A statement from Martyn Brabbins
Music Director, English National Opera
As Music Director of English National Opera for the past seven years, and Head of its orchestra, chorus and music staff, I cannot in all conscience continue to support the Board and Management’s strategy for the future of the company. While my feelings on this have been developing for some time, it reached its nadir this week, with the internal announcement of severe cuts to its orchestra and chorus from 2024/25 season. In protest, this afternoon I tendered my resignation with immediate effect.
Although making cuts has been necessitated by Arts Council England’s interference in the company’s future, the proposed changes would drive a coach and horses through the artistic integrity of the whole of ENO as a performing company, while also singularly failing to protect our musicians’ livelihoods.
This is a plan of managed decline, rather than an attempt to rebuild the company and maintain the world-class artistic output, for which ENO is rightly famed.
I urge ACE to reassess this situation and recognise the devastating implications their funding decisions will have on the lives of individual musicians, as well the reputation of the UK on the international stage.
My wholehearted thanks and support go out to the entire ENO team, especially those in the departments I oversaw. I am incredibly proud of everything we accomplished, and I sincerely hope that the company will find a path that puts exceptional artistry front and centre of its future.
Martyn Brabbins
Music Director
English National Opera
Chaos rules, wholly owing to the idiocies of the Arts Council who, as I remarked the other day, don’t know their Arts from their Elbow.
The United Kingdom currently has a useless Culture Secretary, a worthless Arts Council England, a frequently disappointing national broadcaster and, with very few exceptions, a spineless daily press – a combination which, to my certain knowledge, has brought disbelief into the minds of foreign arts commentators on considering the current state of classical music in this country. Martyn Brabbins has taken a stand which those who care about the civilised qualities of life in Britain will fully support, and which only a Musicians’ Union national strike will help bring the situation to the Government’s and general public’s attention. Such extreme action has worked in the past – but it’s a different world now, not invariably a better one.
My knowledge is much less in general than that of the two commenters above. However, I have been tracking the BBC R3 schedules for some months now, and I would like to point out that for the majority of its daily schedule, BBC R3 has abandoned any commitment to British music by mainstream male classical composers of the second half of the 20th century (and to some extent even female mainstream classical composers also). There appears to be some ‘diversity quota’ system in place, which cuts them out, on grounds that I can only regard as racist, sexist and ethnic prejudice. At some time in the future I hope to outline my grounds for making the above statement.