ACE and the BBC are ‘dismantling’ regional opera touring and classical music. But, as Andrew Mellor writes, their positive spin on these decisions hides an inability to admit failure.
If this feels like a time to breathe a sigh of relief, I’m sorry to snap you out of your reverie, but it isn’t. Everywhere I look I’m seeing references to the BBC Singers having been ‘saved’ and to the BBC having ‘reversed’ its decision to axe the ensemble.
I get why: it’s a means of surviving the horror show that currently passes for life as a classical music professional in England. But delusion is the mother of complacency, acquiescence, and eventual defeat. We owe it to BBC musicians to recognise that the Singers have not, in fact, been saved and that the BBC hasn’t, in fact, reversed so much as pulled temporarily into a side road. A cynic might conclude that the manoeuvre was designed to allow the Singers to appear at the Royal Albert Hall this summer - a PR exercise for the corporation’s bosses who see pound signs in the Proms brand but have no understanding of its supporting ecology...Keep reading on Classical Music.
If this feels like a time to breathe a sigh of relief, I’m sorry to snap you out of your reverie, but it isn’t. Everywhere I look I’m seeing references to the BBC Singers having been ‘saved’ and to the BBC having ‘reversed’ its decision to axe the ensemble.
I get why: it’s a means of surviving the horror show that currently passes for life as a classical music professional in England. But delusion is the mother of complacency, acquiescence, and eventual defeat. We owe it to BBC musicians to recognise that the Singers have not, in fact, been saved and that the BBC hasn’t, in fact, reversed so much as pulled temporarily into a side road. A cynic might conclude that the manoeuvre was designed to allow the Singers to appear at the Royal Albert Hall this summer - a PR exercise for the corporation’s bosses who see pound signs in the Proms brand but have no understanding of its supporting ecology...Keep reading on Classical Music.