'Idiotic and shameful': Edo de Waart attacks Dutch government over arts cuts

'Idiotic and shameful': Edo de Waart attacks Dutch government over arts cuts

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norman lebrecht

July 03, 2011

He’s the 13th to post a Soldier of Orange video online – his is with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra – and the weightiest Dutch cultural figure so far to pronounce on the government’s programme to subect the arts to severe cuts.

The adjectives are taken from his address in Dutch on the video. I hope I understood him right.

Comments

  • Kapell says:

    A Dutch friend observes :

    ” For more than 20 years schools are producing on an annual basis hundreds of artists of no or little talent for whom there is no employment, unless created by the state. Political parties, in particular on the left side, didn’t want to intervene. Now the government has to. Artists cannot be spared when everyone else has to make sacrifices.”

    • Pieter-Jelle de Boer says:

      Artists shouldn’t be spared and not a single one says they should. The Dutch government wants a “change of culture” in the arts for which a lot can be said. However, when they decided to install a secretary of state for the arts who is a fan of Metallica and Dan Brown, not known to be seen in theatres, and who when taking office announced laughing that “no arts institution will be sure of its life”, it was clear that they were going to act unilaterally without the intention to obtain the slightest collaboration from the arts world, or to take artists’ concerns and observations seriously. Which is exactly what has happened so far.

      That said, the fact that art schools will now take in less students – without their budgets being cut – is in itself not a bad thing.

  • Ademir dos Anjos says:

    d be spared! After all, is not fair that they should be charged by the financial chaos in wich they launched the world …

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