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Below you will find a list of Past events, followed by a section that features photos, videos, and details of those events.

NATIONAL

Government of Canada rejects Standing Committee’s February report, June 19, 2008

The government of Canada has rejected the February report of the CHPC. Read Minister of Heritage, Josée Verner’s announcement here. We first learned about this from a broadcastmagazine.com article. This means that CBC does not receive any long-term funding commitment from the government.

Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage releases report: Our efforts are a (qualified) success!!! June 18, 2008

The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage incorporated most of our concerns into their report, released today, on the CBC Radio Orchestra and Radio 2. But their recommendation is no different than the recommendation given in February: to increase and stabilize CBC funding indexed to the cost of living. Read the conclusions, or download the report [PDF]. But our efforts must continue until CBC management accepts and acts on these recommendations and conclusions.

Heritage Committee Hearings May 27 & 29, June 3 & 5, 2008

The Heritage Committee held hearings on May 27, 29, June 3 & 5 on the matter of the CBC Radio Orchestra, of programming at Radio 2, and of the changes at CBC. Several members of the national coalition were called. On June 18, their report from these hearings was released.

June 18: STUDY ON THE DISMANTLING OF THE CBC RADIO ORCHESTRA, ON CBC/RADIO CANADA’S COMMITMENT TO CLASSICAL MUSIC AND THE CHANGES TO CBC RADIO 2

Download the entire report (PDF)

Read only the recommendation and conclusions of the report.

Learn about the process here.

National Day of Action, Friday, April 11, 2008

NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION, Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 12:00pm Eastern Time: protest rallies held across the country. More below!

CBC Radio Orchestra Concert with Louie Lortie was CBC’s Number One Most Downloaded Concert in May

Congratulations CBC Radio Orchestra! Patti Schmidt, host of “Inside the Music” announced on the program this past weekend, that on the CBC’s Concerts on Demand web site, the most downloaded concert of the month of May is “Louie Lortie’s Mozart”. A concert presented by the CBC Radio Orchestra recorded at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts in Vancouver March 16th, 2008, Lortie was both conductor and soloist in an all Mozart programme. In the brave new world of technology, among the vast variety of music available in the CBC’s Concerts on Demand offerings, the CBC Radio Orchestra with Canadian pianist Louie Lortie performing Mozart proves a winning combination.

By City

Vancouver

Nov. 18, 2009 Dancing to Whose Tune? The CBC and the Crisis at Radio 2
William Bruneau, Chair, StandOnGuardForCBC Coalition, and Professor Emeritus, UBC

Where? University of British Columbia, Brock House, Halpern Room
When? 10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Cost: No charge

Sunday, November 16, 2008 – CBC Radio Orchestra: A gala farewell

The program will include four new works by outstanding young Canadian composers, the landmark Lonely Child by Claude Vivier, a work commissioned by the CBC Radio Orchestra, featuring soprano Nathalie Paulin, and Beethoven’s Symphony no. 7.

7:00-8:30pm – hear representatives from each Federal Party debate the arts. The Alliance for Arts & Culture will be hosting the debate, which will be moderated by Hal Wake, Artistic Director of the Vancouver International Writer’s & Reader’s Festival.
9:00-10:30pm – The Wrecking Ball election cabaret hosted by John Mann of Spirit of the West, and directed by The Electric Company’s Kim Collier and Jonathon Young.

Toronto

Montreal

By Region

BC

October 23, Victoria. Censorship and the Arts: a FREE public issues community forum at the University of Victoria. One of the guest panelists will be Alain Pineau, National Director of the Canadian Conference of the Arts (and before that with CBC as a radio journalist and Vice President of Planning and Regulatory Affairs). Visit www.continuingstudies.uvic.ca/lectures to find out how to participate.

May 24 RALLY DAY SUCCESS ACROSS CANADA

Ben Heppner: “I am in a state of shock. As I have travelled throughout the world performing, I have been hearing alarming things about the CBC…I believe these sweeping changes are a gross mistake for our country.” Read more.

“I challenge you today, Mr. Lacroix and Mr. Stursberg, to look into the eyes of all these faces, alive and deceased, and tell them that what they have poured their life’s passion into is of marginal interest to this country, and that their artistry is not really relevant to culture… at least not the culture of Canada.” -Ivars Taurins. Complete speech here.

PHOTOS & Details

Rally, TORONTO, MAY 24

photos by M. Mittermaier

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Toronto photo collage features (from bottom left) conductor Lydia Adams, opera singer Peter McGillvary, conductor Mario Bernardi, and in the centre, conductor Ivars Taurins, who was MC for the rally.

VIDEO FROM THE TORONTO RALLY IS HERE.

Rally, VANCOUVER, May 24

photos by Gene Ramsbottom

MP_Bill_Siksay

Honourable Bill Siksay, MP for Burnaby-Douglas

Tovey

Conductor Bramwell Tovey (Artistic Director, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra)

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CBC Radio Orchestra

RALLY AT THE CHAN CENTRE

CBC Radio Orchestra Concert April 20

Get info about the concert here.

“O Canada! Long may you play The last of a breed, the CBC Radio Orchestra sounds vibrantly alive.” LA Times, October 24, 2006

Student Orchestra at UBC Performs to Support CBC Radio Orchestra

University of British Columbia Media Advisory

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 8, 2008 Media Contact: Laurie Townsend (604) 822-9161

Friday April 11th at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts

Vancouver, B.C. ~ The students in the UBC Symphony Orchestra have decided to dedicate their final concert of this school year to the CBC Radio Orchestra to help save the CBCRO from being dismantled. The UBC Symphony Orchestra often plays to full houses at the Chan Centre so more than 1,000 people will receive, through music, a message of hope for the future of the CBC Radio Orchestra.

What students in the orchestra are saying: “I think this is a wonderful way to show our support to the CBC Radio Orchestra and the music community at large. There’s so much talk about how young people aren’t interested in classical music, and to attract a younger audience you have to turn your programming into rock/pop/easy listening. We’re standing on that stage on Friday night saying that’s not true. There are hundreds of thousands of young people across this country who study classical music, whether it be through RCM [Royal Conservatory of Music] exams or music schools like UBC. We’re the future of classical music, and we want our CBC back!” – Katya Woloshyn, Principal Violist UBC Symphony Orchestra, 4th year Bachelor of Music student.

Read the complete release here

NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION

Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 12:00pm Eastern Time

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (April 7, 2008):

On Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 12:00pm Eastern Time, the 12,500 strong members of a hastily arranged Facebook group entitled “Save Classical Music at the CBC” will be holding a NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION called “RAISE A RUCKUS FOR RADIO TWO!” in over a dozen cities across Canada.

In response to recently announced programming changes at CBC Radio Two and the planned axing of the famed CBC Vancouver Radio Orchestra, classical music fans, musicians and Radio Two listeners are planning to take to the streets in front of their local CBC installations in every province simultaneously.

Demonstrations are to be held at CBC facilities in Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Toronto, London, Ottawa, Montreal, Halifax, Charlottetown and St. John’s; with possible demonstrations to be held in Regina, Kingston, ON, and Saint John, NB as well. Disappointment with the planned changes has been swiftly building and increasingly vocal since the CBC’s announcement of March 4th, where top executives including Richard Stursberg – head of CBC English services, Jennifer McGuire – head of CBC radio, and Mark Steinmetz – director of radio programming divulged that CBC Radio Two’s 40 year tradition as a primarily classical music broadcaster would be coming to a close. Weekday classical music programming is to be cut from 12 hours daily to 5 off-peak hours leading to the cancellation of many popular shows. Though listeners realize that shows and hosts come and go, most of the quality programming is to be replaced with pop music with sprinklings of light jazz and world music. Classical music fans and musicians feel as though they have lost a trusted and beloved member of the family – they feel like they are being punished for CBC’s inability to stay true to its history and mandate.

Since coming into power, the current team of Programming Executives have been responsible for the fact that:

• They have failed to transform the innovative Radio 3 into a national broadcast network, thereby necessitating, in their eyes, the gutting of Radio Two’s classical programming in order to satisfy their self-perceived mandate to be all things to all people.
• The CBC Young Composers Competition and the CBC Young Performers Competition, have been suspended for the past four years. These two important domestic competitions had been instrumental in the development of some of Canada’s best musical talent including: Angela Hewitt, Ben Heppner, Jon Kimura Parker. The Canada Council provided the funding for the $10,000.00 grand prizes.
• The CBC has, as of February, erased the classical music budget for CBC Records, precisely on the eve of their first Grammy win by Canadian violinist James Ehnes and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra under Bramwell Tovey on the CBC Records label. Many artists, such as Measha Brueggergosman, launched their careers on a CBC Records label recording.
• The commissioning budget previously devoted to commissioning new works from composers is now spread out to cover jazz, pop musicians, and some unspecified amount of contemporary music. CBC says they will spend the same amount on classical commissions – but their track record is not looking good.
• The proposed cuts for the Fall of 2008 represents further reductions in classical music content, eliminating classical music 6am to 10am and 3pm to 6pm – reducing by over half the overall classical weekday programming from 12 hours to 5 hours, and shifting all weekday classical programming to inconvenient, off-peak times of the day when no one who works or goes to school can tune in.
• The axing of the 70 year old CBC Radio Orchestra: North America’s last remaining radio orchestra and platform for countless premieres of new Canadian compositions.

And then, one day after citing lack of resources as the reason for cutting the orchestra, buying an expensive full-page ad in a national newspaper to convince Canadians about how wonderful the evisceration of their national radio music network is – signed and supported by wealthy pop music recording industry executives and artists, the people who stand to gain monetarily from the demise of CBC’s classical programming.

All existing and long-standing weekday classical shows on Radio Two are to be cut, including:
• Music & Company – Tom Allen’s morning wake up show
• Here’s to You – Catherine Belyea’s all-request show
• Studio Sparks – due to the venerable Eric Friesen’s “retirement”
• Disc Drive – Jurgen Gothe’s popular, 30 year old drive-home show
• Sound Advice – Rick Philips’ extraordinarily informative and unique classical recording showcase and review

These changes come on the heels of last years round of cuts to vital programs such as:
• Danielle Charbonneau’s much-loved Music for a While; • Larry Lake’s new composer showcase Two New Hours;
• Symphony Hall – Canada’s live orchestra recording showcase;
• The Singer and the Song – Catherine Belyea’s excellent Classical vocal program;
• Northern Lights – the overnight Classical program beloved by Night Owls everywhere;
• The reformatting of In Performance- a primarily classical live performance show into the unfocused Canada Live – a uniformly non-classical and completely confusing mix of World music, soft pop, and lounge Jazz;

The CBC claims financial constraints drive these cuts, yet spending in other areas, and support from the commercial recording industry suggest otherwise. Canadian classical music fans and musicians and Radio Two listeners have had enough of this “concerted” and unprecedented campaign against classical and art music programming and infrastructure. Though their numbers may be relatively small compared to commercial radio, Radio Two listeners are among the most engaged and loyal in the world. They feel the have been betrayed and belittled by the current management team entrenched at the nation’s public broadcaster.

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NAVIGATION

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