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The Radio 3 Boards > The Music Boards > Making Music > The Olympics or the Arts?
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Author Topic: The Olympics or the Arts?  (Read 257 times)
Andy D
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« on: 12:45:49, 03-10-2007 »
The concert organisation with which I'm involved has just been told by the Arts Council that our application for funding for the coming season has been turned down because we have "insufficient priority" - and this is after they've been supporting our activities for quite a few years. So the cost of the Olympics is beginning to bite already. I was expecting that we might not get all we applied for but not that we'd get nothing.

The effect is that we'll probably have to cut our programmes drastically to avoid going bust within a couple of years. Even then we'll still be struggling, since money will be harder to get from other sources as a consequence of less Arts Council money being available generally. It looks like a gloomy few years ahead for the Arts.  Sad

Anyone else been affected yet?
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TimR-J
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« Reply #1 on: 12:58:19, 03-10-2007 »
Ugh, that's horrible news, Andy.
 Angry Sad Sad
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Jonathan
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Still Lisztening...


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« Reply #2 on: 12:59:25, 03-10-2007 »
Why am I not surprised?   Sad
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Best regards,
Jonathan
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"as the housefly of destiny collides with the windscreen of fate..."
Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #3 on: 13:57:44, 03-10-2007 »
There's a second aspect to this, I fear.  Most funding of this kind is cyclical.  A supposedly "one-time" cut-back might very easily turn into a permanent one Sad   Unfortunately generous efforts by performers, sponsors, venues, etc to cushion the blow to preserve things "for better times ahead" are more usually turned into "proof" that organisations can perfectly well manage without the funds in future years too Sad

When I worked at ENO in the 1980s, a new production was given 8 weeks rehearsal, and revival got 6 weeks.  Now new shows are done on 5 weeks, and revivals on just 3 weeks - simply because funding cutbacks were crisis-handled, but the "crisis" became the "norm".
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
-  Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
Andy D
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« Reply #4 on: 21:39:49, 11-10-2007 »
We've already had to make some cuts. The first is a new piece which we were commissioning for this season - I've just written to the composer telling him the bad news so I'm able to write about it here now. The second is that we shall be cutting 4 concerts from our programme for next season. Whether this will be sufficient to stop us going broke, I'm not sure.
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pim_derks
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« Reply #5 on: 15:54:45, 18-10-2007 »
Quote from: Reiner Torheit on 13:57:44, 03-10-2007
When I worked at ENO in the 1980s, a new production was given 8 weeks rehearsal, and revival got 6 weeks.  Now new shows are done on 5 weeks, and revivals on just 3 weeks - simply because funding cutbacks were crisis-handled, but the "crisis" became the "norm".

Ah, the 1980s:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TODN9kO35ag&mode=related&search=

Those were the days. Cool
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"People hate anything well made. It gives them a guilty conscience." John Betjeman
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