RPS Awards audience thumbs nose at new Government | reviews, news & interviews
RPS Awards audience thumbs nose at new Government
RPS Awards audience thumbs nose at new Government
Wednesday, 12 May 2010
The announcement by the Royal Philharmonic Society's keynote speaker Grayson Perry that the Queen had sent for David Cameron last night was met with audible groans from the great and the good of the classical music world at their Awards ceremony. Speaker after speaker made it perfectly clear that the Lib Dems (though almost certainly not the economically liberal, pro-nuclear, immigration-capping, Tory-serving Lib Dems that they have now woken up to) were the choice of the majority here and one after the other they pleaded that the Government ring-fence arts funding.
None of this is particularly surprising. The left-wing bias in the arts is no secret. And it wouldn't be the only sector campaigning to fend off budget cuts. But is all this begging and moaning and visceral anti-Conservatism right, helpful or grown-up? Cutting state funding of the arts is not the end of the world. Indeed, there is an argument that says that the arts thrive best on less. Look at America. Is it any wonder that some (if not most) of the greatest art, music and theatre of the past 50 years did not take place under the sclerotic system of state patronage in Europe but in the lithe, capitalist market of America?
The classical music industry needs to accept that cuts will come. They need to start thinking about how to slim down, or shall we say focus, their operations. Education? Outreach? Conductors' salaries? Are we perhaps producing too many musicians? If they don't, Cameron will just start slashing, willy-nilly, Freddy Krueger-style, and they'll have themselves to blame.
Oh, and here are the winners:
- Award for Audience Development: the Philharmonia Orchestra's re-rite
- Singer: Philip Langridge (the award was delivered to him in hospital two days before he died)
- Young Artist: counter-tenor Iestyn Davies
- Instrumentalist: pianist Stephen Hough
- Conductor: Oliver Knussen
- Opera and Music Theatre: the BBC Symphony Orchestra's performance of Martinů’s Juliette
- Education: English Touring Opera with Hall for Cornwall’s One Day, Two Dawns
- Chamber Music Celebrations, and Song: the Wigmore Hall’s Haydn Bicentenary Season Celebrations
- Concert Series and Festivals: Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival
- Ensemble: London Sinfonietta
- Large-Scale Composition: Kaija Saariaho's Notes on Light
- Chamber-Scale Composition: Kevin Volans's viola: piano
more Classical music
Sabine Devieilhe, Mathieu Pordoy, Wigmore Hall review - enchantment in Mozart and Strauss
Leading French soprano shines beyond diva excess
Špaček, BBC Philharmonic, Bihlmaier, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - three flavours of Vienna
Close attention, careful balancing, flowing phrasing and clear contrast
Watts, BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Bignamini, Barbican review - blazing French masterpieces
Poulenc’s Gloria and Berlioz’s 'Symphonie fantastique' on fire
Bell, Perahia, ASMF Chamber Ensemble, Wigmore Hall review - joy in teamwork
A great pianist re-emerges in Schumann, but Beamish and Mendelssohn take the palm
First Persons: composers Colin Alexander and Héloïse Werner on fantasy in guided improvisation
On five new works allowing an element of freedom in the performance
First Person: Leeds Lieder Festival director and pianist Joseph Middleton on a beloved organisation back from the brink
Arts Council funding restored after the blow of 2023, new paths are being forged
Classical CDs: Nymphs, magots and buckgoats
Epic symphonies, popular music from 17th century London and an engrossing tribute to a great Spanish pianist
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Philharmonia Chorus, RPO, Petrenko, RFH review - poetic cello, blazing chorus
Atmospheric Elgar and Weinberg, but Rachmaninov's 'The Bells' takes the palm
Daphnis et Chloé, Tenebrae, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - lighting up Ravel’s ‘choreographic symphony’
All details outstanding in the lavish canvas of a giant masterpiece
Goldscheider, Spence, Britten Sinfonia, Milton Court review - heroic evening songs and a jolly horn ramble
Direct, cheerful new concerto by Huw Watkins, but the programme didn’t quite cohere
Marwood, Power, Watkins, Hallé, Adès, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - sonic adventure and luxuriance
Premiere of a mesmeric piece from composer Oliver Leith
Elmore String Quartet, Kings Place review - impressive playing from an emerging group
A new work holds its own alongside acknowledged masterpieces
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