Simon Rattle and the new London concert hall...

[MrGongGong]

Possibly because so many of them received their musical education privately, rather than through the state education system. They literally do not see the problem. It is outside their personal experience.

I wonder how many of the financial backers of the proposed new music centre would actually consider diverting their investment into musical education provision for the wider populace? Whatever role vanity plays in the project, it could well be that, pragmatically, an associated out-reach programme would eventually be more effective than whatever proportion of the currently considered finance might have a chance of diversion as mentioned earlier.

I also wonder just how many of the wider populace might be able to afford to experience the 'perfect acoustics' of the centre, if built.

Quite
What they mean by 'perfect acoustics' is, of course, open to considerable debate (and many displays of ignorance)

[teamsaint]

Thread can be closed now

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/18/city-of-london-scraps-plan-for-tate-modern-of-classical-music

I guess that most people will have mixed feelings.


Maybe some more universally acceptable scheme will arise from the ashes.

[subcontrabass]

Additional comment here: https://www.theguardian.com/music/20...n-its-passing-

[french frank]

Additional comment here: https://www.theguardian.com/music/20...n-its-passing-

Top comment at the moment:

"Why on earth should any concert venue be publicly funded, let alone one frequented by the rich, and well able to pay its own way?"

Which betrays this country's real problem as (very) distinct from the solution. We have an unending cultural chicken-and-egg cycle.

[bluestateprommer]

The New York Times gave the end of the Centre for Music plans an article (which back-links to Martin Kettle's Guardian commentary) here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/19/arts/music/london-concert-hall-scrapped.html

For us benighted Yanks, Alex Marshall's article also provides a quick summary of the new problems that UK musicians are encountering if they hope to work in continental Europe.

Given the overall situation, it's evidently better to throw in the towel and take any criticism now for halting the Centre for Music, rather than start the project and sink a ton of money into it, and get raked over the coals for the inevitable cost overruns and such.

On ff's citing of the one comment about public support for a concert hall, with the chicken-and-egg subtext, I found this quote from another NYT article about US arts organizations and charitable priorities among Americans:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/arts/arts-groups-pandemic-donors.html

"This month’s [December 2020] annual summit of the Arts Funders Forum, which aims to increase private funding for arts and culture in the United States, emphasized how arts institutions need to demonstrate to donors what they are doing to drive social change.

'Of the causes that Americans of all generations do support,” said Melissa Cowley Wolf, director of the forum, during her opening remarks, “arts and culture do not make the top seven.'"

In terms of just a concert hall, a contrasting story might well be the New York Philharmonic, where the current executive director, Deborah Borda, may well be doubling down to use the current empty David Geffen Hall to jump-start renovations. The funding, of course, will be generally different, where I don't expect that the New York City government or the particular section where Lincoln Center is based would try to pony up money in the way that the City of London was tied to the proposed Centre for Music, i.e. in NYC, most, if not all, of those funds will be private, raised mainly from the uber-wealthy, in all likelihood.

Speaking of public money, and perhaps getting side-tracked from the original topic, I'm assuming that the construction at Stratford Waterfront that includes the new 'centre for music' for the BBC SO and other BBC music groups is continuing, even given the pandemic and Brexit and related stress on funds because of both.

[bluestateprommer]

Further comment on the London concert hall-not-to-be, from Andrew Mellor (and not behind a paywall, unlike this website's other material):

https://www.classical-music.uk/opinion/article/the-long-view-if-the-city-won-t-build-london-a-new-hall-someone-else-must

[Petrushka]

Further comment on the London concert hall-not-to-be, from Andrew Mellor (and not behind a paywall, unlike this website's other material):

https://www.classical-music.uk/opini...eone-else-must

Andrew Mellor puts up a persuasive argument. However, I think with this bit (my bold) 'For all its disdain for the arts, we have a government inclined to spend on capital building projects led by a Prime Minister apparently interested in both orchestral music and statement architecture' it's a case of 'citation needed'!

[muzzer]

Andrew Mellor puts up a persuasive argument. However, I think with this bit (my bold) 'For all its disdain for the arts, we have a government inclined to spend on capital building projects led by a Prime Minister apparently interested in both orchestral music and statement architecture' it's a case of 'citation needed'!

Oh he’s channelling Ted Heath after all. Everything’s going to be all right.