Rutteleaks 4 on orchestras: 'Mergers Brabants Orkest and Limburg Symphony Orchestra, Gelders Orkest and Orkest v.h. Oosten, Residentie Orkest and RphO'

Of course we are being horribly abused. By the coughing chain-smoker with his trench coat in that Hague car park. Is there a bigger plan behind it. Which again we know nothing about, but which will become clear on 23 May. So be it. Until then, we can do nothing but slavishly write down what the coughing oracle coughs at us.

Well: We already knew that waiting year 2013 had been abolished, now we also know which classical music orchestras will not make it that year in any case. Strangely enough, the North Netherlands Orchestra is not among them; in fact, the North is given a greater regional function in the Rutte government's plans. Also Meppel now has to go. Something about brown beans and praying, and that music should accompany it. In Drenthe.

What does stand to happen? Pair of mergers. After all: at least two orchestras have to go out. So The Brabant Orchestra and the Limburg Symphony Orchestra go together. If only they shouldn't have voted PVV, roars the trenchcoat. Pitch probably will be Eindhoven. But Venlo is also a possibility. As revenge on Geert.

And because Gelderland and Overijssel are close to each other, they have to work together there too. So merge the Orchestra of the East and the Gelderland Orchestra. Now only remains to see who gets to house them. Will they come in that monumental Musis Sacrum in Arnhem or in Enschede's brand-new Muziekkwartier, where they have to fear for the Reisopera's survival anyway? Let's just say that Libyan conditions are expected in the battle for the joint orchestra and autumn will be hot there too. Or spring, now that we've already borrowed this from the trench coat.

With the Muziekcentrum voor de Omroep halved (because you can count on Minister Bijsterveld's measure being rock-hard), you'd think that the hunger for reorganisation in The Hague would be appeased, but then they know Halbe Zijlstra not yet. Because Halbe Zijlstra wants his old Utrecht friend Geert Wilders naturally accommodate with an action that would make fun of the leftist elites in the Randstad. He looked briefly at the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, but was told that that would really be a few Bridges too far anyway. That would cost that other Amsterdam orchestra probably headline, but much more far-reaching is the intervention in the southern periphery.

Yep.

The ResidentieOrkest is going down - at least if we are to believe our ruttering parking attendant. Probably the orchestra, in the words of local politicians also known as 'trombone club', merged with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, but it could also be accidentally kicked out of the so-called Basic Infrastructure, to be allowed to keep on honking with a backpack from the Performing Arts Fund for another four years. A death-house construction, according to our chain-smoker, and he knows all about it.

To be continued - of course.