Latest news with #Let'sCreate
The Guardian
29-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Wigmore Hall's principled stand over public funding is music to my ears
The news that Wigmore Hall in London is to turn its back on an annual subsidy of £345,000 from Arts Council England (ACE), after a successful campaign to raise £10m from individuals and the private sector, is almost as beautiful to my ears as the last thing I heard there, which was the Dunedin Consort playing Henry Purcell. Its director, John Gilhooly, is surely right to free his institution from the Let's Create strategy, which informs all ACE's funding decisions, linking subsidies to onerous outreach work rather than to excellence in performance. Such organisations shouldn't have to do what is properly the work of the government, and perhaps the Wigmore's decision is the start of resistance to this. I certainly hope so. On the face of it, the Wiggy, which specialises in chamber and early music, seems the opposite of radical. Its cloakroom and old-fashioned, over-lit basement restaurant always remind me of the Sheffield City Hall I knew as a child; I love it and think of it as a safe space, but whenever I'm there, I spend most of my time worrying that I'll cough, thus incurring the disapproval of members of its crazily attentive and committed audience. But hey, appearances can be deceptive. The revolution will not be televised, but it may accompanied by a lute and a soaring tenor voice. Like Queen Elizabeth II, who owned quite a lot of it, I sometimes dream of retiring to the Forest of Bowland in Lancashire. Unknown to many, it unfolds before you, magical and secret, its incomparable brown-greenness somehow always tipped with gold even on a grey day. Tolkien went to Stonyhurst College, which is close to the Ribble, one of two rivers that flow through it, and once you've seen it with your own eyes, you know there's no doubting this was the inspiration for Middle-earth. In Dunsop Bridge, a tiny village bordered only by fells, we wandered into St Hubert's, a Catholic church designed by Edward Pugin for the Towneley family in 1865. A notice informed us that the Towneleys funded the building with the winnings of their racehorse, Kettledrum, and, sure enough, high on the painted roof of the apse, we found the thoroughbred, as glossy and brown as a conker. God moves in mysterious ways, and it seems he may have played his part in the last-minute faltering of the favourite at the 1861 Epsom Derby, a drama that allowed Kettledrum to win by a length. Is it my imagination, or is the third season of The White Lotus receiving a level of attention the first two did not? On social media, there's no escape from the blond bob of Leslie Bibb, who plays the (possibly) Republican Kate; any minute now, Aimee Lou Wood's much-discussed, natural sticky-out teeth will surely get their own show (Wood stars as Chelsea, the astrology-loving British girlfriend of the bleakly irascible Rick). Sign up to Observed Analysis and opinion on the week's news and culture brought to you by the best Observer writers after newsletter promotion The chatter! Even the philosophers are at it. Kathleen Stock, late of Sussex University, believes that The White Lotus's creator, Mike White, has been reading the French novelist Michel Houellebecq on holiday, with the result – excellent and subtle, in her eyes – that viewers can 'vicariously enjoy the fruits of hyper-liberalism as well as its poisons'. Apparently, those of us who are feeling slightly guilty about how much we look forward to the series can relax (maybe with a frangipane-scented candle). The bitching, the bikinis and the dubious sex are trailed by the kind of heavy subtext that – if it were a person – would stay in the shade and wear a chore jacket from Folk. Rachel Cooke is an Observer columnist
The Guardian
29-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Arts Council England defends support of classical music amid loss of trust
Classical music and opera is 'absolutely essential to the lifeblood of the arts' and has the enthusiastic support of Arts Council England (ACE), its chief executive has said after coming under fire from a leading arts figure. Darren Henley, the chief executive of the body that distributes public and lottery funds to arts organisations in England, said investment in classical music was central to the council's programme. Henley sought to reassure the sector after John Gilhooly, the artistic and executive director of Wigmore Hall, a concert venue in central London, said ACE had lost the confidence of people in the classical music world. Gilhooly announced this week that from 2026 Wigmore Hall would no longer take public subsidies through ACE. Instead the venue has secured £10m in pledged donations, allowing it to be independent and artistically ambitious, he said. 'I'm a huge defender of ACE, and I'm grateful for their support in helping us get to where we are,' Gilhooly said. 'But in some ways it has lost its way.' In particular, the council's Let's Create strategy, which aims to ensure access to the arts for all, was 'desperately important' but had led to the council 'judging community events and the great artists of the world by the same criteria', he said. Wigmore Hall and the musicians it hosted were committed to community outreach, said Gilhooly, highlighting its Music for Life programme for people with dementia. It also runs a schools programme. But ACE was effectively 'asking us to step in and fix' the decimation of arts and music education in schools, he said. 'Music in the classroom is more or less gone. It's not good enough. In the 50s, 60s and 70s, when we were much poorer, there was brilliant music provision in schools, and every child got the opportunity to build their creativity and confidence. That's no longer there. 'We can go into classrooms, we can complement, but it's not enough. We can reach thousands of young people but what about those we're not getting to. The only way that will be fixed is through the school system.' John Tusa, who ran the Barbican arts centre for 22 years, said ACE had stopped being an advocate for the arts and had become a regulator. 'And the trouble with the regulators is that they interfere and they micromanage,' he said. Championing local and community arts projects was valuable, but 'unless you have the greatest art, the best art, that people want to follow, it's unlikely that you will get a strong community base. And [ACE] seem to have decided that they hate excellence.' The council should recognise 'a wonderful continuum, that starts at the top and goes all the way down to the pleasant and the humdrum and the community at the bottom, and they are all connected'. Few people in arts institutions agreed with ACE's strategy, but were reluctant to voice criticisms because they depended on public funding, Tusa said. 'But we really need an open debate about whether ACE delivers the best possible cultural experience for society as a whole.' The government has ordered a review of ACE, which distributes more than £500m of public money and more than £250m of national lottery money annually, and employs more than 650 people. Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, said the review would be the first step to restore 'people's connection with the arts and culture in every region of the country'. Responding to Gilhooly's comments, Henley said: 'The idea that we don't believe in, celebrate, invest in classical music is nonsense. We are here for every art form, every geography, every type of music. 'We're [supporting] world class, internationally significant work and a network of grassroots live music venues in towns across the country. They're all equally as important as each other.' In its 2023-2026 funding round, ACE allocated £220m to classical music and opera organisations, £92m to dance companies that work with orchestras and large ensembles, and £129m to venues and festivals that include classical music and opera in their output. The Let's Create strategy that underpins ACE's decision-making was intended to support the opportunity for everyone to develop their creativity and experience high quality cultural work. That included 'engagement and interaction with brilliant professional performers', said Henley. The strategy was 'not about dishonouring or not valuing the traditions that we have. We cherish those, but we also want to make sure that we take that wonderful repertoire and those wonderful performers to new audiences'. But, he added, there was a finite amount of money available. If organisations such as Wigmore Hall could secure income through the generosity of its supporters, public funding could be used elsewhere, he said. Wigmore Hall's ACE grant of £345,000 a year amounts to about 2% of its income, with the rest coming mainly from ticket sales, sponsors and donors. The 550-seat hall puts on about 600 concerts a year.
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Wigmore Hall quits 'crippling' funding system
One of London's top classical music venues has pulled out of England's cultural subsidy scheme because of "crippling" red tape and a controversial strategy that is seen as failing to prioritise artistic excellence. Wigmore Hall will stop taking funding from Arts Council England, which gave it £344,000 of public money in 2024. Director John Gilhooly said: "The current policy for us is just too onerous, and they seem to have no interest in what's happening on the stage, [or] in the great artists of the world." The Arts Council said funding recipients should be "prepared to show how they will offer the public excellent value", and that it is "absolutely committed to creative excellence". Mr Gilhooly said the venue does not "fully believe in everything" in the Arts Council's current strategy. Titled Let's Create, the plan is billed by the Arts Council as widening access to culture and cultural funding, but is seen by many as supporting grassroots and community work over artists at the top of their fields. Mr Gilhooly said the musicians who perform at Wigmore Hall are the artistic equivalent of Olympic champions. "We also work with a community choir. In my view, both are excellent, both are outstanding things," he told BBC News. "But you can't judge a community choir on the same criteria that you judge the world's greatest artists, just like you can't judge the English football team against an amateur team. "That is where we see the pressure and the tension." Mr Gilhooly said the venue would not stop doing outreach work. "And the bits we do best, we'll probably do more of. For instance, we work with people living with dementia, we'll probably do more of that. We work with some of the most marginalised people in society. Most of that will continue. We believe in all of that. "But it's just the way it's imposed through Let's Create that's exasperating really, and crippling for staff and for trustees." He added: "We have to go through this whole process every quarter to see that we've ticked every box. "It takes a huge amount of staff time and energy. It zaps the energy, frankly. We're parting on good terms, as far as I'm concerned, but it's a good time for us to go." Wigmore Hall launched a fundraising appeal last year to become more self-sufficient, and has reached its target two years earlier than expected. "We've raised this £10m and the interest on that alone covers what the Arts Council give us, and we've raised that ahead of time, which was a surprise," Mr Gilhooly said. "It wasn't advertised as an anti-Arts Council fund, but the speed with which the money came in suggests, certainly in the classical music public, there's a feeling that the Arts Council is not altogether on our side." An Arts Council England spokesperson said: "Where organisations feel that the success of their business model no longer requires public investment, we celebrate that success and wish them every good fortune for the future." They said the body takes the responsibility of spending public money seriously, and is committed to making the reporting requirements "as straightforward as possible for funded organisations". A statement added: "We want to be unequivocal and clear: Arts Council England is absolutely committed to creative excellence, in all the shapes and sizes it comes in, and across all the arts organisations, museums and libraries in which we invest. "The evidence shows, however, that excellent cultural and creative opportunities, which are valued as a right by some people in some places, are still denied to too many in this country. That isn't fair and must be addressed."
BBC News
26-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
London's Wigmore Hall quits 'crippling' funding system
One of London's top classical music venues has pulled out of England's cultural subsidy scheme because of "crippling" red tape and a controversial strategy that is seen as failing to prioritise artistic Hall will stop taking funding from Arts Council England, which gave it £344,000 of public money in John Gilhooly said: "The current policy for us is just too onerous, and they seem to have no interest in what's happening on the stage, [or] in the great artists of the world."The Arts Council said funding recipients should be "prepared to show how they will offer the public excellent value", and that it is "absolutely committed to creative excellence". Mr Gilhooly said the venue does not "fully believe in everything" in the Arts Council's current Let's Create, the plan is billed by the Arts Council as widening access to culture and cultural funding, but is seen by many as supporting grassroots and community work over artists at the top of their Gilhooly said the musicians who perform at Wigmore Hall are the artistic equivalent of Olympic champions."We also work with a community choir. In my view, both are excellent, both are outstanding things," he told BBC News."But you can't judge a community choir on the same criteria that you judge the world's greatest artists, just like you can't judge the English football team against an amateur team."That is where we see the pressure and the tension." 'It zaps the energy' Mr Gilhooly said the venue would not stop doing outreach work."And the bits we do best, we'll probably do more of. For instance, we work with people living with dementia, we'll probably do more of that. We work with some of the most marginalised people in society. Most of that will continue. We believe in all of that."But it's just the way it's imposed through Let's Create that's exasperating really, and crippling for staff and for trustees."He added: "We have to go through this whole process every quarter to see that we've ticked every box."It takes a huge amount of staff time and energy. It zaps the energy, frankly. We're parting on good terms, as far as I'm concerned, but it's a good time for us to go."Wigmore Hall launched a fundraising appeal last year to become more self-sufficient, and has reached its target two years earlier than expected."We've raised this £10m and the interest on that alone covers what the Arts Council give us, and we've raised that ahead of time, which was a surprise," Mr Gilhooly said."It wasn't advertised as an anti-Arts Council fund, but the speed with which the money came in suggests, certainly in the classical music public, there's a feeling that the Arts Council is not altogether on our side." Cultural landscape 'isn't fair' An Arts Council England spokesperson said: "Where organisations feel that the success of their business model no longer requires public investment, we celebrate that success and wish them every good fortune for the future."They said the body takes the responsibility of spending public money seriously, and is committed to making the reporting requirements "as straightforward as possible for funded organisations".A statement added: "We want to be unequivocal and clear: Arts Council England is absolutely committed to creative excellence, in all the shapes and sizes it comes in, and across all the arts organisations, museums and libraries in which we invest."The evidence shows, however, that excellent cultural and creative opportunities, which are valued as a right by some people in some places, are still denied to too many in this country. That isn't fair and must be addressed."
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Wigmore Hall boss on dropping Arts Council funding: ‘They've lost the confidence of classical music'
Staff at Wigmore Hall have, of late, been walking into London's premier chamber music venue with an extra spring in their step. John Gilhooly, the hall's artistic and executive director since 2005, told them recently that it would stop taking money from Arts Council England, meaning that his charges will no longer be subject to the onerous bureaucracy that comes with being publicly subsidised. As part of their funding agreements, institutions in receipt of taxpayer cash must produce detailed quarterly reports on three topics: their 'investment principles', activities and finances. So intricate are the demands – on everything from schools outreach to environmental policies – the three accompanying instruction manuals run to a combined 60 pages. 'The amount of quarterly reporting – which goes on and on and on – it zaps creativity. So the organization, all the staff here, suddenly you can feel the energy lifting, because we've told them that within 12 months, they won't have to do this,' Gilhooly says of leaving the Arts Council's portfolio. 'There is a sadness in parting, but our core values don't change.' The biggest bugbear for Gilhooly is the Art's Council's 10-year mission statement, Let's Create. Published in 2020, it puts more emphasis on social outreach and diversity, equity and inclusion – aka DEI – rather than elite artistic endeavours. Funding has been shifted from large institutions, especially those in London, to community projects. Those that still benefit from the largesse of the public purse are made to work even harder for less. Sat in Wigmore Hall's smart basement restaurant, Gilhooly tells me that while Let's Create 'has great intentions', it 'inadvertently discriminated against classical music and opera, and I think that's a pity'. The cookie-cutter approach is wrong, he reckons. 'You cannot impose the same criteria on a great artist that you impose on a community event,' he says. 'Of course an amateur choir is excellent, just like amateur football is excellent, but it's not the same as the Olympics. And what we put on the stage here is the Olympics, but we believe in all of it, and all of it can be excellent, but to have this one-size-fits-all criteria, I think, is where the tension has come in.' The Wigmore is unusual in that it has robust enough finances to be able to decline public cash. The 550-seat venue, which hosts 600 concerts a year, costs about £8.5 million to run each year. A little more than £4 million is generated by ticket sales, with much of the rest coming from donors and sponsors; the Arts Council grant of almost £350,000 only forms 3 per cent of its income and is ultimately not worth the hassle. 'It's jumping through so many hoops and the language is not helpful. It's kind of a language of its own.' Is it corporate jargon? 'It's not even that, it's Arts Council jargon and it's got progressively worse over the years as funding has gone down,' he adds. 'I understand that it is public money and it has got to be accounted for, but there must be a more efficient way of doing it and probably even less intrusive on staff time on trustee time… There are plenty of orchestras and others who I'm sure would love to do this, but they can't.' The Irish impresario, 51, is keen to emphasise that he would not like to see the Arts Council, which used to own Wigmore Hall, abolished, 'but they have lost the confidence of classical music, and hopefully that can be repaired'. To that end the quango's chairman, Nicholas Serota, has chaired meetings with disaffected classical music and opera bosses, 'but we need to know that they're listening'. Gilhooly made Wigmore Hall Arts Council-proof by launching a 'director's fund' last year; the aim was to reach £10 million in pledged donations by 2027, but that target has already been met. 'I didn't expect that in a year,' Gilhooly says modestly. 'It's just good luck and hard work, I suppose, and wonderful donors, who really believe in the place, because it's not an easy time to fundraise. We're in a position to move on from public funding. Others are not.' His new target is to make the director's fund worth £30 million. As well as celebrating financial independence, Gilhooly talks about the Wigmore's 125th anniversary season to be marked next year and he insists that he is more excited than ever despite having had the top job for 20 years. 'The scope of the season is so different. There's an African concert series, there's a Cuban, Brazilian focus,' he says. 'You've got the great artists of the world, they're all here.' He has also programmed a two-week festival next May for the anniversary, which has 'everything from Lise Davidsen, who's one of the great sopranos of our time, to an evening of Stockhausen, which people wouldn't expect. The repertoire is so diverse – this is not just a house of old Vienna of Schubert, Mozart and Haydn'. Other starry names announced include Errollyn Warren, Master of the King's Music, four of the celebrated Kanneh-Mason siblings, Mitsuko Uchida and Stephen Hough. Meanwhile, Simon Russell Beale will bring Claude Debussy's life to stage with acclaimed pianist Lucy Parham and Mary Beard is to narrate an International Women's Day programme. He has also raised £500,000 to underpin the Wigmore's popular £5 ticket for under 35s scheme which, since it was launched a decade ago, has seen 200,000 take advantage of it. It has had the effect of bringing down the average age of concert-goers, as well as being an investment in the Wigmore's future: one couple who would not have been able to afford to see concerts without the hefty discount have now got high-paying jobs and are donating £50,000 a year to the hall. 'It has transformed the audience. And I think it's one of the reasons fundraising is doing so well, because it's encouraging the established audience to really embrace that and to give as they see that there is a future.' While the Wigmore may have had something of a stuffy reputation before Gilhooly took over in 2005, he has steadfastly maintained its high-class output without resorting to trendy bandwagon-jumping that some other venues have tried. 'Absolutely no gimmicks: that was instilled in me by my predecessor, William Lyne. No gimmicks, no circus tricks. That was his only advice,' says Gilhooly. 'And he was right. Let the music speak for itself. Which is, again, my issue with public funding… We go back several hundred years [in terms of repertoire], and we're commissioning right up to yesterday, and the cross section of artists is huge. So why not cherish that? And why not cherish other people? The South Bank has a niche – cherish that. The Royal Shakespeare Company has a niche – cherish that. But the thing is, we all have to look the same under these things.' He adds: 'This is where great artists come to earn their credentials. This is where we unapologetically put on difficult repertoire. That will not change, but the breadth of repertoire has changed, and how you define difficult repertoire has changed.' The Wigmore works closely with both BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM to broaden its audiences and, unlike many in the classical world, Gilhooly does not despair at the fall in radio audiences in recent years. 'People are saying it's not the same as what it used to be in – it's just fine. There are millions of people listening to Classic FM, there are millions of people listening to Radio 3. And Haydn would never have imagined that we would be beaming his string quartets from London across the world to millions of people via radio or digital,' he says. 'It is astonishing, but there's work to be done, and far more people we're never going to convert the whole world.' Instead, he reckons that about 10 per cent of the population Brits are 'interested vaguely in what we do', and his job is to get them in with so many competing demands on their time and attention. Gilhooly has also been heartened by the Labour Government's warm words about the importance of music education in schools. 'They seem to get the fact that it is the universal right of every child and every citizen to have that access. But if they don't, there's only so much we can do. If they don't fix it in the classroom we can't fix it because we can reach hundreds of thousands collectively as orchestras, opera houses, theater but then there are millions disenfranchised, unless you get to them in those early years,' he warns. 'It's just essential for the curriculum that people know Bach came before Beethoven. And that you don't have to read music to love music, but that they're not frightened of it. Literacy is part of the curriculum, and music literacy should be part of it too.' Gilhooly says that his childhood in Limerick was a 'typical Irish Catholic upbringing'. Ireland in the 1970s was not a wealthy country. 'We did not live in poverty, but there was a lot of it around,' he says. When he started going to concerts, in the late 1980s, they were at the local Protestant school and church, and 'it was actually an issue that I was going to these concerts for some people. My parents were very enlightened. And I owe them a lot, really'. After graduating with a degree in history and political science from University College Dublin, Gilhooly worked as a tutor and in the university's buildings department, where he was house manager for the opening of the O'Reilly Hall concert venue. Then came a stint as manager of the Harrogate International Centre in North Yorkshire and a short spell at the Excel in London's Docklands before moving to the Wigmore in 2000. He and his siblings all trained as singers. So, does he ever sing these days? 'Absolutely not,' he instantly replies. 'I hear it here at such a standard it's enough to shame you. I don't regret anything. If I studied music all my life I wouldn't be doing my job. I'm glad I didn't take it professionally.' David Lyne spent 46 years at Wigmore Hall, 37 of which as director. As he enters his third decade running the place, Gilhooly is inevitably thinking about how his own tenure will last. 'I'll have to go at some point, and I don't want to die in the job,' he says. 'I'll go on for a while yet, but hopefully if I run out of steam, I think I'm self aware enough to know when it's time to go. But there's road to run, and there are things to be done, because I want to get to that £30 million target.' Few would bet against him succeeding. Tickets for Wigmore Hall's autumn series go on sale at 10am on April 23. ; 020 7935 2141 Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
