BBC Singers survive

[Wowbagger]

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/mar/24/bbc-singers-u-turn-decision-scrap-chamber-choir-public-outcry

The BBC seems to be in the process of turning itself from one of the world's leading music broadcaster into a cultural desert, but a public outcry has done something to slow the decline.

[T42]

The public outcry probably came as a great surprise to the Beeb's oligarchs.

[andrewc]

That's only the singers though.   The BBC orchestra's are still in line for a massive 20% headcount reduction.


Some very cynical commentators suspect the Singers were used as a stalking horse for the other cuts....

[Peter]

I'm possibly going to ruffle some feathers here but I was uneasy at the news that the BBC was intending to fire the BBC Singers.  Firstly, I hate the idea of real musicians being thrown on the scrap-heap and losing their jobs.  But I have to admit to conflicting emotions because nobody over the years has been able to cure the sopranos of their excessive vibrato, so they (the sopranos, at least,) are not the artistic loss that is so bemoaned.  Honestly, it should be pretty easy to correct this but I've waited in vain.  I haven't been able to listen to any choral music that has involved the BBC singers for decades, now.

ETA As I have indicated, there should be an alternative to redundancy!

[andrewc]

https://slippedisc.com/2023/04/major-leak-what-the-bbc-really-plans-for-its-orchestras/     


https://twitter.com/jessicaduchen/status/1643151445946933248


BBC orchestra's still in danger.

[andrewc]

Sir Simon Rattle on the continuing threats to classical music & opera in the UK.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/e10d796a-df63-11ed-987e-d6cb1598e405        https://archive.ph/821Sj (archived version in case of paywall).


"Simon Rattle: ‘This is a desperate moment. The entire art form is threatened’"



"As for the BBC, it’s obvious that the cuts will all be back on the table as soon as the Proms are over. They were just worried about protests and demonstrations [at the Royal Albert Hall].”


"And politicians, at least in the UK, increasingly seem terrified of admitting a liking for something as “rarefied” as classical music, let alone actively campaigning for it. “That’s what has changed so much,” Rattle says. “Someone like Denis Healey may have looked and acted like a tough old bruiser, which I’m sure he was, but he was one of the most widely cultured people I have ever met. Even Margaret Thatcher came to Glyndebourne, when we did Porgy and Bess. But at least she came. Nowadays, if a politician attended an orchestral concert or opera, it would be in secret. They would be frightened of being seen. It seems that more and more people are starting to believe the argument that classical music is only for the elite. And the decisions being taken now will make that come true, slowly but surely.”

[Cudzoziemiec]

My MP is a cellist and her husband is a professional classical musician. But she's Labour, which is the middle class person's party. Anyway, any art form which is so dependent on one individual broadcaster and/or organisation of active bodies, is in the same situation as a town where everyone works for the same employer.