Just in: Brussels guarantees future of the EU youth orchestra
mainHaving threatened to cut the orchestra off last year, the EU Commission has now greed a formula to secure the future of the European Union Youth Orchestra.
Under measures to be put forward to the European Parliament, the EUYO will receive 600,000 Euros a year.
‘Together, we have shown that we can find creative solutions by overcoming bureaucratic procedures when it is in the interest of our citizens,’ said the EU president, Jean-Claude Juncker.
The EUYO was founded in 1976 by Joy and Lionel Bryer and is based in London. That may have to change.
Although this is good news. The EUYO is currently looking for a new home in mainland Europe as, post-‘Brexit’ (ughh!) it will no longer be appropriate to be based in London (in a country OUTSIDE the EU), where it has been all of its life so far, after March 2019. In addition, young British musicians, always an important major contingent in the EUYO hitherto, will be ineligible to play in the orchestra for the first time since its foundation.
€600,000 is more or less what the orchestra received from the European Commission ten years ago, so it’s a shame they couldn’t increment the grant a little to reflect the increase on costs over the last decade.
Actually, the EUYO itself states that UK musicians are still eligible to audition for the 2018 orchestra and that their future eligibility will depend upon forthcoming negotiations between the EU and UK.
http://www.euyo.eu/apply/auditions/rules-and-regulations/
In other words, nothing has been decided. These are uncertain times, unquestionably, but I’m not sure it’s helpful to present a far-from-certain worst case scenario as immovable fact.
What about the EU Baroque Orchestra?
I know the EUBO is also moving out of the UK (possibly to Antwerp). It has already stopped taking British musicians. I’m not sure about the financial implications regards the European Commission.
I heard, the brass section of the Berlin Philharmonic also held an internal referendum, and decided to break away from the orchrstra, citing bad leadwrship and overboarding control from the central conductor position.
Negotiations over the terms of the separation of the brass group from the orchestra, colloquially termed as ‘Brassxit’, are to begin immediately.