CBSO is ‘devastated’
Orchestrasnorman lebrecht
February 21, 2024
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra has issued this statement about its defunding by the city council:
We are devastated at what the recently announced Birmingham City Council cuts could mean for Birmingham and the impact that they would have on people’s daily lives across the city.
The arts, culture, and heritage industries play a vital role in the economic and social life of our city; enhancing people’s lives, supporting jobs, and putting Birmingham on the world-stage.
In the face of ongoing austerity and reduction in public funding, alongside COVID-19 and rising inflation, the arts and culture sector has continued to be resilient. We remain open, and continue to welcome audiences, work with communities, and support artists in Birmingham, the UK, and internationally; as the sector responsible for the talent, development, and inspiration pipelines for the UK’s global economic and reputational success, we don’t plan on stopping.
The city council’s proposals would see investment in the cultural sector cut by 60% in 2024 and 100% in 2025.
The CBSO has received funding from Birmingham City Council for the past 104 years, and so we are saddened by the proposals contained within the draft budget. The cut will of course have lasting impact on the breadth and depth of work that we can deliver for the city, but nonetheless, we are determined to remain an essential part of Birmingham’s cultural landscape. We will take some time now to reflect on our future plans, but still look forward to announcing a vibrant and exciting new season in May.
This is an extremely bitter pill to swallow for one of the most worthy orchestras in the country.
There’s no arguing with bankruptcy, alas.
What a great opportunity for a newly minted AI billionaire, or some such, to step in.
What a great opportunity for Sir Simon to quit Prague and come back to Birmingham.
Welcome to American thinking
It’s sad, but what did they really expect – particularly in Birmingham, identified ages ago as a crisis city re lack of funding.
Lets hope the new hopeless hapless management take on board how their current stunts to reach a ‘new’ audience need to be reassessed if the CBSO has a hope of surviving?
The stunts seem to have already ended, with the last being the lighting rig brought in for the CBSO Youth Orchestra concert last weekend, which was totally unnecessary, uncalled for and useless. The next ‘project’ was to be on May 1st. for Pictures at An Exhibition, and has already been pulled acc. to the latest CBSO Members update.
Oscar Wilde defined a cynic as ”A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing’. That would do fine to describe Birmingham City Council and our present government too.
Shameful, and the counsellors that helped bankrupt the city are still in their jobs. They should be banned from standing at any future elections.
With the city no longer paying for that “City of” appellation, I see some naming rights that could be sold.
This is indeed dreadful, And another reason why the orchestra should not waste money on theatre and lighting directors in an attempt to alienate its current audience and replace them with a new one.
They need new audiences as all these institutions need.
See my comment above. They’ve pulled the ‘innovations’ scheduled for May 1st Pictures at an Exhibition.
“The city council’s proposals would see investment in the cultural sector cut by 60% in 2024 and 100% in 2025.” In other words, 0 funding.
As much as people on this site want to deny it, opera/classical is at the bottom of a city/country’s needs, a purely luxury activity affordable by the top..10%? And only a small portion of that know or care about the art form to send money/time to enjoy it. No amount of “reimaginings”, outreach, pandering to “underrepresented people” n woke nonsense can change that irrefutable fact.
But it’s not that straightforward. Culture in the economics of a city is a big driver of visitors and spend in the city, it’s part of a complex system – and it’s the culture that actually drives economic growth. So to cut off its roots is so short-sighted, especially when we look at the % of this cost compared with overall council budgets.
We’re also talking about cuts to visual arts organisations, a lot of whose work is free to the public.
Bottom line is obviously there is simply no money from the council so I can’t see any reversal from this position. The government has to step in.
A question, can you define what the ‘top 10%’ means?
CBSO must choose whether it wants to look feisty and undefeated or devastated and needy. It can’t be both.
Why not?
Someone needs to tell me what 15 years of Tory “austerity” has done for Great Britain — except to gut its culture, gut its military, and gut its economic might. Brexit and Woke are sideshows: convenient distractions to attempt to distract ordinary people from the real inequalities at hand. “Conservative” indeed.
Birmingham was bankrupted by a Labour council, as a direct result of litigation initiated by trade unions.
Yup and all the dreamers who think that a change to a Labour government is the magical cure all solution for the arts are in for a nasty shock. The welfare, social care and health systems are leaching cash faster than we are generating it and something is going to give.
You sound like an American?
Do any of you robotic left voting useful idiots still not convinced that Woke politics is not coming after classical music? Well, then hope you enjoy “eatink ze bugz” while you “own nothing und be happy” in your new great replacement utopia.
Your tropes are simply misplaced comments resulting in part from a paper written for the World Economic Forum, which got picked up by the alt-right in the States and developed into a world-wide conspiracy theory about so called 15-minute cities. Jon Ronson knocks it all down in his latest BBC 4 series ‘When Things Fell Apart’
It is vandalism on an epic scale. Of course we know that much of the problem stems from the Central Government’s obsession with Tax Cuts, but great cities like Birmingham should have been determined to keep some funding going, if only as an emblem. We are retreating into the Dark Ages, and my great teacher Adrian Boult will be turning in his grave.
Manchester and Leeds will be next.
A great shame but, sadly, a sign of the times we currently struggle to exist in. We could end up as ‘Das Land Ohne Music’ again! Not that anyone in political power in this country will care.
Sadly amusing how people are determined to shoehorn Tory politics into this. I’m no fan of this Government but I’m also aware that the modern Left has its own issues with what it sees as white, middle class, Eurocentric, grey haired interests.
The days of Jennie Lee are long gone.
cutting local authority funding by 65% since 2010 (when the tories arrived back i power) is stating facts — they also killed so much of the European work that our bands used to need to keep afloat
This is a call to arms. They need to stop crying in their tea. They should have expected this. It is only 5% of their budget and raise funds American-style. Birmingham is a great orchestra with a long history in that city and let the wealthy in the community help them raise the 5% with their donations and in-kind donations from their friends and solicit lots of small donations for those who can’t afford big ones. Have them throw parties for their wealthy friends. Bring in quartets etc. from within the symphony to perform at those fund raisers. Have them spoeak at those events about how much their help means to them and the cultural value of their city. Put together packages of perks like rehearsal tickets, cd’s etc. etc. to bring their assistance in. Tears in their beer won’t get the job done!
Back to Neandertal…
Classical music is too white it’s down right racist.
rubbish
I’m sure that’s what the racist composers like Mozart and Beethoven wanted when they composed their music. I suggest you get a life!!!
With the Tory Govt. cutting the amount of central funding (our money) given to local authorities by 65% since 2010 we can see the failure of their policies at first hand. Shameful
They will move to China.