Just in: Baroque group gets its funding back amid Scotland chaos
mainBesieged by accusations of incompetence and insensitivity, Creative Scotland – the goverment arts funder – today reversed the cuts it made to five organisations.
They are: Birds of Paradise, Lung Ha, Catherine Wheels, Visible Fictions and the baroque ensemble, Dunedin Consort. All are assured of funding for the next three years.
Where the extra £2.6 million will come from is unstated.
The decision to defund the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Hebrides Ensembles still stands. For the moment.
UPDATE: Two Creative Scotland board members resign.
They can print the money. That will stimulate the economy!
/sarc
Printing money is illegal. Typing £2,600,000 on a computer keyboard isn’t though. The banks do it all the time.
This is very troubling. The organisations who can mobilise support and generate enormous publicity get funding restored. What about potentially less ‘audience friendly’ organisations such as Sound Festival in Aberdeen for example.
Creative Scotland is an absolute shambles at moment with two board members resigning last year. How can we have confidence in this group of amateurs!?
Having heard their smoothed over Bach which may be acceptable to a download generation lazy enough to accept anything put in front of them or in their ear buds as long as it is in a trendy package, I would not only defund them but boycott their concerts.
Alan is right Creative Scotland is a shambles two of the board have already resigned the rest should be sacked along with CEO Janet Archer. Here is an organisation whose budget was actually increased by the Scottish SNP government and yet they managed to offend almost everyone with their decisions “ snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” as one critic put it!
Having heard the “lullaby” from Cantata BWV 82 Ich habe genug from this group with a smarmy singer onboard I was moved to write the following to both BBC Radio 3 and the RPO:
Dear Sir/Madam,
Could you please advise me how these awards are made and in particular who chooses the final selection?
What criteria is applied to select he overall “winners”.
Having just heard an amateurish and simply unmusical “performance” of an excerpt from Bach’s celebrated cantata, Ich Habe Genug, by the Dunedin Consort and a bass baritone neither of whom
….. could play or sing in tune or with any sense of rhythm….at times drifting apart losing ensemble…..
the BBC Radio 3 PRESENTER announcing they were a “winner” I feel compelled to ask these questions:
Who chooses these “winners”?
On what basis are the winners chosen?
I write from a lifetime’s perspective of listening to this famous musical work by some justly famous past singers and musicians including some lesser known “left field” versions such as that by the classically trained New York cantor William Wolff in Hebrew. *
Hearing this lovely piece, the lullaby section “Schlummert ein”, being MURDERED and then described as award winning has prompted me to ask these basic questions.
There was a time when such recording industry critics awards such as the Edison, Diapson D’or, Deutsche Schallplatten were reliable guides to excellence. But those days seem to have long gone if this is the “best” that the present generation can do.
Yours faithfully
* I suppose your “jury” has never heard of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Hermann Prey, John Shirley – Quirk or the Baroque singer Max Van Edgmond? I should add there is a classic recording by Hans Hotter.
… As for the Dunedin Consort I would not only defund them but boycott their concerts.