Thanks to the informal tambour, this music storyteller sees a mega opportunity. Trio The Big Three. That's what I want to talk about. By which, for once, I do not mean the Flemish Damiaan Denys, Paul Verhaeghe and Dirk de Wachter. Writers Harry, Gerard and Willem F. I also leave out. Ask the listeners of this Music Storyteller and they will surely know how to help you:....
It is high time for collective action, now that arts organisations have closed and activities are at a standstill. Plea for a support fund for culture, to which governments, funds and companies contribute in unison. We all notice it: live cultural offerings are at a standstill due to the coronavirus. Much has been written and talked about the importance and value of culture in recent weeks. That...
Cultural institutions in the province of Utrecht say they "fear for the survival of the province's finely-meshed arts and culture sector" in a letter to the Provincial Executive and Provincial Council. They sound the alarm about the consequences of the corona measures. The letter was drafted by over a hundred institutions: venues, both larger ones in Amersfoort and Utrecht and smaller ones in other municipalities, museums,...
Het Kabinet trekt driehonderd miljoen euro extra uit om de schade van de coronacrisis in de culturele en creatieve sector te dempen. Dat is een belangrijke stap in de goede richting en zal een aantal instellingen ook echt over de brug helpen. Het kabinet geeft daarmee bovendien een signaal af: dat cultuur er toe doet. Bovendien onderkennen Rutte en zijn…
Right now, they are all still zooming or in an MS Teams meeting, the dozens of advisers and committee members appointed to assess the hundreds of grant applications for the new arts plan 2021-2024. But in all likelihood, they are no longer talking about the applications, but about how to deliver the news that the procedure is stalled. The province of Zeeland...
While the Belgian government has just announced the cancellation of all festivals until 31 August, Mark Rutte in the Netherlands pronounced two very difficult words: 'theatre' and 'museum'. This was followed in Hilversum by a worship service for the minister led by the high priest of our culture, Cornald Maas. While they sat at the non-existent make-up, the...
Update Wednesday 15-4, 16:00: this afternoon, the government has decided to come over as yet with additional schemes for the cultural sector, which are now no longer taken out of the culture budget. Apparently, the massive pressure helped. We will let you know when more is known about it. Update Wednesday 15-4, 20:00: Drop on glowing plate arrived, leaving the message below only...
The Culture Council will soon be commissioned to draw up a plan to help the cultural sector survive the one-and-a-half-meter society. The commitment of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science is, to solve this within the existing financial frameworks. This is what sources at the top of that ministry have reported.
We take a post from the site 'Cultuurmarketing.nl', adding that the main purpose of the scheme is also to compensate the creators, the performing artists. So don't think: "my theatre gets subsidy, right?", because that subsidy is usually just enough to pay the rent. Performances are almost always paid for directly from ticket sales: Comin' To...
We always try to look for a bright spot anyway, but sometimes you just have to let it go. On Monday 6 April 2020, we brought you a post on how the corona crisis is having long after-effects, which have been casting their shadow for at least a year. Today, we talk to Victorine Plante and Erik Snel of Alum, the bringer of that first post. In the...
Earlier this week, Minister Van Engelshoven appealed to the public to start donating en masse "to your favourite (cultural) institution". She also hinted at her willingness to explore within the cabinet the extent to which donations to cultural institutions can be made extra attractive as an income tax deduction at this very moment. Meanwhile, however, within...
Just a breather from the stress. Today I am talking to Yolande Melsert. She is cultural attachée of the Dutch embassy in the Indonesian capital Jakarta. Because of the corona-lockdown, she is temporarily back in the Netherlands. Reason enough to look back on an eventful year in relations between the Netherlands and its former colony. Indonesia is still a young country. You notice...
Slowly but surely, the absurdity of the rescue measures for the cultural sector is sinking in. The national museums will not have to pay rent for three months for a while, but will have to pay it back retroactively once the crisis is over. Entrepreneurs can get extra support worth 4,000 euros, provided they have business premises outside their homes. Actors, directors (also freelance journalists, by the way) and artists...
It's not 50 billion, like in Germany, but it's more than nothing: the support measures Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven announced today for the hard-hit cultural sector. And, who knows, this may offer openings to do a few things completely differently after this crisis. For instance, it is great that the national museums do not have to pay rent for a while,...
In a fire letter to Minister van Engelshoven, more than a thousand actors and directors ask to financially support the free theatre producers in the Corona crisis. Together, the free theatre producers provide 60% of the supply in Dutch theatres and theatres every year. They do so with their own investments and without subsidies. Through the measures taken in the fight against Corona
On 2 March, Platform Aanvang! launched the petition Nederland maakt kunst / art makes the Netherlands at the Solidarity evening in ITA. An evening that opened the conversation for a solidarity sector, but most of all sounded the alarm for the planned downsizing of the arts sector. The petition was signed by more than 11,000 people in a week. When we saw the...
I have often resisted thinking of the Netherlands as a business. After all, a country cannot lay off people, or divest unprofitable sectors to make more profit. So anyone who speaks of the BV Nederland has not understood it. There are no competitors that you can fight out of the market while being entrepreneurial on those few square kilometres of polder land,...
After all, we did spend just under three hours on something completely nonsensical. Stupid, of course, because we had already written ourselves on 27 November 2019 that today's little debate in the Troelstra Room of the Lower House would be totally pointless. Everyone already knew that too, not least the movers of the motion, including Lodewijk Asscher ...
When a Dutchman thinks of art, he thinks of buildings that cannot support themselves, played by, or hung with work by, people who cannot sustain themselves. So money must be added, and we call this subsidy. In this way, art subsidies become a suspicious form of welfare, more suspicious than the billions in income support that wealthy...
While I was walking around Manchester with some cultural sector leaders, minister Ingrid van Engelshoven sent a letter to the House, telling it how much it would cost to enable state-subsidised arts organisations to get fair pay at the current offer. So that letter contained quite a few omissions: the minister was silent on the role played by regional and...
That in the Netherlands the government's distrust of citizens has reached bizarre proportions is proven by the hassle with benefits at the tax office and the state of affairs at the UWV. Or your average housing landlord where you want to report a leaky tap. Thanks to a politics influenced by false entrepreneurialism and rabid populism that treats citizens as fraudsters...
In april 2020 stopt de Persgroep, tegenwoordig DPG Media omdat dat internationaal beter bekt, met regionale kunstbijlages in zijn kranten. Geen kunstreportages en interviews meer, nauwelijks recensies. Lokale boekwinkels verliezen hun podium in alle Nederlandse regio’s, want de uitgever van Volkskrant, Trouw en AD heeft een regionaal monopolie. Het bericht, gebracht door een verslaggever van het Eindhovens Dagblad, viel op…
I am sitting at the dinner table at my parents' house. We are celebrating my mother's birthday with the whole family. I am there, but I am not quite there. In fact, I am so incredibly tired at the moment. As I jokingly tell my friends, "I can't say boo or boo anymore and am running on my gums". Suddenly, the conversation turns to...
We got some confusing messages last weekend. The reason was the festive announcement of the organisation of the Eurovision Song Contest that a special symphonic happening would take place at the finals in Rotterdam. Third year and master students of the Rotterdam Conservatoire, part of Codarts, as well as young professional musicians were invited. A 'fee' would be available for...
[update: they get even less, see post below] We received confusing news last weekend. The occasion was the festive announcement by the organisers of the Eurovision Song Contest that a special symphonic happening would take place at the final in Rotterdam. Invited were third-year and master students from Rotterdam Conservatoire, part of Codarts, as well as young professional musicians. For the performances...
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