Municipal politics remain powerless over cultural policy content, this time in Enschede

Municipal cultural politics are often about 'bricks and mortar'. People put up a cultural building and then pray/hope that great things will happen there, which the municipal council, in turn, has no money for/power over.

Take Enschede. In a council meeting in which it was decided by means of a loan of 475,000 euros to reinvest in cultural bricks, there was actually some unrest. No, not about those bricks, but about ArtEZ hogeschool voor de kunsten's plan to remove the conservatoire's Jazz & Pop department from Enschede and continue offering it exclusively in Arnhem and Zwolle. Not for the first time, the city council reacted acutely to a newspaper report and passed a motion calling on culture alderman Jeroen Hatenboer (VVD) to do everything possible to ensure that nothing would change about the current educational offer.

Nice of course, having a city council that is on top of the news with a heart for culture and education, but what can the alderman do with this motion? What can he change about ArtEZ's plans?

"In fact, nothing," Hatenboer explains. "I can contact the ministry and enter into talks with the other music partners, but first I want clarity on the plans." So the main question Hatenboer has at the moment is: "How is ArtEZ going to make it clear to the outside world what they are going to do and why?"

ArtEZ director Juul Diteweg confirmed the plans. "The decision has been taken, only the participation council still has to express its opinion on it." He regrets the council's hasty reaction and confirms the alderman's words. "We are a state-subsidised institution, so the culture councillor is not about our policy." However, he particularly regrets the image emerging from the publication in Tubantia has emerged: "Yes, the Jazz & Pop department (in Enschede: 39 students) is disappearing from Enschede. But the much larger pop academy remains. Indeed, it is only getting bigger. It seems as if artists like JunkieXL will now no longer teach in Enschede, but nothing could be further from the truth. Moreover, he was not even involved in the Jazz & Pop programme, nor in the pop academy, but in the MediaMusic programme, which will also just stay in Enschede."

It is part of a larger plan in which the conservatoire will remain in Arnhem, Enschede and Zwolle, but will raise its profile in each city. In Enschede, a connection is being sought with the University of Twente , and there is already intensive cooperation between rehabilitation centre Het Roessingh and the music therapy course, which is unique in our country.

Austerity

Of course, this is not entirely unrelated to the budget cuts and the new study funding: "We can no longer offer everything in three cities, especially if we want the offer to be future-proof, organisable, affordable and of better quality in order to become even more competitive." ArtEZ Conservatoire is one of the two largest conservatoires in the Netherlands.

The 39 current Jazz students can finish their studies in Enschede if they wish, and teachers will not be fired either. Diteweg understands that this does cause a stir among teachers and students, but the fuss and the hasty political reaction are reminiscent of the previous much-discussed decision, in which the classical department left Enschede. After all, that seemed at odds with the 'leading ensemble' of the then still National Music Quarter.

"The Music Quarter not only brings together six cultural institutions, but also all kinds of amateurs" cried then-cultural councillor Roelof Bleker in 2008. Synergy was the magic word, because "Once everyone is settled, this joint talent development will probably come out even more. Making something beautiful out of it together was the motto then, in which the result would invariably be more than the sum of its parts.

One violinist

"That image still haunts us all," Diteweg admits, "and we all contributed to that as partners in the Music Quarter." But even back then, that image was not correct. "When people think of the conservatoire, especially when it comes to classical music, they think of training pianists, violinists. Well, when I took office in 2006, there were already no string players and there was at least one violin student in Enschede. Much of the wind instruments were not represented at all. We hoped that the improvements brought about by the merger with ArtEZ and the arrival of the Muziekkwartier would attract new students to Enschede, but that didn't happen. Students still chose Zwolle, which is why we concentrated the programme there."

There are internship agreements with Het Symfonieorkest Het Gelders Orkest, but "It is not the case that, as a conservatoire student, you can just take a seat in an orchestra during an internship." There is no internship arrangement with the Reisopera. There have recently been consultations between ArtEZ and Nicolas Mansfield to see what they can do for each other. Nicolas Mansfield of the Reisopera reports that he has never supervised an ArtEZ intern before: "This is precisely why I am speaking to ArtEZ students in a fortnight' time, because the Reisopera is happy to offer up-and-coming talent a place."

Mansfield will then speak in Zwolle, while Diteweg may then explain the plans to the Enschede council. ArtEZ had already been invited to do so by Hatenboer.

Game for the stage

The fuss and motion? Moderate political play for the stage that distracts from the question of what is left of the original conception of the National Music Quarter.

For instance, Labour Party leader Laurens van der Velde supports the lacklustre motion, but also defends the loan with an outdated image of the National Music Quarter: "We have a wonderful cultural infrastructure in the city that we want to make the best use of." So in practice, that is not happening. Orchestra and opera are not best friends, and despite a footbridge between Music Centre and Wilminktheatre, office space is not shared between theatre and orchestra. Synergy hardly seems to exist. That's what the discussion in Enschede should be about. Not, with all due respect, about those 39 jazz students and their teachers.

Of course, it is nice to put the blame for failing policies on an institution over which you have no control. In this, Enschede is no different from other municipalities with a cultural brick problem.