From Dutch Symphony Orchestra with international ambitions back to provincial orchestra with as yet 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 garish HET Symphony Orchestra. It is the ultimate capitulation of the once by just about everything and everyone...
A damning report by organisational consultancy Berenschot, the voluntary or involuntary departure of director Harm Mannak, repeated bickering in the State Assembly and panting reports of high salaries for directors and artistic directors, all the way to the national newspapers. It marks the chaos at HET Symfonieorkest and the lack of any form of direction, not only at the orchestra itself,...
Failing directors stay put, the Supervisory Board disqualifies itself. No other conclusion is possible after reading the counter-expertise commissioned by the province of Overijssel and carried out by Berenschot. The provincial millions intended to make the orchestra subsidy-independent have not only evaporated, but show a negative balance in every aspect. Every estimate was too optimistic,...
How next for boards in the cultural sector? Supervisory boards are under considerable pressure following publications about possible failures of supervision at Rotterdam's Wereldmuseum, Grand Theatre in Groningen and recently again from Rotterdam's Het Nieuwe Instituut. Previously, similar reports appeared about De Utrecht Games and the Groninger Museum, among others. In practically all cases, the cases involved a Council...
The money at HET Symphony Orchestra has run out. Despite all the extra millions from the province and after years of writing off tons of general reserves, the end is in sight. And so the orchestra is scrapping concerts, will be seen less in theatres in Deventer and Zwolle, stops CD recordings and shuns any risky performances. To keep the...
Ze hadden het niet beter kunnen uitkiezen, daar in Groningen. Want wie bel je, als er net een overambitieuze theaterdirecteur de kas van het ooit roemruchte Grand Theatre leeg heeft gebluft, een Raad van Toezicht heeft zitten dutten en er vervolgens 22 mensen ontslagen zijn omdat het geld op is? Dan zoek je iemand die daar ervaring mee heeft. Bij voorkeur…
The misery in Groningen is a bit bigger than we thought. Meanwhile, the Grand Theatre appears to be at least 250,000 in the red. And counting. Money that the theatre subsidised by the city of Groningen owes mainly to artists. Choreographer Dunja Djocic, for instance, had received €90,000 in subsidies to create performances at the Grand for 2 years. Theatre-maker Andreas Denk had received...
We took another close look at the news surrounding the near bankruptcy of Groningen's illustrious Grand Theatre. Yesterday, it became clear that that theatre is in serious financial trouble. Problems that the municipality does not want to solve simply by an extra injection of thousands of euros. And they are right. After all, the Grand's coffers are as leaky as...
The Grand Theatre in Groningen is dying. Yesterday, the city council of the northern university city decided that no more money should be poured into the theatre, which is in acute cash trouble. Bills from suppliers and independent artists have not been paid for several months, and financial reserves are more than depleted. We have received reports from artists...
Hooray! We have a new name. Nederlands Symfonieorkest was not allowed, *****Orkest everyone thought was a joke and reverting to the perfect name Orkest van het Oosten is not possible, because loss of face. What then?
This was a possibility not many people initially thought of. After all, after her tropical years as director of the Amsterdam debating centre De Balie, Ellen Walraven was in need of some more substantive work and peace and quiet on her mind, So we suspected that she would stay on in
The Netherlands' most remarkable company when it comes to handling grant money has been saved. The Theatre newspaper reports that the central government has agreed to the new adjusted budget, which had to be prepared after earlier this year a loss of over 2 million euros had arisen. So the company keeps the one and a half million euros and artistic director Jos Thie and his business partner Jelle Snijder are chased out of the city with pitch and feathers, where they can join the Supervisory Board that had already turned a little too blind eye. After all, putting in an overpriced production to make up for the deficit from an earlier run of that same overpriced production: no entrepreneur would ever allow that.
Theatre company the Utrecht Games, city company of the Netherlands' fourth largest city, is on the brink of bankruptcy. It was recently revealed that the company led by artistic and business director Jos Thie has a deficit of €2.1 million. Correspondence that has since surfaced shows that it was already clear in May this year that the problems were getting out of hand. That was a month after the Utrecht subsidy advisory committee issued its laudatory opinion, and a few weeks before the Council for Culture issued its very thrifty advice.
Amsterdam - Mayor finds cuts to Rijksakademie "beyond comprehension" During the official opening of RijksakademieOPEN 2011, Mayor of Amsterdam Eberhard van der Laan expressed his concerns about the government's severe cuts to the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten. "Cutbacks are necessary. Capitulating is not necessary. There are limits." The mayor stressed that a healthy art climate is important for...
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