Breaking: BBC to share burden of orchestras and singers
OrchestrasThe BBC has just issued a statement on the future of the BBC Singers and its Orchestras. It is notable for the proposal to co-manage the BBC Singers and for the omission of any mention of Simon Webb, head of orchestras and architect of the recent cuts, whose future may be short.
Here’s the text:
We have now concluded a project looking at the future of the BBC’s performing groups.
The BBC is pleased to announce it has a sustainable plan for the future for the BBC Singers as an integral part of the BBC’s classical music provision, drawing on support from a third party, The VOCES8 Foundation. BBC Singers staff will continue to be employed by the BBC, with a strong artistic identity, and remain core to BBC Radio 3 and the BBC Proms.
Following an exploration of options, the proposal will draw on The VOCES8 Foundation’s considerable experience and expertise across music education and community engagement.
This partnership builds on the valuable education and community work the BBC Singers already deliver across East London, as well as the commercial work already undertaken, and we will continue to identify new opportunities for additional revenue for the ensemble.
The BBC Singers have a busy schedule this year as they mark their centenary, and we will be shining a spotlight on the group as our audience is invited to join their celebrations.
In addition, over the past months the BBC has also been working closely with the Musicians’ Union to consider opportunities for the BBC’s orchestras.
In maintaining all of the BBC’s distinctive orchestras, we will consider the resourcing levels which support each ensemble as their work develops across broadcast, education and commercial activity. This will be a gradual process in which we will work closely with the Unions and our musicians, alongside a review to modernise terms and conditions making sure these are aligned with the BBC’s principles of fairness and transparency.
Artistic excellence and education remain at the core of music at the BBC and these plans support the aims of the BBC’s 2022 Classical Review and will support new partnerships.
The BBC is also pursuing an Orchestral Tax Relief application which will be central in ensuring the sustainability of the six groups amid the BBC’s ongoing financial challenges.
The BBC and the Musicians’ Union said: “The BBC and the MU have engaged in constructive talks over recent months. We are pleased that we have a strategy which secures the future of the BBC Singers, and we look forward to celebrating their centenary year. We agree that artistic excellence, having a growing impact in music education, partnerships and operating on a financially stable footing are central to a long term, sustainable future for all of the BBC’s Performing Groups. We are committed to working together to deliver these objectives and will continue constructive discussions with the review of terms and conditions.”
Paul Smith (CEO) and Barnaby Smith (Artistic Director) – The VOCES8 Foundation said: “As a global, artist-led charity, dedicated to inspiring people through choral music, The VOCES8 Foundation was committed to a positive outcome for the future of the BBC Singers. It is an honour and a privilege to have been able to work alongside the BBC towards this news and through it, to continue the Foundation’s commitment to finding innovative ways to extend learning and participation, and serve and grow global audiences for the artform. The Foundation looks forward to working together with the BBC Singers to demonstrate how choral music can positively impact communities in the UK and worldwide in the 21st century.”
We know this has been an uncertain time for the BBC Singers and for our orchestras, and we’d like to thank them for their resilience and their continued commitment to delivering extraordinary music making to our audiences during this period.
ENDS
I must say, it is quite impressive and astonishing how Voces8 has managed to build a whole ecosystem for vocal music in the UK. Through its filmed concerts, its subsidiary groups (Apollo5, etc.), and now this, they’ve built themselves into a central part of choral music in the UK. To see a vocal octet bail out a state broadcaster is…something. Well done to them.
Absolutely. VOCES8 is a high-class act. The singers are the ultimate professionals. No substitutes or deputies, even when a singer is fairly indisposed. They just seem to get it right all the time. From programming to stage presence, and of course, the music itself. Having impeccable intonation does not mean that one is making music, but it has to be a kind of base camp if one wants to scale an a cappella Everest. High hopes for the future then. The BBC Singers are certainly in safe hands. What an astonishing story. An optimistic note in bleak times.
Yes, they do very occasionally use substitutes/deputies. (For example, you couldn’t expect a member with COVID to show up and risk infecting everyone else.)
Not long ago they gave a concert (which I streamed from some European radio station, I forget which) at which soprano Molly Noon couldn’t perform — so they brought in her predecessor, Eleonore Cockerham, to substitute.
A matter of taste. Repertoire and their sound is limited.
They’re not my favourite vocal consort (they’re still good), but I’m not sure I’d call their repertoire “limited”. They sing anything from baroque to contemporary, regularly commission works, and even done some big concert pieces (Bach passions, Messiah) with their associated academies.
And whether one likes their performances or not has no bearing on the quality of their outreach, education, and music promotion work.
“The omission of any mention of Simon Webb”.
Simon Webb wrote the statement.
Seems more likely – given his habitual carelessness in written communication – that someone wrote it for him and he signed it off. Also, it’s unusual for him to omit to take credit for anything that can be spun – however tenuously – as an achievement.
Huh. I didn’t know VOCES8 was more than 8 people singing.
Then I suggest that you go to one of their concerts. They are very open to discussion, certainly not just backstage, but in the foyer of a concert hall, or at the back of a church. The ensemble has worked very hard over the years to establish various educational, musical and outreach programs. We are looking here at about two decades of very hard work indeed.
There’s a whole Voces8 foundation, that runs education programs, as well as associated ensembles. During the first lockdowns they turned their Centre (a former church in London) into a filming studio and have been broadcasting concerts with themselves and other UK ensembles since.
What is “Orchestral Tax Relief”? Sounds like something lots of organisations should be pursuing.
Been around since 2014. Most eligible orchestras have long since applied for it. The question here is why the BBC, with its responsibility for large sums of public money and obvious unwillingness to spend money on its ensembles – hasn’t already done so.
Voces8 are a superb ensemble and have successfully diversified into a wide range of relatively small-scale activities closely tied to the group’s central profile. Their last large scale partnership announcement, with Cambridge University, quietly disappeared. I’m not at all convinced of their capacity to offer long term partnership to the BBC Singers.
Voces8 are very limited D, good as they are. Hardly the BBC Singers in name, sound or sight-reading ability. One rehearsal and then often straight on the air with the most complex of new music.
Well I pay a truck load in TV licence fees, and attend hundreds of concerts, not to mention paying council tax and HMRC tax, so the BBC can fund the arts and stop whining. And the government can also start prioritising the arts.
As far as I can make out — through the obfuscatory press-release verbiage and other reporting — the VOCES8 Foundation will not be giving any direct financial support but will funnel some of its education gigs to the BBC Singers.