TENOR Ian Bostridge and violinist Tasmin Little were recently on Radio 4’s Today previewing the socially distanced concerts to be piloted at Snape Maltings in Suffolk. An hour later, Boris Johnson shelved the re-opening of concert halls; Snape was off, another jolt in the rollercoaster ride for musicians during the pandemic. They are hurtling down a very dark tunnel indeed.
Professionals are now allowed to rehearse under strict conditions, but this is pointless when concert halls remain closed indefinitely. Most managements calculate that socially distanced audiences will (eventually) occupy a mere 15% of ticketed seats. It’s cheaper to mothball.
‘All my friends are bemoaning their lack of motivation, wondering where their mojo has gone,’ says Miss Little. ‘It’s not that we don’t want to play, but there’s none of the excitement, the looking towards the end product. It’s almost painful.’
Deborah Annetts, chief executive of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, predicts an ‘exodus of talent’. With no paid work until at least spring 2021, many gifted musicians are resigned to a permanent career change. Others have fallen back on teaching via Zoom, aware that the next generation is querying the point of taking up the oboe or vocal studies at all.
Music has been doubly bludgeoned because most professionals are freelance. The Musicians’ Union says 38% have fallen through the cracks of furlough and self-employment support (SEISS.)
It’s still a struggle to persuade Whitehall that bespoke treatment is urgent for an industry that normally generates billions for the Exchequer.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة August 19, 2020 من Country Life UK.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة August 19, 2020 من Country Life UK.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
