenstein. The reply: "It's my Freudian slip!" And at the UK premiere of Korngold's Das Wunder der Heliane at the RFH in 2007, Bob sang the short role of the Blind Judge. His was the finest voice on the platform.
It was on that occasion that I met him for the first time. I'd just been in France for the premiere of my play about Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time; Bob became very interested since he had known Messiaen well and worked with him. He said that he was winding down his singing career (and his last operatic appearance was in Turandot at the ROH two years ago), but was still interested in performing as an actor or reader. The upshot was that he and I gave the UK premiere of the play together at Lake District Summer Music 2008, in the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick.
It was astonishing to be on stage with him. The stage is not my natural environment and appearing alongside such a legend is a tall order. But he was such a strong, reassuring, comforting presence - able to inhabit a role so entirely, even when simply reading - that I was able to "lose myself", forget nerves and respond with all I could muster. With his wife, Hilary, and our team of musicians including Charles Owen and Philippe Graffin, we had a ball in the festival, too, huddling together for warmth in Lake District pubs and watching the rain...Bob was not just a great singer, but a Renaissance man, fascinated by literature, art and issues mystical. His favourite pastime seemed, indeed, to be painting and he also wrote some amazing texts, short stories which I was privileged to read; his poetry also featured in a Christmas carol, 'Winter's Wait', which was performed at King's College Cambridge last year. He was a vivacious and irrepressible dinner guest, regaling us with hilarious stories from his time as a larger-than-life figure in a larger-than-life profession; and his West London home seemed to buzz with the spirits of all the creative powerhouses who had passed through its portals over the years.
I phoned him just before Christmas to ask whether he would be interested in doing another reading of the play this spring. He told me he wasn't taking on any more work of any kind and mentioned that he hadn't been very well, but if this was in fact a serious illness he gave no indication of the fact. My thoughts today are very much with Hilary and their two daughters.
And here is his official biography from his agent's website.
Robert Tear was born and educated in Wales, and became a choral scholar at King's College, Cambridge. Throughout his career he has shown his versatility and great talent as one of the world's leading tenors and has worked with many eminent conductors.
He has appeared at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, on a regular basis since his debut in l970. In 1988/89 he made his debut with English National Opera in The Turn of the Screw and the following season included his highly successful debut as Aschenbach in Death in Venice with the Glyndebourne Touring Company, later filmed by BBC TV.
Robert Tear has worked on many television projects, including the Jeunesses Musicales’ War Requiem performances in East and West Berlin to celebrate the City's 750th Anniversary in l987, and more recently, a performance at the Wigmore Hall in which he performed Britten Song Cycles and Out of Winter by Jonathan Dove to Robert’s own texts.
He has made well over 250 records for every major recording company, including Bach Cantatas, numerous recital records, Victorian ballads with his friends Benjamin Luxon and André Previn, Britten's Serenade and Nocturne with Giulini for DG, and all the major choral works. Other recordings include Britten's War Requiem, Mahler's Das Klagende Lied, both with Sir Simon Rattle, Die Winterreise with Philip Ledger, and the first recording of Schoenberg's arrangement of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde for BMG Records with Mark Wigglesworth and The Premiere Ensemble. His recording of Dyson's The Canterbury Pilgrims with the LSO and Hickox for Chandos was released in 1997.
He has made well over 250 records for every major recording company, including Bach Cantatas, numerous recital records, Victorian ballads with his friends Benjamin Luxon and André Previn, Britten's Serenade and Nocturne with Giulini for DG, and all the major choral works. Other recordings include Britten's War Requiem, Mahler's Das Klagende Lied, both with Sir Simon Rattle, Die Winterreise with Philip Ledger, and the first recording of Schoenberg's arrangement of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde for BMG Records with Mark Wigglesworth and The Premiere Ensemble. His recording of Dyson's The Canterbury Pilgrims with the LSO and Hickox for Chandos was released in 1997.
In 1985 Robert Tear made his US conducting debut in Minneapolis and has subsequently worked with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, London Mozart Players, Northern Sinfonia, English Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonia, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Toulouse Chamber Orchestra, Tapiola Sinfonietta and Scottish Chamber Orchestra.
Recent opera performances have included Opera National de Paris Bastille (Marriage of Figaro), Los Angeles Opera (Tales of Hoffmann), the Royal Opera House (Falstaff & The Bartered Bride), Welsh National Opera (Eugene Onegin), Bayerische Staatsoper (Saul), English National Opera (Sir John in Love) and Glyndebourne (Die Fledermaus). In early 2009 Robert made his final singing performance at the Royal Opera House as Altuom in Turandot.
Robert is in increasing demand as a speaker/narrator. He has most recently read a selection of Mozart’s letters accompanied by music at Kings Place, and Stravinksy’s A Soldier’s Tale with members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra at Wigmore Hall.
Robert Tear is married with two daughters and lives in West London. From 1992-94 he was Artistic Director of the Vocal Faculty of the London Royal Schools of Music, and he is currently a visiting professor of Opera at the Royal Academy of Music. He is an Honorary Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and in l984 was awarded the C.B.E.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Just the beginning...
Does the UK government have the first clue about what it's doing? Less than a year since the coalition came to power and they're already being told by their own select committee that decisions they made a few months ago were poor - something the public spotted right away when the UK Film Council was turned into a clay pigeon and shot down. Now they want the ACE to slash another 50% of its own operating costs and are making noises about not being 'convinced' that so many subsidised orchestras are needed. Yet so many of the comments, as reported today, are self-contradictory, confused or oddly timed that the incoherence and anxiety that lie beneath are clearly visible. You can read the whole Select Committee Report yourself, here.
It's the apparently hasty and ill-considered way in which decisions like the abolition of the Film Council and the PLR (public lending rights) distributing agency were forced through that seems most dubious. The report says the following re PLR:
Meanwhile in academia, ideology-driven policies that bear little relation to reality are taking hold too...have a dekko at this weirdly Stalinist requirement, reported yesterday, that humanities research at university level will be required to study 'the Big Society', something that I hope profoundly might have been misinterpreted or misquoted or at least mis-something. Here are David Lodge's thoughts on the university situation.
..."Arts industry insiders believe the timing of the report is designed to damage the council and deflect negative reaction to the forthcoming announcement away from the Government."... (The Independent) (Read the rest here.)
..."The committee also said it was not convinced there was a need for so many symphony orchestras to receive funding from the council and the BBC; claimed heritage had been underfunded compared with the arts; and expressed concern at the deep level of cuts to funding for culture proposed by some local councils.
The arts world is waiting anxiously for the results of public funding applications, which are due to drop into email inboxes up and down England between 7.30am and 9.30am on Wednesday. Grant applications have been made by 1,300 organisations; almost half will be unsuccessful.... (The Guardian)" (Read the rest here)Feeling sick already? We ain't seen nothing yet. I'm not saying the status quo was perfect - yes, there's a serious deficit, and yes, there was a world financial crisis. There has to be a way to save money. But it has to be a competent, considered, sensible way and we have yet to see anything that suggests the current administration is capable of this; or that there is an electable alternative that could be any better. The sense of lunatics running the asylum has rarely been stronger; today, after all we've seen taking place in the US, persistent clinging to belief in the free market as the answer to all the world's problems seems staggeringly naive at best and, at worst, plain stupid. In one word: Detroit.
It's the apparently hasty and ill-considered way in which decisions like the abolition of the Film Council and the PLR (public lending rights) distributing agency were forced through that seems most dubious. The report says the following re PLR:
147. We are surprised at the Government's decision to abolish the PLR body and disappointed that DCMS did not discuss the future of the PLR with its Registrar before announcing its abolition. It follows the same disturbingmodus operandi as with the other bodies, including the UK Film Council. We have not found anyone who supports this decision. Any proposal that the Arts Council should take over the PLR was unrealistic and rightly abandoned. However, this has left the PLR in a state of protracted uncertainty, which could have been avoided had the department discussed proposals with the PLR sooner.
148. We do not believe that the British Library is an appropriate body to take on the work of administering the PLR. Far more appropriate is the ALCS, which already distributes royalty payments to authors. We understand that there may be a legal technicality preventing this, in which case we recommend that legislative measures are put in place to allow it to happen as soon as possible.NB "WE HAVE NOT FOUND ANYONE WHO SUPPORTS THIS DECISION"
Meanwhile in academia, ideology-driven policies that bear little relation to reality are taking hold too...have a dekko at this weirdly Stalinist requirement, reported yesterday, that humanities research at university level will be required to study 'the Big Society', something that I hope profoundly might have been misinterpreted or misquoted or at least mis-something. Here are David Lodge's thoughts on the university situation.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
26 March: A few thoughts about cuts
This afternoon, London sees the March for the Alternative - the biggest mass protest to hit the capital's streets since the Stop the War Coalition March in 2003. Various newspapers are predicting between 100,000 and 300,000 participants and the NUT has chartered trains from around the country in order to join in. Here are thoughts from a cross-section of people planning to march today.
A couple of months ago, after Philip Pullman and other authors spoke out with eloquence and passion against the closure of public libraries, I ran a post on JDCMB calling for star musicians to speak up too. And several promptly got in touch with words to the effect of: "Yes, anytime!" But... everyone was waiting for Darren Henley's report into the state of music education and for the government's response. These arrived very late.
When they turned up, they seemed good. Henley made some excellent recommendations and the response appeared to take them on board. Michael Gove seems to like music, and noises were even made about ringfencing certain bits of money for music education. It seemed, at first glance, that there wasn't all that much to yell about.
But on closer examination, this doesn't reflect what's actually been happening while we waited. There's a dangerous division between the national, centralised government recommendations and the individual responses of local authorities hard hit by budget cuts. At times the two situations bear no relation whatsoever to one another. Local authorities, in charge of their own budgets for everything from refuse collection to care for the elderly to music teaching, could not afford the time to wait for the report, let alone act according to it. Up and down the country, music services have already been slashed by councils desperate to save money wherever they can; and because of the division in national plans and local realities, it seems hard to get the message through about what is really happening.
The same, of course, is true for professional musical organisations: many regional orchestras, for instance, depend on local funding as well as ACE grants and are facing a double whammy of cutbacks in both. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, for instance - a fabulous orchestra and host to Vassily Petrenko, possibly the most exciting young conductor to hold a post in this country - is being rewarded for its runaway success and massive increases in its audience by something resembling a financial brickbat. The CBSO too is facing a serious cut, but seem glad it isn't even bigger.
The lack of clarity about the national and local divisions in these issues has, I think, caused a heap of confusion and made it difficult for the public to recognise what's happening. I am sure there are plenty of conspiracy theorists who could suggest that this sense of muddle might even be deliberately imposed from somewhere high up the tree. Personally I tend to subscribe to 'cock-up' theories rather than 'conspiracy'. I suspect that in the diplodocus of bureaucracy, the head hasn't a clue what the tail is doing, so great is the distance between them.
Yesterday Tom Service reported on his Guardian blog about the response of Bedfordshire: soaring costs for music lessons that far exceed the recommended fees suggested as market rate by the Musicians Union. And a well-known musician in Yorkshire has written to me, forwarding a message from a concerned local about the slashing of music provision to the effect of: "Why isn't anyone saying anything about this?" Music-making in the UK should never be reduced to a pursuit barred to those who cannot afford exorbitant fees for lessons.
If children do not hear music, they will not know that it exists. And they are missing out. In assuming they won't be interested in western classical music because it isn't "cool" (that word is a plague on all our houses), and in failing to teach them to appreciate it, play it and understand it, we are subjecting them to a deprivation of spirit. We're treating our youngsters with patronising assumptions for which they're going to come back to us one day, when we're doddering around taking out our dentures, and say WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL US?
A challenge for you: this week, play a young person some music. Choose it well, answer their questions, offer follow-up suggestions. Last week, as part of a writing workshop, I played a group of eight A and AS level students some Keith Jarrett. One boy in particular was crazy about it. He said he had never heard any jazz before. A month ago I took my niece to see Madam Butterfly at the Albert Hall. She is a bright university student and comes from an academic family full of people who appreciate music, yet she'd never heard a note of this opera before. She loved it.
Young people deserve the chance to find an enthusiasm and make up their own minds about music: how dare we assume they won't like it? If you don't play them music, if you don't show them what is available for them to enjoy, if you do not teach them how it works and equip them with the vocabulary to understand it, explore it and talk about it, you are killing part of our collective soul and theirs.
Perhaps even more worrying is this: as regards the benefits that music brings all round, the case has been made. The points have been proved, the evidence is there and it has been hammered home. EL SISTEMA. Sistema Scotland and the Big Noise. Buskaid, Soweto. What more proof do we need that music-making is a force for good, a shortcut to all-round improvement to spiritual, mental, physical and social health, the provision of it a financial stitch in time? The case has been made, and proven, and unarguably so. But how do we get anyone to listen? What more do we have to do?
Enough hanging around! If we wait any longer, it will be too late. I think we've all been too patient and way too nice. Music teachers, get out there in central London today and do some shouting.
Now, dear musician friends, if you would like to send me any words of protest against the bureaucracy-sponsored suffocation of music lessons, as well as exhortations about the human value of music, I will post them here with the greatest of pleasure.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Hungry for Hungary, plus a suitable Friday Historical
I'm back from the mini-tour of Hungarian Dances. This week the three of us went to Old Swinford Hospital School in Stourbridge, which made us welcome with a winning combination of warm atmosphere, enthusiasm and, by no means least, school dinners complete with apple crumble and custard. Bradley and Margaret pulled out all the stops that can be found on violin and piano, the story seemed to go over well and the continuity gelled: the ideal for these concerts is that music and words should become a gesamtkunstwerk of sorts, a goal that is beginning to feel not just possible but natural. The sophisticated and substantial cutlet of the Debussy Violin Sonata is the perfect foil for the Gypsy numbers and balances the Ravel Tzigane in the second half. And Bradley's Gypsy-style playing really has to be seen to be believed, and I'm not just saying it because it was my book. The Northern Sinfonia is a lucky old orchestra to have him at the helm.
The next day we all gave workshops for the kids and I managed to introduce my creative writing group to Keith Jarrett's The Koln Concert in the process. We have an exercise in which I suggest that music can provide a route into the stillness of mental space from which focused creativity can spring, but which is sorely lacking in modern life, especially if you're facing a heap of exams. I put on something suitably calming - here's where The Koln Concert works beautifully, but in the past I've also used Chopin (slow movement of B minor Sonata) - and treat it as a meditation, in which the music leads the pen. Some people respond more enthusiastically than others, of course, but it is just one example of an option that can be harnessed to help access that space in ourselves. And just occasionally, someone will produce something in the music exercise that is rather incredible... This group was no exception and I think KJ would have been pleased to think he'd sparked such interesting thoughts and reflections.
Meanwhile the voice coaching sessions I had a few years ago have proved their worth. I love rediscovering that fabulous "afterglow" sensation where you're on a total high after giving a really good concert - and without having to play a note! HA! Still, Bradley and Margaret play enough notes for seven, never mind three... The whole thing has been fantastic, dreamlike and showered with spring sun and daffodils galore. THANKS, FOLKS!
And so it's home and back to the hamster-wheel. And it's Friday. So here is Jelly d'Aranyi playing a Hungarian piece we don't have in the concert: Hubay's Poemes hongroises, Op.26 No.6. This should put a spring in everyone's step.
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