Simon Rattle interview: Brexit will kill orchestra tours

The conductor has been talking to France 24:

‘The practical difficulties will be immense because there never was any planning for Brexit,’ he said. ‘Whenever we ask (government officials) what the situation will be with taking instruments from country to country, the answer is, ‘Sorry? we have no idea.’

‘We have three or four contingency plans for every tour now… Last Friday we played in Frankfurt, and we were in Paris on Saturday. If all the instruments have to be inspected… there is no way they would have got from one country to another.

He added that customs checks and form-filling ‘takes 15 hours on average, which means our touring life is completely different.’

Read on here.

On the other hand, some of us think orchestras should help save the planet and stop excessve touring. Orchestras, conductors and soloists need to see the bigger picture and reconfigure their activity.