Amsterdam, August 22, 2008

Dear friends,

While choral music in Holland is supposed to be one of the most valued sources of our musical heritage, the only professional ensemble which propagates this heritage according to its terms of reference, and in so doing has also built up an exceptional reputation worldwide, is being threatened with extinction.

At the end of June 2008 the newly formed Nederlands Fonds voor de Podiumkunsten (Dutch Fund for the Performing Arts) informed the Nederlands Kamerkoor that it intends, over the period of four seasons (2009-2012), to reduce the subsidy to the choir by 60%. Apparently it is of the opinion that the Nederlands Kamerkoor can easily continue to function at its present level without the ‘high’ (as it terms them) costs involved in the singers’ permanent contracts. We are ‘too expensive’, according to the Fund.

The effect of the Fund’s proposal will be that within a few years the choir will no longer be able to employ singers on a contract basis, and will only be able to continue as a choir of freelancers. This would mean that the subsidy which has maintained and preserved the Nederlands Kamerkoor for more than forty years would come to an end, and that the choir would cease to exist as a full-time professional body.

This subsidy (for a choir with 21.6 permanent posts, plus supporting office staff) has been awarded the Nederlands Kamerkoor continuously since 1965, on the basis of the choir’s artistic terms of reference, which are: the performance of choral music in general (as specified since that date in the statutes of the choir) and of a cappella choral music in particular (as the choir has stated in its many policy statements which have been approved by the government ministry concerned.)

These artistic terms of reference have over the years been successfully expanded by means of:
(1)         a progressive policy of commissions given to composers both national and international;
(2)        working with numerous specialists in every area of almost a thousand years of choral music;
(3)        countless concerts, many in co-production with leading orchestras and ensembles both at home and abroad;
(4)        the production of a large number of CDs, and radio broadcasts of roughly 75% of all the choir’s productions annually;
(5)        setting an example at home and abroad as one of the finest a cappella chamber choirs in the world.
 
Internationally the Nederlands Kamerkoor is hailed as the ‘Rolls-Royce’ among chamber choirs, as a 'choeur de référence' – regardless of whether the programme consists of early music, contemporary music, a cappella repertoire or compositions with accompaniment. The choir has (ever since its foundation in 1937) played an exemplary role in its home country as well as abroad. Recent decades have seen the formation of many semi-professional or amateur chamber choirs in Holland, and furthermore the Nederlands Kamerkoor is co-founder of the prestigious Tenso platform for professional chamber choirs, and of the no less successful Eric Ericson Masterclass for young conductors.
 
Just as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra could not maintain its extraordinary standards solely with freelance musicians, or the National Ballet with freelance dancers, so is it impossible for the Nederlands Kamerkoor to sustain its particularly high standards with freelance singers alone. The damage caused by the measure proposed would be irreparable and irrevocable.

We therefore ask you to support the Nederlands Kamerkoor, preferably by means of a brief response addressed to the NKK or to myself. You can send your reaction to the special email address: actie@nederlandskamerkoor.nl. As a guideline, attached to this letter is an example of a possible response, but please feel free to formulate it in your own personal way. Many thanks in advance.
 
Yours most sincerely, also on behalf of the singers and staff of the NKK,

Leo Samama,
General Manager.
 

Example:
 
It is both unthinkable and undesirable that the Nederlands Kamerkoor, one of the world’s finest chamber choirs, should disappear from the musical scene. Both the exemplary role played by the NKK and the exceptional quality of its performances, often in collaboration with the country’s leading orchestras and ensembles, are of vital importance to this scene. The Nederlands Kamerkoor is thus in every respect an essential element of Dutch and international musical life.