Issue 230
March/April 2024


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Mar 28, 2024

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ArtWork Newspaper Issue 230
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When the music ends…

We asked the pianist Gusztáv Fenyo for a personal reaction to the news that the city of Birmingham is planning to end all support for music in the city in years to come.


BIRMINGHAM City Council is proposing shocking and quite unprecedented damage to its classical institutions with cuts to organisations including the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO), Birmingham Opera Company, Birmingham Royal Ballet, British choir Ex Cathedra and B:Music, which will see all of them lose 50 per cent of their council grants this year and 100 per cent next financial year.

The cuts are part of an effort to fill a £300m budget gap for the council, which declared itself effectively bankrupt last year. For the Association of British Orchestras to express ‘deep concern' at the impact of these cuts must be the greatest understatement in the musical world this century.

The proposed plan shows how little regard the elected representatives have for the cultural life of the region, for its artistic achievements, for the livelihoods of many hundreds of people and the enlightenment, pleasure and spiritual sustenance for many more.

It also bodes alarmingly for cultural organisations throughout the UK, as is already being seen elsewhere.

You cannot reduce the size of an orchestra, unless you turn it into something other than a symphony orchestra.

You cannot have a part-time orchestra because its best members will find work elsewhere and will not return to the CBSO.

You cannot reduce the number of concerts because this will decrease the revenue anyway. And you cannot just increase ticket prices because your average concert-goer in the region will not be able to afford it. The same applies, in every way, to the opera and ballet companies.

Sir Simon Rattle began his great career building the CBSO into a world-class ensemble, rivalling not only London's, but many notable European and American orchestras. He put that city and that orchestra on the map.

The concert hall that was built for it, one of the world's finest, has amazing acoustics and facilities, the pride of the UK's second-largest city.

Decisions such as these are made by people who know the price of everything but the value of nothing.

Does anyone think of cutting allowances for MPs and the Lords?

Does anyone think of increasing taxes (Austria, Belgium and the Scandinavian countries all have higher rates and people live better), in particular for the rich (Patriotic Millionaires UK are begging to be taxed more)?

And if money is the only criteria, then why disregard the proven effect of such distinguished cultural bodies to drive much-needed inward foreign investment?

This is a shameful, cock-eyed, short-sighted approach with extremely damaging long-term consequences. The people making these decisions should not be there; this government should not be there...fortunately, very soon,they will not be.



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