Exclusive: Unease as UK orchestras are told to count EU players
OrchestrasThere is a rather shocking little survey being conducted by the Association of British Orchestras.
Among many questions, it asks members about the nationality of their players.
The ABO are doing a nationwide key facts survey including collating the numbers of non UK nationals working in our industry.
How many of you are EU nationals, excluding UK citizens?
How many of you are foreign, non–EU nationals, excludinng UK citizens?
The big question is who is behind this grotesque breach of privacy?
Is the the Brexit Government?
Arts Cancel England?
MI6?
Who?
But is it really a breach of privacy if only numbers are reported and not names? Ie, 35 U.K. members, 25 EU members?
It’s the thin end of a very BIG wedge
Only a hop, skip, and a jump to taking names…
Anyone could request this information under a FOI (Freedom of Information) request – nothing dubious about that. Happens all the time.
Yes. But ‘why?’ Is the question
There is literally nothing to see here. The same question was asked in 2019. It’s to track whether Brexit is having an impact on recruitment of EEA and non-EEA players, so the ABO can argue the need for inclusion on the MAC’s Shortage Occupation List etc. It’s to help the ABO represent the interests of its members to government.
Mark, Players are not members of the ABO. They have a GDPR right to have citizenship information kept private.
See comment above. It’s just numbers. No individual is identified.
Norman, Mark’s right. This is really not something sinister but an exercise in gathering information to make the case FOR non-British players in UK orchestras. If you want an axe to grind about personal privacy, I’d look to the tables in arts council forms that now require you to input demographic information for chairs and senior artistic/executive roles individually, which is then used as ‘balancing criteria’. I know a number of people who feel they’ve been forced into declaring demographic information (particularly hidden disabilities or minority gender statuses) just to improve their funding changes. Now THAT’S something to get worked up about!
Citizenship information is not allowed to be kept private to employers. Actually it never has been of course, so this is nothing to do with Brexit developments, and indeed I imagine in every country in the world this is similarly the law.
I think you’re making an error to connect simple, basic employment nationality statistics with Brexit or indeed with anything to do with the EU or being in or out of it – such that you appear to betray a bias.
Would you, for example, be so concerned about basic, simple statistical research on how many employees are from EU states outside of the UK if the UK remained a member of the EU? What is the difference, to do statistical fact finding about the nationality of foreign EU employees between when the home country is a member of the EU and when it isn’t?
I ask you isn’t it acceptable and allowable to want to have information about the percentage of EU employees in our orchestras? And if you think not, then why not? Why would you think such information would need to be kept secret?
Is there anything wrong with being an EU national working in a British orchestra? Of course not. Is there anything even unusual about being a national from an EU state working in an orchestra in the UK? Not at all. There are lots and lots of them within orchestras.
So what could the strange desire for secrecy be about?
In any case, as others have pointed out, there is no personal privacy issue in statistical researchers which enquires after pure numbers alone, and does not seek any kind of personal identity information.
Honestly, it has always been an everyday, normal occurrence to compile numbers regarding employees nationalities in all walks of life and it seems unreasonable suddenly to question this because Brexit happened a few years ago. (This also means that you run the risk of appearing as a worked up, loaded gun over the EU relationship matter, who may not seem very balanced.)
Where there is no cause for concern, creating an irrelevant, pointless concern can be just to make people concerned unnecessarily.
Employment statistics regarding nationality happened long before Brexit, and since, and always will happen, regardless of any contemporary political situations.
Hi Maark
Nice to see you’re paying close attention.
Couple of quick questions:
1) how exactly does the ABO “represent an industry” whose employees and freelancers are largely not your membership? &
2) exactly with whom is the data (regarding the ABOs non members) gathered in this survey shared with?
In anticipation,.your transparency appreciated
Shows a picture of the LSO who have at least twenty non UK players, which is great.
It took me approximately one minute to do a google search and find that the ABO does a periodic report called “The State of UK Orchestras” that includes various data on orchestra members, including the percentage of EU nationals. See page 7.
https://abo.org.uk/assets/files/News-and-Press/ABO-The-State-of-UKs-Orchestras-in-2019.pdf
Participation in the survey is voluntary — nobody was forced to provide this data — so how was any privacy breached? Further, unless there’s evidence to the contrary, I’m sure all the data was aggregated, making it impossible to know individual responses.
Before making this post, did you ask ABO for an explanation? Suggesting that ABO is doing MI6’s bidding without any evidence seams incredibly reckless, and the kind of thing a nut job conspiracy website would do.
First they asked how many Jews there were.
Then they asked who was a Christian.
By process of elimination, they gave a yellow star to everyone left.
History.
How soon we forget.
It’s reported that “among many questions,” member orchestras are asked about the nationality of players.
Firstly, what other questions are asked? Are they also about demographics and social factors? For instance, age distribution, male/female/non-cis (oh, the horror, he said “non-cis”!), level of education or where musicians received their educations?
And secondly, for a blog as nationality conscious as this one (e.g., in performance competitions, playing opportunities for British musicians in EU, etc.), it’s a curious thing to take umbrage at an innocent demographic question like this one.
We don’t have a Brexit government, and that’s why they’re facing extinction at the next GE.
From: Richard Stanbrook.
Date: 10th May 2024.
If I was in a UK orchestral manager’s shoes, any Government request/ directive of this nature would be ignored as a matter of course and the official responsible for such mean-spirited drivel to go and f*** himself/ herself.
Normally, I am against invective but there comes a point when even the most sanguine will say “enough is enough.” What a nasty place Brexitannia (or little fortress England) is turning into. Small wonder that musicians – and other artists – are relocating to the EU …
It’s not that hard to go to orchestra websites, search the players online and work out these figures. If there was some sinister MI6 plot they’d probably get some trainee to collate rgese figures fir them…
Visit, say, the LSO’s website and view the potted biographies of the players. That way you’ll get a pretty accurate idea of the number of non-UK players. Asking orchestras to supply numbers simply shortcuts this process, so where’s the problem?
This is shocking. It was done in schools 8 years ago. I refused to comply as a teacher. Some schools refused to take part. This is the kind of thing that happened in Rwanda in preparation for the genocide against the Tutsi.
Ask ABO rather than make dark hints about conspiracy theories.
Trust your gut.
Next there will be a limit on playing compositions by non- Brits.
While Britain turns out excellent musicians, deserting EU nationals who wish to apply for British orchestral posts will lower the quality and musical (not ethnic, religion sexual) diversity of the orchestras and also the various conservatories where they teach as second jobs. Britain has been sending their best composers overseas for tutelage at the great EU conservatories, Paris, Leipzig, Berlin…..think Sir Arthur Sullivan, William Sterndale Bennett and Frederick Delius, three who spent time in Leipzig at the Conservatory. Then you have instrumentalists like violinist Marie Hall who went to Prague to study with Sevick, Nigel Kennedy who came to New York to study with Dorothy Delay and Harry Blech who also went to Prague to study with Sevcik. Conductors like Sir Michael Costa, came from Italy and made his home in Britain. Sir Charles Halle came to Britain from Germany as a concert pianist, changed roles to conductor and established the orchestra which still bears his name. All of a sudden, Britain which has always been a beacon of artistic freedom is killing the performing arts. Perhaps with a change of governance with the next election, which looks probable, the arts will once again be properly funded.