"Metropole Orchestra must keep its unique position"
Robert van Zanten, director-owner of the NCOI Opleidingsgroep in Het Financieele Dagblad, text and photography: Michiel Goudswaard – Saturday, October 15, 2011:
"It is incomprehensible that the Cabinet has decided to cut off the Metropole Orchestra’s subsidy. I realize that we must cut costs, also in the arts budget, but the Metropole Orchestra holds a unique position in the Dutch musical world. We have numbers of classical orchestras, but this is the only orchestra in the country that focuses on light music, and what’s more, it has the largest following of young people. The Metropole Orchestra has an internationally huge reputation and has played with many of the greats from pop and jazz. Ella Fitzgerald, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Al Jarreau, and so on.
In our country, it is a beacon for young musicians; they all want to play in this orchestra someday. If the Metropole Orchestra disappears, you will be denying these youths the opportunity to ever be able to perform at this level. For other youths, the orchestra is a source of inspiration to take up a musical instrument.
Add to this that through the orchestra young people, come in contact with less accessible, high-quality music. You must learn to listen to good light music, the same as with classical. The Metropole Orchestra serves a unique bridging function between popular music and quality music, advanced jazz, for example. (...)
It is easy for the Cabinet to say that the orchestra must find other ways to pay its salaries. That’s possible, to a degree, via sponsors and concert earnings, but it cannot be accomplished overnight. I doubt, too, that such a high-quality orchestra, despite the low salaries the musicians receive, can become 100 percent self-sufficient. The government must play a role in this. I hope that in the Netherlands a group of people will come forward and try to change the Cabinet’s mind, for if you dismantle an institution, you cannot rebuild it so easily later.”
(translation: Caecile de Hoog)
Laatste aanpassing op Friday 21 October 2011
