Five players from the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, locked out by their government, have taken their case to prime-time television with a fizzing performance of Mozart’s clarinet quintet.
The players are
Violins: Elias Gurevich and Ala Gubaidulina
Viola: Christine Bara
Cello: Nicolas Rossi
Clarinet: Carlos Fernandez
And the performance is just up here on youtube. Muy bien.
I have been invited to a film preview and am all a-twitter with excitement. The film has been made by the Heir to the Throne and it’s about a composer he really, really likes. He’s going to tell us why, for about an hour, I guess.
Now, normally I’d be off to a Royal Command like a corgie at lunchtime but what gives me pause here is that the composer Prince Charles declares he loves above all others, his lifetime number one, is the late Sir Hubert Hastings Parry (1848-1918) who, for me, stands for all that is smug and regressive in English music. Not to say fawning, Germanic and derivative.
I’ve heard enough of it by now to know, and I’ve whiled away the empty minutes of those endless concerts composing subtitles for some of Sir Hubert’s great works, such as:
I Was Glad (when it was over)
Blest Pair of Sirens (keep them out of the tabloids)
Dear Lord and Father of Mankind (what have I done to deserve this?)
Jerusalem (anywhere but here).
As for Job – the musical, don’t get me started.
So, much as I defer to royalty, wild horses won’t drag me to a film about Parry. Sorry, HRH, can’t make it. Pressing engagement in the country. Another country. Anywhere.
A cello student at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama was looking around one day, wondering what he could do with all these wonderful talented people he was meeting.
I know, he thought, let’s make a festival back home. Mostly local, some London pals.
Jonathan Bloxham is now 23 and Northern Chords is coming up for its third successful run.
More initiative like his is needed much higher up the scale.
Northern Chords Festival 2011
Press Release
• Award-winning musicians presents North East chamber music festival Northern
Chords for the 3rd year running
• Pronounced “fresh and youthful”, the festival presents its most exciting programme yet
of up-and-coming artists performing a mixture of popular classics alongside rarely heard
gems
• Featuring acclaimed artists such as BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist Ben
Johnson, Sasha Grynyuk and local boy and founder Jonathan Bloxham this festival
promises to bring an international standard of music making to the North East
• With a special focus on local young musicians, we are also proud to be celebrating
both the 200th anniversaries of Liszt and principal sponsor Watson Burton.
• Tickets are available online at www.thesagegateshead.org and on 0191 443 4661.
Another day, another orchestra bites the dust.
The New Mexico Symphony is the latest
bankruptcy in America. Bedfordshire Youth Orchestra the most recent British casualty of funding cuts. In Albuquerque, NM, the musicians learned their fate from reading newspapers. In Britain no print or broadcast medium has yet reported the death in Beds.
These are just symptoms of a sweeping phenomenon. Orchestras in Holland await their fate. Musicians in Philadelphia are discovering in court papers that one of the reasons their orchestra has filed for bankruptcy protection is to evade its pension duties – to the musicians.
In Rio de Janeiro, the sackings continue at the Brazil Symphony Orchestra. Its conductor, Roberto Minczuk, is reported to have resigned from the Municipal Theatre (though not the OSB) and is having to deal with a growing foreign boycott. In Buenos Aires, the Teatro Colon is strike bound.
Where will it all end? The scenario is open-ended. Hardly any orchestra is immune. Gearing up for a bleak future, the New Mexico musicians remember a tribute last year (below) from one of America’s elite players, a member of the vaunted Cleveland Orchestra. But Cleveland itself is not immune to the winds of change. Several managers have told me they expect that, after Philadelphia, it could be the next to go.
These are dire times. And, as Richard Waugh points out below, we are all in the same burrow.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
By Richard Waugh
Violist, Cleveland Orchestra
NMSO, an Underfunded Jewel, Deserves Your Support
From 1987-1990, it was my great honor to serve as assistant principal violist of the
New Mexico Symphony Orchestra. I have since moved on to serve as principal violist of
the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and am now in my 16th season with the Cleveland
Orchestra, an ensemble called by many reviewers as one of the three great orchestras in
the world, along with those in Vienna and Berlin. But this is not about me, I am merely
mentioning my qualifications for voicing my particular opinion.
After not having heard an NMSO concert in years, I was back in town visiting family
and was fortunate enough to attend the Feb. 26 performance. I was deeply moved and
impressed by the concert, start to finish.
Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms featured the NMSO Chorus. If forced to choose
between the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and the NMSO Chorus, I’d take the one in
Albuquerque. The Liebermann Concerto for Flute and Orchestra featured Valerie
Potter, the NMSO’s principal flute. I have never heard finer flute playing. The Beethoven
Symphony No. 3 featured impressive blending, ensemble and intonation in every section
of the orchestra. I have performed this piece dozens of times and found Maestro
Guillermo Figueroa’s interpretation fresh and exciting.
No, I am not a trained music critic. The point I’m trying to make here is about the
tremendous quality of what I heard.
What is striking to me is how much the Cleveland Orchestra and the NMSO have in
common. Both are composed of world class musicians who have dedicated their lives to
the art of music and to the city in which they live.
The casual listener might be hard pressed to hear the difference between the two, yet
the annual budget of the Cleveland Orchestra is 10 times that of the NMSO. Are there
NMSO musicians gifted enough to leave and play in major orchestras elsewhere?
Absolutely! Yet for the love of Albuquerque, they choose to stay.
Cleveland is referred to as “the mistake by the lake.” Forbes Magazine recently called it
the most miserable place to live of all major U.S. cities. Yet with a dwindling population
and an exodus of major corporations, the city still supports its beloved orchestra.
Wretched news from the English shires. One of the country’s best youth orchestras gave its last concert this week, after a lifeline of local authority funding was cut off.
Bedfordshire, not the north of London, is not a poor part of the country, but the council has to adjust to lower grants from central government and music was the first victim of the new era.
The Bedfordshire Youth Orchestra was the nursery for many outstanding musicians who brought credit to their homeland the world over – among them, the conductors Andrea Quinn, presently head of New York City Ballet and Andrew Manze.
That nursery is no longer.
I present below two testimonies from the funeral.
Saturday the 16th April, marked one of the saddest days of my professional life. As an alumni of Beds Youth Orchestra and a professional violinist, I have watched in disbelief at its plight over the last couple of months, a downfall that culminated on Saturday night. The evening concert that took place at the Bedford Corn Exchange was the Swan Song for one of Britain’s finest and oldest youth orchestras. In perspective, this is an orchestra that could not only boast alumni in every professional orchestra, or one that could proudly talk of tours to Russia, The Czech Republic, Budapest, Cyprus, Italy, it was also an orchestra that gave performances of Mahler Symphonies that would please many seasoned bands, and one that was also broadcast on radio 3. In short this was no ordinary Youth Orchestra, this was a gem, a national treasure.
Beds Youth Orchestra can also boast some fairly successful alumni: I if I could take a moment to name just a few, you will see why the impact of this will be felt through the music world, and will have repercussions on our musical world forever.
Andrew Manze international soloist was there first leader in the early 1970’s.
David Hesketh principal viola of Opera Bauge
David Hext Principal percussionist with the Halle Orchestra.
Michael Hext Principal Trombone ~ Royal Opera House.
Philip Hesketh is currently Musical Director of the London Children’s Ballet.
Greg Malcangi is now a BAFTA nominated composer/producer of music for TV/Film.
Andrea Quinn was until recently Musical Director of The Royal Ballet, and is now Musical Director of the New York City Ballet.
Leslie Pratt a producer for BBC Radio 3.
Christopher Yates Principal viola with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.
Sam Walton Young Musician of the year finalist
Judith Templeman Associate concertmaster RPO
Brendan Thomas Horn player BBC
Catherine Templeman Orchestral manager ECO
Ben Lane Scottish Chamber Orchestra in Edinburgh.
And this is just a snapshot of perhaps the most high profile former students. You can go into almost any orchestra in the UK and find someone whom used to play in Beds Youth Orchestra. For myself, I can say without hesitation, that without Beds Youth Orchestra I would not have achieved what I have, the opportunities to study at the RNCM, to go to the USA and join a professional quartet would just not of happened.
Its long term conductor and architect Michael Rose O.B.E conducted the last concert and gave a moving speech before the final composition (there were shouts of “we have so much to thank you for”) was performed. Michael who was for while the conductor for the BBC training orchestra helped start the orchestra in 1971, and it was his drive and energy, passion for the 39 years of his life that has made this orchestra into what it was. Actually, ironically a damn good training orchestra.
What does this say for our country, and our present Conservative led Government? That they could allow such a resource to be lost, and lost forever?I have repeatedly written to Michael Gove about this, with no real response, for their part the Government seems to be saying that this is a local decision, by the local council. Which indeed it is, but how can the Government allow this to happen?This is part of wider cuts, in
fact Beds Youth Music has been completely cut from this August, the council want music to this awful phrase “cost neutral”! Again this is a travesty of the highest order, unless we have music services then our music profession stands no chance, and again this was not any ordinary youth service, it was the best one. It embraced the triangle principal, namely that you need to have thousands of children starting an instrument to get maybe a 100 that are any good, and only one or two that go on to do it as a job. Coupled with outstanding teaching and a dedicated team this is what Beds Music did so well for years. Each holiday was packed with courses, 5 orchestras, 3 bands a Jazz Band a Youth Choir a Youth Opera a Chamber Music Course with the Magginni Quartet, all of which is now largely gone.
It is with great sadness that I write this letter, and I am not sure how much I can do, but at the least I think the country deserves to know that this butchery is happening.
Yours in Disbelief
James Dickenson
Dear Mr Lebrecht,
I have been following your blog and the unfortunate events regarding the OSB, as well as the Philadelphia Orchestra, and thought you might be interested in hearing about the disgraceful treatment of the Bedfordshire ensembles.
As many of us know, councils are re-thinking their contributions to their music services, but thus far it seems not many have been affected. Bedfordshire, however, has. Whilst surrounding councils have decided to continue giving money to their music services (Luton and Hertfordshire for example), Bedfordshire have decided to pull the plug on theirs.
On Saturday 16th April, the Bedfordshire Youth Orchestra gave its final performance. This is a youth orchestra that has been running for 40 years, 39 of which have been conducted by the composer and conductor Michael Rose OBE. Their talent through the years has had them performing epic works such as Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, as well as performing concerti with the renowned Tasmin Little. Their capabilities and professionalism are as such, that the second time Ms Little was approached, she reduced her fee by 75% because of how much she had enjoyed working with the orchestra the first time.
Now, after 40 years, this orchestra is to be scrapped. During their final performance, Mr Rose spoke to the audience praising the orchestra, stating how it’s been a pleasure to work with them, and how disgusted he was by the council’s decision to pull the funding to the orchestra. His comments were cheered on by the audience, and everybody seemed to feel the same way.
What was most shocking, I found, was that at the end of the concert the head of the Music Service, Richard Hart, took to the stage (sheepishly I might add) to reel off praise after praise for the orchestra, and to express how saddened he was that the orchestra would no longer exist. These expressions may have won over some of the audience, but what many may not know is that in the letter addressed to the tutors of the orchestra, it was revealed that their services “would no longer be required”, and that, shockingly, their records would be removed from the council database! These tutors, some of who have worked with the orchestra for over 20 years, will not exist on the council’s database. Mr Rose’s 39 years of service to the orchestra, will no longer exist on the database! Mr Hart is so “distraught” about the dissolution of the orchestra that he is making sure that all records of it are wiped; as though it never existed! Furthermore, when a member of staff suggested that they try and get some of the press to attend the concert for exposure, Mr Hart replied with “Oh no, we wouldn’t want to do that”. Better that the orchestra die quietly rather than it be known that the council will no longer fund such a remarkable orchestra.
Michael Rose has stated that he, and the other tutors, are working behind-the-scenes to try and ensure that the orchestra continues, even if it must be under a new name. But with the costs to run the courses and performances projected at £15,000, it will be next to impossible to run unless they get some serious funding or charge each member of the orchestra close to £200 (a 100% increase on the price of the last course).
Surely, when ensembles of such calibre as this are scrapped, it shows that councils are trying too hard to erase music from the lives of today’s youth!
Louis Cross
David Hesketh principal viola of Opera Bauge 
