Early last week, hours after Arts Council England detailed its first wave of funding cuts, an anonymous polemic appeared on a generally respectable arts website.

Under the headline ‘who earns £630,000 at the Royal Opera House?’ it unfurled a red carpet of top salaries in major arts institutions, contrasting them unfavourably with the relatively frugal wages earned by senior Arts Council staff.

The figures were all available in public reports and none was strikingly new. What caught the eye was the acerbic tone in a usually sedate publication, and the absolute prejudice. The ROH was attacked for paying 76 salaries above £60,000 while the ACE was praised, somehow, for paying 71 at that rate. Not much difference as far as I could see. However, the ACE was facing a 50 percent cut in administrative costs ‘which are likely to involve jobs’.

The ACE, it was stated, was ‘a model of transparency’ while the opera house was not. Almost every paragraph in the article was tilted in favour of the ACE and against the companies it is supposed to support. The website, www.artsdesk.com, is owned by a collective of arts critics and journalists, none of whom was brave enough to put a name to this odd piece. Senior arts figures suggested privately to me that the article was planted by the Arts Council or one of its subsidiaries with a view to deflecting criticism from the miserable performance of its chair and chief executive during the government’s spending review. 

Alan Davey, the ACE chief executive, took a £16,000 pay rise to £191,000 last year – a time when most arts chiefs took a freeze or a cut. This went unmentioned in the unsigned article.

This weekend, the story got a second wind when the Sunday Times devoted page three to the story, laying in to the Opera House for its fat-cat pay. The facts are less clear-cut.

ROH music director Antonio Pappano’s £630,000 salary is less than half of James Levine’s $1.8 million at the Metropolitan Opera – and for a much greater commitment. Tony Hall’s chief executive pay of £390,000 is a fraction of Peter Gelb’s $1.5 million at the Met. Both are well within the going rate for the job and neither is a secret, so why is the Sunday Times fussed?

Once again, rumour has it that the ACE has been seeping malice about the ROH in the hope of saving its own top jobs and securing its role in the coming years of cuts. True or not, it’s a seedy situation – and one I may get asked about when I give evidence to the House of Commons select committee on Culture, Media and Sport this week. Watch this space.  

The Finnish town of Turku, Europe’s Capital of Culture 2011, is moblising the medical profession to assist in arts promotion.

Health centres in the city have been issued with 5,500 free tickets for events and doctors are being asked to give them out to patients who might be helped  by a good night out.

The benefits have yet to be tested and there will be no scientific monitoring of results – does blood pressure drop during Sibelius 5? Is depression cured by The Brothers Karamazov?. That might lead sceptics to dismiss the initiative as a cheap gimmick.

Still, given that many patients are treated with placebos and palliatives, there could be some mileage in using small doses of the arts to cut the drugs bill. There are possibilities here, and I intend to watch them closely.

Turku, by the way, will share the cultural capital status next year with the Estonian city, Talinn,  

 

 

Press release below:

Culture Cures: Doctors Prescribe Tickets to Cultural Events in Turku, Finland

Turku, European Capital of Culture 2011, intends to prove the claim that “culture cures”. The idea for doing this is a cultural prescription.

The City of Turku Board of Health Care decided that 5,500 free tickets to cultural events taking place in 2011 would be given out at municipal health centres.

–  “When seeing patients, doctors will consider whether a cultural visit may benefit a patient as a supplement or even as an alternative to medical treatment,” explains Aleksi Randell, Mayor of Turku.

Turku is one of the first cities in the world to adopt a cultural prescription. And the events that it offers its citizens are not just any old thing. The prescriptions apply to 50 happenings related to the Capital of Culture, including the Cirque Dracula circus performance and a theatrical version of The Brothers Karamazov, directed by the renowned theatre director Kristian Smeds.

– “The City of Turku made a fine, open-minded decision. We are happy to participate in this kind of venture – as even the motto of the Capital of Culture goes: Culture Cures,” says Cay Sevón, Executive Director of the Capital of Culture project.

The population of the greater Turku area is 300,000 and the city itself 176,000. Previously the capital city and now the fifth-largest city in Finland, Turku is located on the west coast of Finland and has always been known as a place of diversity and culture. 

Up to two million people from Europe and its surrounding areas are expected to attend the events in the Turku 2011 programme. The budget for the celebratory year is EUR 50 million. www.turku2011.fi/en and www.turku2011.fi/materials

 

The Finnish town of Turku, Europe’s Capital of Culture 2011, is moblising the medical profession to assist in arts promotion.

Health centres in the city have been issued with 5,500 free tickets for events and doctors are being asked to give them out to patients who might be helped  by a good night out.

The benefits have yet to be tested and there will be no scientific monitoring of results – does blood pressure drop during Sibelius 5? Is depression cured by The Brothers Karamazov?. That might lead sceptics to dismiss the initiative as a cheap gimmick.

Still, given that many patients are treated with placebos and palliatives, there could be some mileage in using small doses of the arts to cut the drugs bill. There are possibilities here, and I intend to watch them closely.

Turku, by the way, will share the cultural capital status next year with the Estonian city, Talinn,  

 

 

Press release below:

Culture Cures: Doctors Prescribe Tickets to Cultural Events in Turku, Finland

Turku, European Capital of Culture 2011, intends to prove the claim that “culture cures”. The idea for doing this is a cultural prescription.

The City of Turku Board of Health Care decided that 5,500 free tickets to cultural events taking place in 2011 would be given out at municipal health centres.

–  “When seeing patients, doctors will consider whether a cultural visit may benefit a patient as a supplement or even as an alternative to medical treatment,” explains Aleksi Randell, Mayor of Turku.

Turku is one of the first cities in the world to adopt a cultural prescription. And the events that it offers its citizens are not just any old thing. The prescriptions apply to 50 happenings related to the Capital of Culture, including the Cirque Dracula circus performance and a theatrical version of The Brothers Karamazov, directed by the renowned theatre director Kristian Smeds.

– “The City of Turku made a fine, open-minded decision. We are happy to participate in this kind of venture – as even the motto of the Capital of Culture goes: Culture Cures,” says Cay Sevón, Executive Director of the Capital of Culture project.

The population of the greater Turku area is 300,000 and the city itself 176,000. Previously the capital city and now the fifth-largest city in Finland, Turku is located on the west coast of Finland and has always been known as a place of diversity and culture. 

Up to two million people from Europe and its surrounding areas are expected to attend the events in the Turku 2011 programme. The budget for the celebratory year is EUR 50 million. www.turku2011.fi/en and www.turku2011.fi/materials

 

The much-praised Mahler Chamber Orchestra is heading off to South America for what is billed as ‘a concert and educational tour’. A worthy enterprise, right?

But look at the programmes and you won’t find a single work by Gustav Mahler. It’s all Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and Schnittke’s little jokes – so why give it Mahler branding?

And while we’re talking brand confusion, what right does the MCO have to use Mahler’s name? The only pieces Mahler wrote for chamber orchestra were his contentious expansions of Beethoven and Schubert quartets. Mahler was a symphonist by self-definition, a big-band man. Pinning his name to a petite ensemble is like publishing haikus as Proust Editions.

The MCO is a 1997 idea of Claudio Abbado’s and a group of players from all over Europe who outgrew their youth orchestras. Its music director until 2008 was the excellent Daniel Harding, who is now principal conductor. Among other purposes, the MCO serves as an incubator to young conductors on  the rise, the latest being Andrés Orozco-Estrada, 32, a talented Colombian who is leading the LatAm tour. The orchestra is based in Germany and largely paid for by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

All well and good. But if the MCO exists to promote the work and ideas of Gustav Mahler, it cannot wrap his name around any old music. Either it declares itself a symphony orchestra and plays Mahler, or it should put its collective heads together and discuss a name change. Touring Mahler without Mahler is counter-educational, all show and no substance.

Or am I missing something?

————–

The press release follows:

 

 

 

 
 

Berlin, 29 October 2010 – A special tour takes the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (MCO) to the South American countries Colombia and Brazil in November 2010. Under the baton of Colombian conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada, the orchestra will prepare a programme with works by Schubert, Mozart, Schittke and Haydn.

Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1 and Schnittke’s Moz-Art à la Haydn offer MCO musicians Konstantin Pfiz (cello), Gregory Ahss (violin; concertmaster) and Eoin Andersen (violin) a good opportunity to show their soloistic capabilities. The project will be enriched by a concert to benefit youth outreach, open rehearsals for local youth orchestras and diverse educational projects in cooperation with the Brazilian Instituto Baccarelli.

The trip begins on 9 November in Bogotá, the capital of Columbia, where the ensemble will meet conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada for the first time. The first symphonic concert will be played in the newly opened Teatro Mayor Julio Mario Santo Domingo of Bogotá. On the previous evening, the orchestra will present itself in Orozco-Estrada’s birthplace of Medellín with a concert to benefit musical outreach with youth.

From Colombia, the tour continues to Brazil, the largest country in South America. Here, the MCO will play a total of 3 concerts in São Paulo. Alongside the concerts, the ensemble will collaborate with the Brazil-based Instituto Baccarelli for the first time. The music school, located in the biggest ghetto in São Paolo, was founded in 1996 as a social project by conductor Silvio Baccarelli. The school’s mission was to give local youth a way out of the vicious cycle of poverty, drugs and violence.

By now, the institute has grown greatly, and the two years’ waitlist to get a place at the Baccarelli shows its success. The most famous product of the Instituto Baccarelli is the Sinfônica Heliópolis, which consists of about 80 musicians from different Brazilian cities; it was most recently on tour at the Beethovenfest Bonn and the Munich Gasteig. As part of the cooperation with the Instituto Baccarelli, the musicians of the MCO will give a concert for music students, offer master classes for chamber music and rehearse a symphonic work with the individual instrument groups.

The concert tour will end on 18 November with a performance in the Brazilia harbour city Vitória, before the musicians make their way home to Europe.

The programme features two symphonic works, Franz Schubert’s 5th Symphony and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 40th Symphony, which frame two solo works by Joseph Haydn and Alfred Schnittke. Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1 is famed for its virtuosic yet melodic solo part, which will be performed on this tour by Principal Cello and MCO founding member Konstantin Pfiz. Schnittke’s Moz-Art à la Haydn, one of the composer’s most popular works, follows Haydn. This “game with music for 2 violins, 2 small string orchestras, double bass and conductor” makes a winking reference to the Salzburg Wunderkind Mozart and offers violinists Gregory Ahss and Eoin Andersen an opportunity to demonstrate their soloistic capabilities.

Print-ready photo material is available in the press area of the MCO website:
www.mahler-chamber.eu

 

Programme and cast:

11 November, 8 pm, Teatro Metropolitano José Gutiérrez Gómez, Medellín 12 November, Teatro Mayor Julio Mario Santo Domingo, Bogotá
Symphony no. 5 in B-flat major D 485
Cello Concerto no. 1 in C major Moz-Art à la HaydnSymphony no. 40 in G minor KV 550
Conductor: Andrés Orozco-Estrada/ Violin: Gregory Ahss/ Violin: Eoin Andersen/ Cello: Konstantin Pfiz

14 November, Sala São Paulo, São Paulo
16 November, 9 pm, Museu de Arte de São Paulo, São Paulo
Symphony no. 5 in B-flat major D 485 Moz-Art à la Haydn
Symphony no. 40 in G minor KV 550
Conductor: Andrés Orozco-Estrada/ Violin: Gregory Ahss/ Violin: Eoin Andersen

17 November, 8:30 pm, Teatro Adamastor do Centro, São Paulo/Guarulhos
Cello Concerto no. 1 in C major Moz-Art à la Haydn
Conductor: Andrés Orozco-Estrada/ Cello: Konstantin Pfiz

18 November, Teatro Carlos Gomes, Vitória
Symphony no. 5 in B-flat major D 485
Cello Concerto no. 1 in C major Moz-Art à la HaydnSymphony no. 40 in G minor KV 550
Conductor: Andrés Orozco-Estrada/ Violin: Gregory Ahss/ Violin: Eoin Andersen/ Cello: Konstantin Pfiz

 

 

The much-praised Mahler Chamber Orchestra is heading off to South America for what is billed as ‘a concert and educational tour’. A worthy enterprise, right?

But look at the programmes and you won’t find a single work by Gustav Mahler. It’s all Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and Schnittke’s little jokes – so why give it Mahler branding?

And while we’re talking brand confusion, what right does the MCO have to use Mahler’s name? The only pieces Mahler wrote for chamber orchestra were his contentious expansions of Beethoven and Schubert quartets. Mahler was a symphonist by self-definition, a big-band man. Pinning his name to a petite ensemble is like publishing haikus as Proust Editions.

The MCO is a 1997 idea of Claudio Abbado’s and a group of players from all over Europe who outgrew their youth orchestras. Its music director until 2008 was the excellent Daniel Harding, who is now principal conductor. Among other purposes, the MCO serves as an incubator to young conductors on  the rise, the latest being Andrés Orozco-Estrada, 32, a talented Colombian who is leading the LatAm tour. The orchestra is based in Germany and largely paid for by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

All well and good. But if the MCO exists to promote the work and ideas of Gustav Mahler, it cannot wrap his name around any old music. Either it declares itself a symphony orchestra and plays Mahler, or it should put its collective heads together and discuss a name change. Touring Mahler without Mahler is counter-educational, all show and no substance.

Or am I missing something?

————–

The press release follows:

 

 

 

 
 

Berlin, 29 October 2010 – A special tour takes the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (MCO) to the South American countries Colombia and Brazil in November 2010. Under the baton of Colombian conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada, the orchestra will prepare a programme with works by Schubert, Mozart, Schittke and Haydn.

Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1 and Schnittke’s Moz-Art à la Haydn offer MCO musicians Konstantin Pfiz (cello), Gregory Ahss (violin; concertmaster) and Eoin Andersen (violin) a good opportunity to show their soloistic capabilities. The project will be enriched by a concert to benefit youth outreach, open rehearsals for local youth orchestras and diverse educational projects in cooperation with the Brazilian Instituto Baccarelli.

The trip begins on 9 November in Bogotá, the capital of Columbia, where the ensemble will meet conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada for the first time. The first symphonic concert will be played in the newly opened Teatro Mayor Julio Mario Santo Domingo of Bogotá. On the previous evening, the orchestra will present itself in Orozco-Estrada’s birthplace of Medellín with a concert to benefit musical outreach with youth.

From Colombia, the tour continues to Brazil, the largest country in South America. Here, the MCO will play a total of 3 concerts in São Paulo. Alongside the concerts, the ensemble will collaborate with the Brazil-based Instituto Baccarelli for the first time. The music school, located in the biggest ghetto in São Paolo, was founded in 1996 as a social project by conductor Silvio Baccarelli. The school’s mission was to give local youth a way out of the vicious cycle of poverty, drugs and violence.

By now, the institute has grown greatly, and the two years’ waitlist to get a place at the Baccarelli shows its success. The most famous product of the Instituto Baccarelli is the Sinfônica Heliópolis, which consists of about 80 musicians from different Brazilian cities; it was most recently on tour at the Beethovenfest Bonn and the Munich Gasteig. As part of the cooperation with the Instituto Baccarelli, the musicians of the MCO will give a concert for music students, offer master classes for chamber music and rehearse a symphonic work with the individual instrument groups.

The concert tour will end on 18 November with a performance in the Brazilia harbour city Vitória, before the musicians make their way home to Europe.

The programme features two symphonic works, Franz Schubert’s 5th Symphony and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 40th Symphony, which frame two solo works by Joseph Haydn and Alfred Schnittke. Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1 is famed for its virtuosic yet melodic solo part, which will be performed on this tour by Principal Cello and MCO founding member Konstantin Pfiz. Schnittke’s Moz-Art à la Haydn, one of the composer’s most popular works, follows Haydn. This “game with music for 2 violins, 2 small string orchestras, double bass and conductor” makes a winking reference to the Salzburg Wunderkind Mozart and offers violinists Gregory Ahss and Eoin Andersen an opportunity to demonstrate their soloistic capabilities.

Print-ready photo material is available in the press area of the MCO website:
www.mahler-chamber.eu

 

Programme and cast:

11 November, 8 pm, Teatro Metropolitano José Gutiérrez Gómez, Medellín 12 November, Teatro Mayor Julio Mario Santo Domingo, Bogotá
Symphony no. 5 in B-flat major D 485
Cello Concerto no. 1 in C major Moz-Art à la HaydnSymphony no. 40 in G minor KV 550
Conductor: Andrés Orozco-Estrada/ Violin: Gregory Ahss/ Violin: Eoin Andersen/ Cello: Konstantin Pfiz

14 November, Sala São Paulo, São Paulo
16 November, 9 pm, Museu de Arte de São Paulo, São Paulo
Symphony no. 5 in B-flat major D 485 Moz-Art à la Haydn
Symphony no. 40 in G minor KV 550
Conductor: Andrés Orozco-Estrada/ Violin: Gregory Ahss/ Violin: Eoin Andersen

17 November, 8:30 pm, Teatro Adamastor do Centro, São Paulo/Guarulhos
Cello Concerto no. 1 in C major Moz-Art à la Haydn
Conductor: Andrés Orozco-Estrada/ Cello: Konstantin Pfiz

18 November, Teatro Carlos Gomes, Vitória
Symphony no. 5 in B-flat major D 485
Cello Concerto no. 1 in C major Moz-Art à la HaydnSymphony no. 40 in G minor KV 550
Conductor: Andrés Orozco-Estrada/ Violin: Gregory Ahss/ Violin: Eoin Andersen/ Cello: Konstantin Pfiz