Orchestral Sponsorships In The Dark

"El Economista" is, as the name implies, a Spanish finance and economics newspaper. It is a financial publication for a contemporary Spain of greater dynamism and innovation and one which espouses principles of privatisation and the free market. And in line with its agenda, it takes issue with certain shibboleths that might once have been taken as true but which, since 2008, have been shown to be manifestly untrue.

One of these has been spending by regional governments. This is hardly an unknown theme nowadays either in the Spanish or the international press. What may be less known is the degree to which this spending affected so many areas of life and became profligate. The old truth was that this spending was good, including spending on culture, until one day everyone woke up to the fact that this old truth wasn't necessarily wholly truthful.

In December last year, "El Economista" asked whether Spain was a nation of music lovers or whether its music was a further example of regional profligacy. It was referring in particular to orchestras. Were 27 professional symphony orchestras across Spain too many? It identified Andalusia as the region with the most orchestras. (Actually, when you throw in youth orchestras as well, Madrid and Catalonia have more.) It spoke about rivalries in Galicia that had led to millions being lavished on the orchestras of La Coruña and Santiago de Compostela. Orchestras across the country were seen as fulfilling roles as cultural ambassadors but they were coming at a high price; the cost of rivalries and of vanities in many regions.

In Extremadura, a region considered to be Spain's poorest, the orchestra there had acquired a debt of a million euros by the middle of last year, and this debt was set to rise to almost three million. Around the same time as "El Economista" was highlighting orchestral profligacy, the "Arts Journal" website ran a poll to identify the best and worst orchestras of 2012. The moderators of the poll decided to exclude all votes it had received from Extremadura (voting had been conducted mainly through social media). The reason for excluding them was because a campaign had been launched to try and ensure that the orchestra, which by then was looking as though it might be axed, would get a healthy vote.

What happened was of course what you can expect from votes through social media. A result that was totally skewed and totally unrepresentative. The Extremadura orchestra still managed to scrape into the top six (they couldn't just exclude all the votes), but it was slightly out of place alongside the likes of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

The support given to Extremadura's orchestra can be interpreted in different ways. It was either a statement of regional pride or it was a statement of self-interest. Whatever it was, at least people felt strongly enough to galvanise themselves into conducting a campaign to help head off the possible closure of the orchestra.

And people do, quite naturally, feel strongly. The same can be said for the Balearics Symphony Orchestra (BSO), one which, interestingly, "El Economista" excluded from its profligacy roll of dishonour. It didn't even mention it, and nor did it mention Tenerife's orchestra which, and so not necessarily like Extremadura's, is considered to be a particularly fine orchestra.

If 27 orchestras are thought to be too many and were there to be a rationalisation of them, then two which should escape elimination under rationalisation would be those in the Balearics and Tenerife (there is also an orchestra in Gran Canaria). Location alone would make them far less dispensable than others. But rationalisation would be nigh on impossible because of the regional nature of the orchestras. In the Balearics, the three-headed foundation with which the BSO is associated - the regional government, the Council of Mallorca and Palma town hall - pulls the strings and might just decide to scrap the orchestra anyway.

Salvation may, however, be at hand. The national Sponsorship Law would, so it is hoped, pave the way for private funding of orchestras and give patrons very significant tax incentives (70% deductible). But the current regional nature of orchestra funding and organisation has given rise to massive discrepancies. The secretary of state for culture has admitted that getting the bill drafted properly is proving to be difficult.

But even were the Sponsorship Law to be passed and were there to therefore be an almost exclusive reliance on the private sector, orchestras' survival could not be guaranteed; orchestras don't come cheap. By the time the law is passed - if it is passed - it might be too late for one particular orchestra.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Streets

Am I the only one who doesn't give a toss about the Balearic Symphony Orchestra? Each morning (or so it seems), there it appears on news websites, fiddling on the streets of Palma while Mallorca burns and while I'm listening to Chris Moyles. Not that the Moylester plays much music, but that which he does certainly isn't classical.

I've never got the whole deal with classical music. It has no beat and you can't sing a long, unless it's that greater abomination - opera. Classical music discovered a nouveau-muzak audience courtesy of Classic FM around the time that supporters were unearthed who believed that football was acceptable because of Pavarotti. It wasn't the new rock 'n' roll, it was the new pretentiousness. Most listeners, I fancy, soon got bored and secretly tuned back to the Hairy Cornflake.

I have tried and it's not as though I consider myself a Philistine. There is even the odd CD lurking somewhere and gathering dust. But I can't claim to have ever parted with good money for a CD; someone was nuts enough to give me one.  

There were moments in the past, as with Blood Sweat and Tears and their version of Satie's "Gymnopédies", something of a precursor to ambient, or so I can now rationalise. "Pictures At An Exhibition" registered for a time but was promptly forgotten when the greatest horror in the history of music occurred - rock found Mussorgsky and other composers and it was called Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

So no, I really couldn't care less about the BSO. Its stunts of playing outdoors are clever bits of agitprop, but sympathy spreads thin when you consider that within its Moss Bros-outfitted membership there are some on a far from unappreciable wedge, one being funded out of the public purse, while it has been revealed that its management had left it in January owing about 1.3 million euros in unpaid social security and income tax. Now, it's going to lose around 30% of its funding from different authorities, and it's crying foul.

I am very sorry, but there are all manner of organisations and individuals losing funding, so the orchestra is just going to have to lump it. But faced with a loss of public finance, the propagandists are set to work, one line of attack being the tourist one. It attracts many tourists, blah, blah. Ok then, how many? Give us figures. And give us figures of tourists who are attracted specifically by the orchestra. They can't be supplied, because no one knows. Instead, all you get is some vagueness as to "many". How many is "many"? A hundred?

If it could be shown that the orchestra dragged in a tourist base equivalent to another branch of elitist tourism, e.g. golf, then the argument would be altogether stronger. Golf can prove its numbers, its specific numbers; they are around the 100,000 mark, which isn't bad. The orchestra won't attract anything like this number. It is a bonus for those who enjoy the classics, not an essential, and it costs public money to provide this non-essential. Golf, on the other hand, does quite nicely thank you, courtesy of the private sector.

The regional government says it has a cunning plan to help the orchestra, which is that the private sector can put its hands into its pockets. And so it should. We'll soon find out just how much the orchestra is valued, although don't underestimate the attraction to a sponsor of being associated with the orchestra, if only to satisfy the egos of company directors.

But the orchestra is part of the local culture, and the local culture should be supported because it is a "good thing" to support local culture. Shouldn't it? Absolutely, but the orchestra is not culture in a traditional Mallorcan sense. Musicians with folk groups have had funding slashed, and they are far more representative of local culture. Other parts of the arts have lost or are losing funds, the Pollensa Music Festival for instance. Unfortunately, and much as I would like to see all aspects of the arts, including the orchestra, being paid for by a generous public administration, there is, hasn't anyone noticed, a damn great hole in that administration's pocket. The orchestra can't plead a special case, because it has no special case to plead.

The tourism argument holds no weight. The orchestra can't enumerate its contribution, but other music on Mallorca can; you just have to count the guests at Mallorca Rocks hotel, for example. And where's the public money for this? The private sector is quite capable of driving culture in its widest sense if it can make money out of it. But of course Mallorca Rocks is Magalluf, it's youth, and it's rap rather than Rachmaninov.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Orchestra stages further protest concert

The Balearics Symphony Orchestra, facing cuts from its governmental sources of funding averaging around 35%, yesterday staged its second protest concert in the streets of Palma. A third protest concert is planned for next Saturday at 12:00 in Palma's Plaça Major. It has emerged over the past week that the Orchestra is heavily in debt to the Hacienda for non-payment of social security.

See more: Diario de Mallorca