Robert Ashton wonders what the public’s ‘basic’ needs and priorities are, and whether arts funding can be justified in an age of austerity.
10cc released the hit single Art for Art's Sake in 1975; I was just 20 years old. In the same year, just three miles from my family home, Benjamin Britten was composing his final two works. He died the next year. But back then, although I'd obviously heard of Britten, I'd never listened to any of his music. My interest in the arts went no further than the current day's playlist on Radio Orwell.
So last week, I listened intently when a speaker at my local Community Foundation's annual bash presented evidence that early engagement with the arts boosts aspiration and academic achievement. Surrounded as I was by the local ‘great and good’, I wondered, not for the first time, if I had failed to reach my potential. What could my career path have been if I’d been better connected with the world around me?
The speaker, Peter Wilson MBE DL, is to performing art what I try to be to entrepreneurship; passionate, persuasive and successfully persistent. His own production company is responsible for the revival of Priestley's An Inspector Calls and the haunting Woman in Black. He is also perhaps the local establishment’s favourite 'luvvie.'
10cc released the hit single Art for Art's Sake in 1975; I was just 20 years old. In the same year, just three miles from my family home, Benjamin Britten was composing his final two works. He died the next year. But back then, although I'd obviously heard of Britten, I'd never listened to any of his music. My interest in the arts went no further than the current day's playlist on Radio Orwell.
So last week, I listened intently when a speaker at my local Community Foundation's annual bash presented evidence that early engagement with the arts boosts aspiration and academic achievement. Surrounded as I was by the local ‘great and good’, I wondered, not for the first time, if I had failed to reach my potential. What could my career path have been if I’d been better connected with the world around me?
The speaker, Peter Wilson MBE DL, is to performing art what I try to be to entrepreneurship; passionate, persuasive and successfully persistent. His own production company is responsible for the revival of Priestley's An Inspector Calls and the haunting Woman in Black. He is also perhaps the local establishment’s favourite 'luvvie.'