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George Zukerman O.C., O.B.C.
By admin1 | April 22, 2008
George Zukerman O.,C., O.B.C.
Filed under: Open Letters
The wanton abandonment of the CBC Radio Orchestra, by middle-level executives of the Corporation is a story that simply will not go away. I had the honour to be present among nearly 500 people who raised their collective voice in protest at a demonstration prior to the orchestra’s penultimate concert at the Chan centre on the weekend.
Fifty five years ago, I played in the orchestra , under the direction of a great Canadian musical pioneer, John Avison.. In those days, we recorded 39 studio broadcasts every year, with music by every young Canadian composer who owned a bottle of India ink. They were all unknowns then – Weinzweig, Coulthard, Adaskin, Schaefer. Thanks in large part to the Radio orchestra they emerged as our most distinguished composers of the 20th century.
We also toured with this orchestra 30 years ago, up the coast of B.C. To Bella Coola and Kitimat [which had no road in those days]; over the arctic circle to Inuvik and Frobisher Bay – Iqaluit today. Concertmaster Cam Trowsdale became the world’s first Fiddler on the Roof in Tuktayauktuk.
The Orchestra then – as now – was an iconic symbol of public broadcasting, the clarion voice of classical music to thousands of listeners in smaller cities towns and villages across the land. Through short wave and recordings it proudly represented Canada on the world’s musical stage.
The tours take place no longer. CBC recordings of classical repertoire are a thing of the past despite Grammy awards and world-wide recognition, and now, the orchestra itself is to be destroyed in an act of reckless [and needless] cultural stupidity.
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We are told that the Orchestra is no longer “economically viable”. The paltry sum needed to run the orchestra amounts to approximately 2c per Canadian. The advertising campaign in which the CBC is trying so desperately to convince us that they are taking the shining new pathway to musical democracy is surely costing as much as the orchestra’s entire annual budget.
There is a prevalent sense that the Orchestra is being dismantled and the programme scheduled gutted, as part of a systematic policy to change the face of Radio 2, to change the music we listen to, to abandon the traditions of 70 years of public broadcasting, to forgo the CBC’s mandate to serve minority communities, to sacrifice intelligent commentary and informed musical opinion, and to ghettoise what little classical music remains to daytime hours when working adults generally cannot listen, and young people are presumably in school.
The CBC has embarked on an unpredictable and dangerous course. In place of music of lasting value, we are to be offered an endless diet of homogenized musical pablum, much of it barely distinguishable from radio fare heard on every private station.
Eric Friesen of “Studio Sparks” [one of the many well-loved classical music programmes due to be scrapped in September] defined classical music as “That music which remains when all else falls away.” If the CBC has its way, it is the world of great classical music that will fall away. In that case, what will remain?
The demonstrators at the Chan, included large numbers of University music students [who says young people aren’t interested in classical music?] At the concert there was a prolonged standing ovation, and a spontaneous a- capella rendition of Oh Canada. Many players and listeners alike were in tears. As the hall emptied, somebody shouted the words that were on everyone’s lips – “Save the CBC Orchestra”….. How better could the allegedly dwindling public show determined support for the Orchestra, for good music and for the shadow of what the CBC once represented?
Sincerely,
George Zukerman, O.,C., O.B.C.
Topics: Articles about CBC, Dispatches from Musicians, Letters | No Comments »
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