Dear Mr Rutte: Why should music schools stay closed? Why so arbitrarily?

Dear outgoing Prime Minister Rutte, dear Mark,

This is the first time I have turned to you, the first time at all for me to write such a letter. I have to get something off my chest, because I can no longer follow or understand it all.

Before I indicate what makes me tick, I will briefly introduce myself. My name is Pepijn van Vilsteren, I graduated from the Utrecht Conservatoire in 2009, and I work as a pianist and piano teacher. So I entered the job market during the financial crisis, and almost simultaneously with the moment you came into office and as such started large-scale cuts in arts and culture. It goes without saying that this meant a very difficult start in the job market for me, as national noises about the value of music, art and culture also permeate locally, and in turn led to cuts in music schools and the like.

So what happens if you have just started teaching at a music school and there are cuts to be made, then as a newcomer you are thrown out straight away, even if all your pupils stay (but yes there is an older colleague sitting in front of you), something that has happened to me several times. Despite this continual disappointment, I always kept going, never gave up and always managed to keep my head above water, even if it was with difficulty. It was continuous survival, very difficult to have to muster the strength to do this, and tight too, but it is something I am proud of.

Working as a musician, as a piano teacher, is a fantastic thing. It is great to be able to share your love of music with people, to enable them to learn to play an instrument and get satisfaction from it, to inspire people and also be able to help and/or comfort them with the beauty of music, to enable people to grow as a result and to feel good mentally by giving them an outlet. This is invaluable, this is what I do it all for even though I often feel my work is little seen, grossly undervalued and underpaid, and what I put in all those hours for, even as a child making sure the homework was finished as soon as possible so I could then devote myself to music.

It is something you as a music lover should recognise, as well as your group colleague Sophie Hermans, she still took piano lessons from my father (yes, it runs in the family) and even participated, mask and all, in a performance of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf.

I'm not going to talk about the state of the cultural sector in the Netherlands right now, in that respect I wholeheartedly endorse the letter sent by Daria van den Bercken you wrote recently, I am writing to you in my capacity as a piano teacher. We are currently in the middle of the corona crisis, in the second lockdown. I understand that this is a very difficult situation, which has caught us off guard, and you must do all you can to protect public health and that this requires all sorts of very unpleasant but sensible measures. Hence also all understanding to start teaching from home, even if to teach via zoom, whatsapp, skype or whatever is far from ideal. After all, health comes first, so all understanding and let's be thankful that we can at least do something. It was nice to see the students again in real life after the first lockdown, to have real contact again (and not through a screen), really a relief to matter again and be able to really teach again.

We are currently in the second lockdown, for over three months, and you have extended it until 20 April for now. It is not my intention to complain that all contact I have is surrogate via a screen (with a few exceptions), that it is getting harder and harder to keep up, and that I yearn to see people in real life and feel alive.

My concern is with something else I don't understand. In late February, you allowed most contact professions to return to work from 3 March, and allowed shops to open by appointment, with the result that in some shops (depending on the size), up to 50 people may be present at the same time. Now, at the music schools where I work, and also what I hear from colleagues, one-to-one work is exclusively done by appointment, it is perfectly possible to keep distance, two keyboards are used (one for the student, one for me), and should there be 50 people in the building that things must get very weird. And there is no physical contact like at the hairdresser, dental hygienist or dentist, for instance.

So why do music schools have to stay closed anyway? Why so arbitrarily? I cannot understand this, and I also get signals from those around me that people no longer understand this. The work we do is important for people's mental well-being, and it can be done safely and responsibly. I therefore appeal to you, allow music schools and arts centres to reopen. Also, in doing so, I want the aforementioned letter which Daria van den Bercken recently sent you regarding the state of the cultural sector in our country, wholeheartedly support.

Sincerely,

Pepijn van Vilsteren