Slightly less bad hair in Birmingham
mainThe Guardian reports that arts cuts by Birmingham Council have been agreed at 17 percent, down from £12m to £10.1 million, which is nowhere near Monday’s leaked worst-case scenario.
The cake is not being evenly sliced. Birmingham Royal Ballet takes an 18% hit, Birmingham Opera loses 15% but the flagship City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is pinched by just nine percent. This looks to me like a triumph for intensive lobbying and solid good sense in Britain’s second largest city.
Not such a triumph for the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (BCMG), who have lost all their funding.
In addition to being a world-class contemporary music ensemble, BCMG’s Sound Investments scheme allows lovers of contemporary music to sponsor leading composers to produce new works.
We really can’t afford to lose a resource that appears to be doing something that no one else is doing.