Funds restored to Netherlands Music Centre, with help from Bernard Haitink

[bluestateprommer]

One of the threads in the old R3 message boards that didn't get a lot of notice was the announcement that the new Dutch coalition government was threatening to defund completely, by 2012, the Netherlands Broadcasting Music Centre (MCO), based in Hilversum, from where the Dutch Radio music archive and orchestras (Netherlands Radio Philharmonic et al.) are administered. This would have potentially led to the dismantling of all the Dutch radio orchestras and the loss of the music collections there. There was a noticeable hue and cry raised by musicians in the Netherlands and abroad, including Bernard Haitink. To hear the MCO tell it, at the time, soon after the new budget from the coalition was announced (the link source is towards the end):

"Bernard Haitink immediately took an overt stand against the plans; one of his actions was an open letter published in the NRC Handelsblad of 18 October 2010. He recently gave his full endorsement and donated his services to the release of a protest CD with recordings of Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust which he performed in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw in 1999 with the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, the Netherlands Radio Choir and soloists."

This link from NRC Handelsblad isn't a direct link to that open letter, but apparently quotes from it:

http://vorige.nrc.nl/kunst/article2632977.ece/Haitink_sluiting_Muziekcentrum_is_een_schanddaad

From this link (the source of the above summary of Haitink's protest action):

http://en.mco.nl/mco_page/detail/21301

There's also this, about the pushback on the cuts to the MCO and the pressure put on the government:

"To the profound joy and relief of the MCO and its ambassadors, the government has since retracted this decision in part and will now make a maximum of €14 million available to the MCO on a structural basis. This is seen as the first step towards a vigorous continuation of the MCO."

The announcement also states Haitink's formal appointment as one of the MCO's ambassadors.

[Cellini]

Great news. Now we need action here in the UK.

[amateur51]

Bl**dy marvellous news!

I remember at the end of the staged Ring Cycle at the Royal Albert Hall Haitink's making a speech about the possibility of the ROH orchestra's being disbanded while the house was being refurbished. A wonderful man.

[Simon]

It got a fair bit of notice, I thought. But it's good to hear that some of the funding has been restored: let's hope that they now use it for proper music with such as Haitenk, and not for the the nonsensical noise that some "composers" over there used to come out with: people who, one hopes, if public money is no longer available to keep them, will be forced to get a job more suitable to their skills and more useful to Dutch society.

[amateur51]

It got a fair bit of notice, I thought. But it's good to hear that some of the funding has been restored: let's hope that they now use it for proper music with such as Haitenk, and not for the the nonsensical noise that some "composers" over there used to come out with: people who, one hopes, if public money is no longer available to keep them, will be forced to get a job more suitable to their skills and more useful to Dutch society.

Interesting to compare this from the Hans Keller of Nutwood with his earlier opening post on the 'Hear and Now' board:

'An honour indeed.

As a lover of all things "groundbreaking", novel and that fly in the face of the well-loved and established traditions of centuries, I'd just like to say what an honour it is to be the first to post on the "New Music" board.

I thought I'd get it out of the way at the very beginning, so that later posters can relax happy in the knowledge that they can discuss their thing with nary a discordant voice - though of course that doesn't apply to the music - amongst them!'

Professor Says Speak With Forked Tongue

[Bryn]

It got a fair bit of notice, I thought. But it's good to hear that some of the funding has been restored: let's hope that they now use it for proper music with such as Haitenk, and not for the the nonsensical noise that some "composers" over there used to come out with: people who, one hopes, if public money is no longer available to keep them, will be forced to get a job more suitable to their skills and more useful to Dutch society.

Who is Haitenk? Some invention by a nonsensical noise maker from the Peak District?

[Cellini]

Amateur and Bryn

[Simon]

Who is Haitenk?

Haitenk is a new conductor from Holland - come on, get with it. Haven't you heard of him yet? Oh dear, the neanderthals there are about these days...

Of all the people to be picked up on a typo by...

[Bryn]

Haitenk is a new conductor from Holland

Clearly a Freudian slip conditioned by an infatuation with Friedrich Hayek.

[Simon]

A general reading of Hayek will show that his ideas were very varied; no need for the left to be afeared of them! Perhaps his views on bank freedoms might have been slightly naive (though IMO far less so than they would have ben today) but apart from that an eminently sensible man, not at all as "conservative" as some may believe.

Anyway, you just wait till I catch you with a suitable typo: I'll get you back.

[Cellini]

"not for the the nonsensical noise that some "composers" over there used to come out with: people who, one hopes, if public money is no longer available to keep them, will be forced to get a job more suitable to their skills and more useful to Dutch society.

So which "composers" did you study with at Nutwood, Simon? After you had been "kept" at university (even if it was Nutwood) did you get a job more suitable to your skills? Did you eventually "Peak" in your suitably chosen job? Public bar raconteur maybe? Is that where you go Dutch??!!

[ahinton]

Haitenk is a new conductor from Holland- come on, get with it. Haven't you heard of him yet?

Haitenk that I haven't.

Oh dear, the neanderthals there are about these days.

I see that you can't type "Netherlands" correctly either.

More seriously, though, I was one of those composers on the now-defunct forum. Thanks for the compliment, SS.

[Simon]

Very good, all of you. It's nice to see that we can disagree and not fall out, which is as it should be.

AH: I'd be delighted to hear some of your music, if you have a link. I gather from a past comment that you are a tonal composer. Please note that I have very much enjoyed some contemporary pieces that I have occasionally come across, and of course it goes without saying that there are good and bad in the world of music just as there are anywhere else.

[amateur51]

Very good, all of you. It's nice to see that we can disagree and not fall out, which is as it should be.

AH: I'd be delighted to hear some of your music, if you have a link. I gather from a past comment that you are a tonal composer. Please note that I have very much enjoyed some contemporary pieces that I have occasionally come across, and of course it goes without saying that there are good and bad in the world of music just as there are anywhere else.

Oh yes indeed Simon, we recall well your fervent advocacy of Lachenmann's Mouvements as a piece to turn to if someone 'needed a lift'

Not a dry leg in the house!

[BBMmk2]

Maybe its time for someone to tell our coalition goverment a thing or two about the need for greater awareness in the arts in this country. Do they not realise how good it is, sayin eductaion, in the growth developement of a child, has the greater advantage over the other children, who do not?