Orchestra of the East reinstated: HET Symphony Orchestra has 'new' name

From Dutch Symphony Orchestra with international ambitions back to provincial orchestra with, for the time being, nothing at all. Now, except for the ironclad original name. It could be a commercial for Telfort. In between are many lost court cases, the grotesque protest name *****Symphony orchestra and the equally clamorous HET Symphony Orchestra. It is the ultimate capitulation of what was once embraced by just about everyone and everything business plan.

Administrators at every level are now sweeping the pavement clean, marvelling at the lack of records, claiming to have "believed in fairy tales", but each and every one stating that they could not have seen this coming, claiming to be hugely shocked and hiding behind the Culture Council, the Ministry or Supervisory Boards.

In fact, the orchestra is now at the same point as when Zijlstra imposed a 40% cut in 2011. But much worse. After all, its own reserves, still present at the time, have evaporated, the subsidy relationship with the province has been bought off and the eight million received for it has disappeared. And that in projects without clearly formulated goals, let alone solid financial backing or reporting. Receipts have still not surfaced, but it seems that former director Harm Mannak allowed friendly companies - including his own and his offspring's - to share in the wealth. Still no investigation into that. The director threw in the towel completely voluntarily.

Failure of regional politics: we didn't know it

In the Enschede City Council, culture councillor Jeroen Hatenboer (VVD) performed a shameless game for the stage on 23 November. After all, the problems at the orchestra were not even on the agenda, but he exceptionally asked the council to look into it. Not, of course, about the question of how he himself was still telling the now-famous bicycle shed loan that HET Symfonieorkest was financially sound. He answered the single question about that with that nobody had warned him then.

Hatenboer then compared the orchestra to the musicians on the Titanic, who kept on playing despite everything. To the critical comment that musicians from the Titanic did not survive that disaster, he wittily replied that he would like to deposit the musicians on a solid ice floe and thus change history. After all, then support from the province follows naturally. Hatenboer merely wanted to know with what message he could go to the State Committee Day on behalf of the municipality of Enschede.

A brilliant move, because of course the council wants the alderman to plead with the province on behalf of its own city, and when possibly later the critical questions still come, it can simply bounce the ball back: surely you yourselves wanted me to stand up for HET in Zwolle on behalf of Enschede?

At the State Committee Day two days later, all the spokespersons performed the same tactics. Whether complaining or cautiously apologising, they all did not know. Had to look for the facts themselves. Even deputy Hester Maij (CDA) admitted it was searching for all the data.

In her case, this is doubly distressing: not only does she have culture in her portfolio, but before that she was a member of the Supervisory Board of the orchestra, which was then called simply Orkest van het Oosten. But all the other spokespersons can also try to hide behind faulty information from the province or orchestra, but no one has ever stopped them from looking for information themselves.

Information that was and is publicly available, as the orchestra is an ANBI institution. Indeed: as a director, it is your duty not just to rely on the information provided, but also to actively keep your own records. Even today's biggest critics failed to do so.

Meanwhile, the reputation damage to the orchestra is huge. Not so much with the loyal regulars. Not with the critical local, provincial and national parties who themselves make no effort to get facts above water, but with the wider public who think: there you have it: another bottomless pit into which taxpayers' money is being pumped for the happy few while the top enrich themselves excessively.

THE Symphony Orchestra has not only harmed itself, but the entire cultural sector. And the lazy and purely sensationalist regional journalism also contributes to this.

Failure of regional journalism: it's only news when it goes wrong

Sticking your head in the sand and wanting to deliver purely good news? It is not reserved for politics. We see the same thing with regional broadcasters and newspapers. For years, only the jubilant press releases were copied, nobody bothered to put a question mark anywhere. Why should you; there are reader trips to organise, ads to sell and the occasional advertorials written.

Only when things go wrong does screaming coverage follow, still without checking sources. And for a plea From the artistic director of the Netherlands Travel Opera? Sorry, no space. - It was only after Nicolas Mansfield published his piece on Culture Press that it also appeared four days later in Tubantia. 

Even The Roskam, Twente's independent weekly, joins in the howling of the wolves. In the latest issue after years of silence, an editorial suddenly appeared and an embarrassing plea for Harm Mannak from the chairman of basically the business club that mainly organises outings to THE Symphony Orchestra (without mentioning it). There was also a scathing column by RTVOost presenter Jan Medendorp who, once awakened from hibernation, loses himself in characterisations such as "Mannak couldn't tell a guitar from a violin" and "former submarine officer cum VW dealer and van planner Harm Mannak. The same columnist spoke as presenter a few days before with guest Henk Kesler, chairman of the Supervisory Board of HET Symphony Orchestra, after some humming mostly about his passion: football.

New spin: but we are visible

There is a new director, Bart van Meijl. Everyone expresses confidence in him. There will be a new plan, even before 1 December. Just for the Orchestra of the East.

All positive, and the return to the old name is a smart move by Van Meijl, but not merely a simple reversal of the existing logo as everyone suggests. After all, the previous logo had THE Symphony Orchestra large, with Orchestra of the East. Orchestra of the East is now at the top, but below it THE Symphony Orchestra for Overijssel.

In an attempt to win over the audience through an undoubtedly well-intentioned short film, we not only hear Van Meijl, the first concertmaster and the chairman of the OR, but also the Supervisory Board trying to put the past behind them, while the images of the hammer blows from Mahler's sixth cannot help but remind one of Harm Mannak's head.

The tactic is clear: from international orchestra that happens to be from the east of the Netherlands to an eastern orchestra and then emphatically for the province of Overijssel. Reason: there is still 1.1 million of the original ransom of the subsidy relationship for the orchestra blocked. Money that the Orchestra of the East desperately needs to complete its budget in order to send a grant application to the state. That the orchestra is therefore desperate to be and become as visible as possible in the province, if necessary through deals with petrol pump owners, performances in provincial churches, schools and even supermarkets, we wrote about that earlier.

What is toe-curling is that these very performances keep popping up in defence of now the Orchestra of the East. After all, that visibility in the province is mere panic football and is now being misused by responsible administrators to disguise their own failures.

Did Mannak make mistakes? Sure. But it is too easy now to pretend that only he made mistakes. 'We must not dwell on the past,' we hear everywhere. Barber hangs, but nobody stopped him, especially those who could and should have stopped him.

Who Toneelgroep Oostpol's brilliant staging of Shakespeare's Richard III has seen, cannot help but think of it immediately. Shakespeare is always topical:

Alderman sees opportunity: on to National Music Quarter 2.0

Meanwhile, a new Twente drama is in the making, with Hatenboer once again speaking out of turn and coming up with no numerical justification, not least because the actual figures seem to contradict his arguments.

Precisely after the total fiasco of the National Music Quarter - that name is still writ large on Enschede's Wilminktheatre and is thus by now a painful reminder of sky-high Enschede ambitions that cannot be realised - it does not befit the municipality of Enschede to once again throw itself into the firing line with texts like 'Enschede must become a pilot for the Netherlands'.

Not only would Hatenboer prefer to immediately link the Reisopera to the orchestra, but he also advocates a merger of all pop stages and theatres in Enschede as well as Hengelo. But to want to step straight into the same trap at the very moment when previous grand ambitions have merely led to big losses is not wise.