Tonight, the Arnhem city council will take an important decision on the renovation of Musis Sacrum, the monumental concert hall located at a prominent point in the city. But the real news is not in what will be decided tonight, but in the far-reaching consequences.
Musis Sacrum dates back to 1847 and is part of the cultural heritage. The venue is in dire need of refurbishment and part of the demolition has already begun. The latter aroused the necessary resentment, because it was precisely the demolished back wall that provided space for a work of art commemorating resistance fighters by Jouke Hoogland, Most people remain silent, a few commit an act. The artwork has since been returned to the artist and the municipality will look for a new destination.
The main question before us tonight, therefore, is not whether to renovate, but whether to invest in a new and especially larger hall, to be played primarily by The Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra.
20 million
Twenty million is involved in the total renovation and new building, of which 6.5 million comes from the province of Gelderland, the remaining 13.5 from the municipality of Arnhem. And so the Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra seized its chance, and pleaded right up to the city council for a bigger new hall, as this would enable additional revenue to be obtained.
Given how full the Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra is at performances, a logical request. After all, it is almost always packed and now that renovation and refurbishment are taking place anyway, this is the chance to kill two birds with one stone. The municipal executive therefore announced in a resounding press release Know on 21 April: Renovation of Musis feasible and affordable!
A good chance, therefore, that the Arnhem council will agree to all the plans tonight.
Hooks and eyes
However, there are quite a few snags in all the plans. For not only does the renovated and partly newly built Musis Sacrum also depend to a considerable extent on the Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra for its operations, at the same time Musis Sacrum's new business plan itself uses the now familiar words like commercialisation, getting more money from the market and greater subsidy independence.
Concepts we know all too well. Not least from The Gelderland Orchestra. After all, that, like its HET Symphony Orchestra colleagues, sold an extraordinary ambitious business plan with exactly those words to province and state. Both orchestras even received half a million extra state subsidy for far-reaching cooperation, but the Council for Culture has since stated that this money was insufficiently earmarked and largely disappeared into regular operations. Not surprisingly, what the ghost of relegation is to football clubs, the ghost of merger is to regional orchestras.
It's all about paying visitors
We now know that reality is more obstinate. Examination of the annual figures shows that the financial distress at Het Gelders Orkest is incomparable to that at HET Symfonieorkest, which is forced to cancel concerts, but the revenues of Het Gelders Orkest also fall far short of what has been presented to the province in exchange for the millions. Getting money out of the market has totally failed to take off at both orchestras.
Surely, contrary to what both orchestras thought, it has to come from ticket sales. Attracting audiences alone is not enough, as HET Symfonieorkest demonstrated painfully clearly, and even Het Gelders Orkest seems to have reached audiences with, for instance, the grand BBC Earth concerts, but according to insiders, virtually nothing was earned from them.
Decisive lead
More and more, the picture is emerging of two neighbouring orchestras that have used extra state subsidies and many provincial millions in a desperate attempt to turn the tide, without actually investing in the cooperation labelled as problematic beforehand, when it is increasingly becoming inevitable.
However, where HET Symfonieorkest wasted tonnes on pointless name changes - which is witnessed by how the orchestra is currently referred to on various websites as Nederlands Symfonieorkest, *****Symfonieorkest, using its current name and sometimes even adding (the former Orkest van het Oosten) - and an embarrassing display surrounding a loan for the refurbishment of a bicycle shed, Het Gelders Orkest handles things smarter.
Because if that new, modern, sustainable and larger hall comes about, with a lot of money from the province and municipality, the Gelderland Orchestra will take a decisive lead in the battle between the two eastern orchestras. Not least because ARTEZ Conservatory of Music has already moved its classical training from Enschede to Zwolle and Arnhem.
It fits in with new policies, not only from the Culture Council, but also from cultural institutions: Focus on those cities where your audience is, where there is therefore money to be made. Do not try desperately, whether from a converted bicycle shed or not, to think that the whole of the Netherlands and far abroad is your market. Do what you are good at, in those places where it shows up best. The days of performing Mahler V in a half-filled hall are simply over.
Inevitable future
Nothing now remains of HET Symphony Orchestra's international ambitions. By necessity, it now concentrates on small-scale neighbourhood projects. With a new hall, Het Gelders will become the orchestra of the east. The biggest loser seems to be the province of Overijssel. The five million put into HET Symfonieorkest have evaporated.
Since a merger orchestra always gets a new name, as a band-aid on the Enschede wound, perhaps reintroduce as the new name Orchestra of the East? Unlike an orchestra, that brand name remains indestructible.
Update 23:20
No decision! Alderman Gerrie Elfrink (SP) was under such fire that he could not get out of it. CDA party chairman Karssenberg even added to him, "You are taunting me to the hilt!" After previous attempts at adjournment were rejected, the end result is sad. The councillor will provide "underlying excel files", saying "These are not going to give you any new insights." And inadvertently gave away more. A deplorable evening. More on that later.
to be continued
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