The orchestra, not the composer. Among its ambassadorial responsibilities will be ‘to promote cross-border mobility’.
I guess that’s an affirmation of Gustav’s famous statement, ‘I am three times without a homeland’. Or not. You decide.
(pictured: Mahler with some Dutch pals)
Here’s the press statement.
| MAHLER CHAMBER ORCHESTRA – PRESS RELEASE | ||
The MCO is named “Cultural Ambassador” of the European Union
The Mahler Chamber Orchestra is the recipient of financial support from the EU for the next three years, and has been named Cultural Ambassador of the European Union: with its multi-national membership and the wide-ranging international radius of its activities, the MCO supports intercultural dialogue and flexibility in the mobility of artists and the art of music. With a variety of outreach projects, the MCO also continues to increase its involvement in social and educational areas.
The cultural programme of the European Union (EU) pursues the goal of enhancing our shared cultural heritage in order to support cross-border co-operation and promote the creation of a European citizenship. The comprehensive funding programme, divided into several sections of activity, has three specific goals:
– to promote cross-border mobility of those working in the cultural sector
– to encourage the transnational circulation of cultural and artistic output
– to foster intercultural dialogue
The selection process analyses and evaluates various criteria such as sustainability, range of influence and quality of the applicant and his activities.
The MCO received the highest number of points in the evaluation: “As a consequence of its cosmopolitan membership and its nomadic existence the activities of MCO are highly relevant to all three specific objectives of the programme”, reported the selection committee. “The MCO seems to be a fine example of multinational and multicultural cooperation in the field of European culture, such as an Ambassador of culture is supposed to be.”
The financial support, in the form of funding for operating costs, is granted over a period of three years. EU president José Manuel Barroso has also given his patronage to the India tour that will take the MCO and Indian musician Amjad Ali Khan to India in January 2012 for a series of concerts as well as for education projects with children and young Indian musicians.
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