Hope the voice of the people is heard by the authorities.
Thal
Well, the elections have been and the new government is due to be installed today. So, with the hindsight of how these things have always gone....
Of course in the case of a financial deficit the government should try and balance things, if need be by making cuts. It always puzzles me, not just with the govs, that those in power never ever consider making cuts from their own considerable fat. If a hospital almost goes broke due to the wages of their "counsil of managers" or whatever, said counsil remains untouched, cuts are made among the nurses and such. Recently here construction on a new road has commenced after
40 years (no typo!) of making and adjusting plans. Guess the loss of money... When the banking (and pension) system threatend to collapse, nothing was changed in running things, but merely taxpayers money was used to plug the holes.
What is so problematical in the proposed scrapping of the MCO is the combined value of it. To compare, we have several provincial symphony orchestras. I would like to retain all, but I also know that the repertoire they offer is overlapping quite a bit, quite a bit of it being the Iron Repertoire. So if their have to be orchestras scrapped, I’d prefer scrapping there rather than in something as valuable as the MCO. The Hague Philharmonic and the Rotterdam Philharmonic are both very good orchestras, but one could discuss the need of two big symphony orchestras in town that practically touch each other. One could discuss merging them, and from the whole make one symphony and one chamber orchestra, for example. If asked: would I scrap the Utrecht, Limburg and North Holland Symphony Orchestras to save the MCO I’d say “yes”, not because I’d like to loose them, but because the MCO is way more valuable that the three orchestras mentioned (not that I like the idea of kicking people on the cobbles).
I have some sort of suspicion that scrapping the MCO is not the plan the govs want, but rather something else, and by way of proposing the MCO let the sector propose other victims instead so that they then can say “well, if the sector itself want to scrap [fill in here], we will act according to their wishes”. Would you call that sleazy politics? Ah, welcome to that wonderful world!
Some things in the way orchestras and such are run must change, its present system being too inflexible and uninventive, and too dependent on governmental support. But both the government and the people who run the orchestras should realise that the present situation is not the fault of the orchestras or the public, but of the government and managers who put it in working. If these people created the problems, they should solve them in such a way that the orchestras and public aren’t the ones suffering. If a doctor gives the wrong treatment, don’t let the doctor go on as he does and kill the patient, but correct or replace the doctor and save the patient.
I’ll ad here an article by Bart van Meijl, business manger of De Nieuwe Philharmonie Utrecht, in De Volkskrant 09-10-2010. De Nieuwe Philharmonie (The New Philharmonic) is a small (20-60 players) new orchestra that was set up and exists outside of the “establishment”, and might function as a example of how things might be changed in the establishment. For those who can read Dutch:
https://wp.philharmonieutrecht.nl/Here’s the article (my translation):
Artsector is subsidy addicted
The new cabinet has announced it intends to introduce substantial financial cuts in the arts sector. The almost impossible to get cooperative but always enthusiastically campaigning artsector is rampant. But is all this really a surprise for the arts business, or is it high time for a drastic adjustment in the present system?
The reaction of the sector is as usual: coffins on the podia, orchestras before the Second Chamber (the Dutch “House of commons” G), et cetera. Remarkable to see that other sectors that face cuts react by cutting their own fat too and react with presenting strategic, to-the- future-looking solutions (such as in health care). Sadly the arts sector rather bogs down in self pity and tries, by virtue of expensive names such as Hans Wijers of Akso Nobel, to save their lives. But if Wijers finds it all so important, surely a sponsoring by Akso Nobel is a better solution than a mere signature under a petition?
Of course the arts sector cannot exist totally without subsidy; parts of it are simply unable to sponsoring or cooperation with the private sector. The outdated Collective Labour Agreement (this is a Dutch system of setting up a set of rights and obligations between employers and employees within a sector or [large] company. G) leads to a situation where orchestras can hardly be flexible or cost efficient. Financial cuts could lead to clear-cut’s that would not have been necessary if the ministry and arts sector had made adjustments in an earlier stage.
The ministry should stimulate the orchestral system, which now operates as a closed on itself, subsidised institution in which long year agreements are made, more with giving out commissions and less by multiple-year subsidy agreements. Exactly the, by the ministry chosen and by the orchestras accepted, system of financing leads to subsidy addiction, in which spaces for new developments need to be minimally utilised.
When the social support level finds itself under pressure, cuts are unavoidable. Both the ministry and the leaders and directors of the orchestras have consciously accepted that an almost infinite subsidy relation is necessary to keep the sector alive, and have taken an unnecessary risk with that.
In the end it are the musicians who are the victim of those financial cuts. Those musicians are day in day out busy putting on artistic achievements on top levels and hardy interfere with developments in politics. So, where the directors of the orchestras and the ministry could have seen these cuts coming, they will appear as thunder in a clear sky for the musicians.
I really do hope that the advocacies together with the ministry this time round can come to a change in the system by which the musicians will be hurt the least and in which some self-searching will be done too.Yes, things need to change, but not by slash and burn one of the most valuable assets my country has to offer in classical music!
All best,
gep
Topic: Netherlands woes