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Opposition: have arts cuts calculated (...) These are cuts by the state, provinces and municipalities. The aim is to clarify how big the total cuts together are and what exactly the effects will be on supply and employment. (...) "With this request, we want to counter the politics of the short-term agenda. Good policy, including austerity policy, takes into account...
Quality. It is such a nice civil service-political magic word. Sounds good and nobody can be against it. So shout as a politician that you want more quality and all heads start nodding busily. State Secretary for Cultural Affairs Zijlstra also likes quality. Says he. For instance, when it comes to cultural education. In his memorandum More than quality, he says he wants to make work of the...
Gorkum - Culture sector is in dire straits (...) The major austerity exercise will come in spring when the new Culture Policy, among others, is on the table. (...) In the meantime, further consultations are being held with cultural bodies, among others, such as the Toon Foundation and the Nieuwe Doelen theatre on 30 January. "They, like the Gorcums Museum, can come up with innovative, cost-saving plans....
Groningen municipality cuts back on Gezinsbode The municipality is going to cut back 150,000 euros on publishing city notices in the Groninger Gezinsbode. The City Council wants to publish decisions and permits electronically from now on, for example on the municipality's website. (...) The number of pages in the Gezinsbode will be halved. (...) source: OogTV 10 Nov 11 Most councillors expect subsidies to be cut...
The Concertgebouw announced jubilantly yesterday that last September's share issue was a resounding success. After all, out of 1,000 €12,500 shares, 400 had been ordered. Almost €5 million from private individuals raked in. Truly no mean feat in this thrifty little country, where everyone complains that patronage does nothing. The media, including Amsterdam's Parool, briefly took the jubilant news as...
(...) The Youth Theatre School Roosendaal received a project subsidy of 36,779 euros from the municipality in 2010 and 2011. The school also fulfils a regional function. Forty per cent of its 330 pupils come from the surrounding villages. The proposal is to end the subsidy from 1 January. It was only this week that this apparently dawned on Hofplein's management. Which immediately started a...
Now then. 6.5 million goes off subsidised institutions. In Amsterdam. Qua municipality. The state was already doing away with just over 40 million, leaving 36 institutions in dire straits. Now Amsterdam has decided to keep at least 13 named institutions. Should we think of Toneelgroep Amsterdam, the IDFA, Holland Festival, Concertgebouw and the Muziekgebouw...
In the country where Jan Klaasen is only allowed to beat up Katrijn with a hot-air balloon, because a puppet show clubbing is not good for delicate children's souls, Dutch professional youth theatre turns out to be unexpectedly in demand. In short, a genuine Dutch youth theatre festival in New York has already sold 2,500 tickets, and it is still going strong. Of at least two of the four productions...
Trouw's commentary addresses the problems that are now beginning to be felt even at the top of the arts sector: Cultural entrepreneurship can produce great things. Ernst Veen, who brought De Nieuwe Kerk and Hermitage Amsterdam to great fruition as new exhibition spaces in the capital, is a successful example. Yesterday, he complained in Trouw that...
On Thursday 27 October, FNV KIEM, the Nederlandse Toonkunstenaarsbond (Ntb) and NAPK sector orchestras discussed the terms of employment of musicians employed by the Randstedelijke and Regionale Orkesten that fall under the collective labour agreement Dutch Orchestras. Out of a total of 11 Dutch orchestras, nine are covered by this collective agreement. The orchestras of the Muziekcentrum van de Omroep and the...
Since the decision in June to reduce the BIS, many eyes have focused on the Performing Arts Fund, which has an annual budget of €60 million to give away. However, the Fund is also facing a cut: the budget for the multiannual scheme will be reduced by 40% from 40 to 24.5 million euros. The multiannual scheme is meant for...
On 5 July, the HBO Council came out with a sector plan for art education. Following the report of the Dijkgraaf committee and the Brinkman committee, it was concluded that the autonomous fine arts courses will reduce the intake of first-year students by 25%, the conservatoires with direction of classical and jazz by 10%, and the rest by 20%. This is to be achieved in a period...
The Netherlands Opera's fourth revival of Elektra is over halfway through. In the final performances, two fresh dramatic sopranos take over. Why does an opera get revived, even as many as four times? With the sleep-inducing Don Giovanni in the previous season of De Nederlandse Opera - also a revival - this might have been a logical question. The decision turned out to be...
It came as a shock that still hasn't quite worked out. Haf September, dozens of arts organisations received a letter from the State Secretary for Culture, informing them that they could start using the subsidy they thought they were getting for projects until 31 December 2012 for redundancy procedures, selling property at a loss and staff lawsuits against...
The story continues. On 1 July the VAT increase came into effect, on 8 July NRC quoted Halbe Zijlstra as saying that "it was not the most mature scheme" of this cabinet, words he later nuanced during parliamentary questions. In late August, the Berenschot report came out with startling figures: the VAT increase would mainly cost the Netherlands money rather than generate it. Meanwhile, the Music...
"Programmatic ingenuity goes hand in hand with Fischer's ebullient and finely crafted performances". So when someone says that about you, you have earned a prize. So that is what the jury of formerly the Classical Music Prize thought of Iván Fischer, the Hungarian-born conductor who was therefore awarded the 'Ovation' on Monday 17 October 2011. And so then the 'Ovation'...
She was accused of fraud and therefore suspended in September. However, a judgment has now been handed down in the summary proceedings that Saskia Kriekhaus, director of the Lucent Danstheater and the Anton Philipszaal, both in The Hague, had filed against her dismissal. And so Saskia Kriekhaus won that. So that suddenly everyone in The Hague's arts sector is heartbroken,...
While anti-capitalists were plotting to occupy Amsterdam's Beursplein this week - if you can at least put the protesters under that heading - in the US, anger over THE 99 PERCENT shifted to the concert hall. The discussion flared up in response to two events. Wall Street was occupied; and the Metropolitan Opera received $182 million in donations in one year, a record amount....
The New York Times reports that the Metropolitan Opera in New York has brought in record donations this fiscal year. The tally stands at $182 million. This is 50 per cent more than the previous year. However, revenue from ticket sales has been declining for a few years. In addition, since general manager Peter Gelb took office, spending patterns are soaring....
The new Giving Act, the cultural palliative with which the Rutte Cabinet claims to be accommodating the art world, is flawed. We don't say this, because we only know about art, but this is what the Dutch tax consultants say. And they know a lot about your taxes, and little about art. Extremely reliable, in other words. And what virtues...
Thanks to Ingrid van Frankenhuyzen, who posted this message on facebook. Dance is also thought of, despite the fact that the VVD sees dance as a branch of sport. Well: in America, they know all about sport, and therefore sporting behaviour. Up to a point. Because what did Beyoncé do in her latest clip? Right: a choreographed...
Anyone who was still left wondering what the vision of the governing VVD party on art is now out. For that vision is simple. Art is sport. According to the VVD. So said the alderman of Rotterdam, so said the spouse of top wrestler Albert Verlinde, the as mayor of Maastricht ancillary runner Onno Hoes. During the opening of the Dutch Dance Days, he gave...
"If 1 person can prove that by collaborating with Red Bull, a sixteenth-century painting thins out or falls off the wall, I will stop working on it immediately." Edwin Jacobs, director of Centraal Museum Utrecht, opened his doors to the soft drink manufacturer. Under the title 'Art of Can', the museum is exhibiting artworks made from Red Bull cans. "Red Bull gives you wings,...
Does a soft drink manufacturer's advertisement belong in a museum? In Edwin Jacobs's view, it can and fits seamlessly into these times. He opened his Centraal Museum to artworks made from Red Bull cans. Something to which not everyone reacts positively. The 'Art of Can' exhibition shows the sixty best creations that both amateurs and some...
This week, the Connecting Arts festival takes place in Utrecht. This festival, contrary to the expectation raised by the title, revolves entirely around the organ. The instrument is in a bottomless identity crisis. The solution lies in connecting with other art forms: connecting arts. The organist. One of those guys with a beard. Not a meticulously trimmed weekend shadow, but a wild...
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