Musicians Union lashes out at ENO cuts
OrchestrasThe MU has responded to English National Opera’s plan to decimate its orchestra, reported exclusively yesterday in slippedisc.com.
Musicians’ Union (MU) members at the English National Opera (ENO) learned that the company plans to axe 19 posts and employ its remaining musicians on part-time contracts.
The management’s new proposals, which have been discussed with Arts Council England, are a result of decreased funding for ENO since 2014, the instruction to Arts Council England from Nadine Dorries to move funding out of London and other financial challenges facing ENO. Like other organisations, the organisation must pay back its Covid recovery loan as of next year and it says the funding granted to it by Arts Council England is simply not enough to cover its costs, move partially out of London and maintain full-time employment for its performers.
The Musicians’ Union plans to reject the proposals and fight to keep its members at ENO in full-time jobs, on full-time pay.
MU National Organiser for Orchestras Jo Laverty said: “ENO management were clear that it was the support and campaigning of the unions that helped them achieve their improved ACE funding settlement. To now be faced with these proposed cuts to our members’ jobs is devastating and we can’t accept what’s on the table. We weren’t naive to the likelihood of changes but the extent of these proposals will send shockwaves through the music community and ENO’s audience.
The Government and Arts Council England have put ENO in an impossible situation and rather than ‘levelling up’ we’re seeing arts organisations cut performances and creative output. It’s a dire situation and extremely bleak for our affected members.
We urge the ENO to reconsider these proposals and call upon the Government and Arts Council England to take urgent action in support of the company. Our members in the orchestra of ENO do not deserve to be treated in this way, especially given the quality and breadth of their recent work. The Union will fight hard to secure a brighter future for them.”
MU Steward at the ENO, violinist Glen Sheldon said: “I am deeply shocked by the announcement to take a carving knife to the employment of ENO’s musicians, leaving a rump of work that will no longer be a viable option for many currently employed there, or for those looking to it as a beacon of future opportunity.”
MU General Secretary Naomi Pohl said: “We campaigned for ENO’s survival as a company and the orchestra are a fundamental part of that company.
The Government and Arts Council England need to urgently reconsider their recent decision-making and get back in the room with ENO’s management. The combination of reduced funding, a Covid recovery loan to repay, rising costs and the instruction to partially move out of London is too much for ENO to navigate through.
For the Government to increase theatre and orchestral tax relief, which we welcomed, but still leave organisations having to downsize is counter-intuitive.
If the Government want the UK to remain a leading light in music and the creative industries, as well as to stimulate growth in these sectors, they must act now to protect our cultural institutions. The Covid recovery loans were intended to keep organisations running permanently. We won’t stand by as arts organisations wither and our members’ careers are decimated.”
Some years ago there was a serious move to combine ENO’s orchestra with one of the London orchestras providing a larger pool of players rather in the manner of Vienna with the VSO and the State Opera. It would have provided a flexible arrangement allowing concerts and operas to be mounted at the same time in separate venues. Internal fighting scuppered the opportunity which would have placed ENO players in a much stronger position than now.
No, there wasn’t. Total fabrication.
Go and inspect the ACE archive and you’ll see that it is all recorded there. It is correct.
It’s about time highly paid conductors and music directors stood up to help fight these cuts.
That assumes that anyone in government and/or the Arts Council is going to listen, consider and act. Until they consider arts and culture funding as part of a civilised society, the premise under which the Arts Council was created, no advocacy from anyone is going to have the slightest effect.
We have a government that considers an industry that contributed £111bn to the UK economy in 2018 to be elitist.
We also have a society being taxed at the highest rate in living memory while schools, hospitals, prisons, police and the like go allegedly underfunded. Yet the parties talk of tax cuts to win a pending election.
How much more tax do people want to pay to receive the level of services they judge necessary?
Well said
Tax the assets of the super, super rich. But no, this despicable government are never going to do that. And they have no notion of what the Arts are for or about. It is hard not to despair at times…
Martyn Brabbins has resigned in protest.
Uk national debt is at almost 100% of GDP, twice higher than it was before covid. That’s why belts are tightening. Let’s not kid ourselves, a change in government doesn’t magically wipe that debt. This is typical Union noise, amounting to little more than yah-boo.
surely the cuts are inevitable because of the ACE decision to relocate ENO?
I have to agree – there was discussion around the Amsterdam / Audi model: London has so many orchestras, they each could play one opera at ENO. Is it ideal? No. But it any of the current situations we observe ideal? No. The union look silly with this too late whine – we all knew painful job cuts were ahead, even if now delayed until their move in 2029. The company is clearly going to have to lay off even more people. Why is that such a surprise? Painful, but finally, their Board and CEO failed them. They have to take responsibility for their failures too.
“If the Government want the UK to remain a leading light in music and the creative industries, as well as to stimulate growth in these sectors, they must act now to protect our cultural institutions.”
Despite contributing over £111bn a year to the UK economy in 2018 (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uks-creative-industries-contributes-almost-13-million-to-the-uk-economy-every-hour), the Government has no interest or wish to support the arts or cultural institutions which, alone of most civilised nations, it continues to consider elitist and divisive.
It fails to see that its current policy of reducing funding for the best in the arts actually causes them to become elistist.