LA PETITE BANDE SOUNDS THE ALARM!

Transcription

1 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE LA PETITE BANDE SOUNDS THE ALARM! Leuven, 13 September 2011 In the autumn of 2012, La Petite Bande, the baroque orchestra founded by Sigiswald Kuijken, will blow out 40 candles. But the ceremony may turn out to be a requiem instead of a birthday. Like many other arts organisations in Flanders, La Petite Bande will be requesting support for the subsidy period The commotion around the last round of subsidies still hasn t completely ebbed away. In February of 2009 we had a rather surreal experience: on 2 February Sigiswald Kuijken received the Flemish Community s Prize for General Cultural Merit from the minister of Culture, Bert Anciaux, and in the post on 3 February, we received the devastating advice from the Music Evaluation committee that La Petite Bande is no longer relevant, and should stop right now! Immediately a campaign was launched on the Internet, gathering nearly 22,000 signatures from all over the world within a few weeks, and Minister Anciaux overturned the decision, granting less money but enough for La Petite Bande to continue its work for another three years. Now we re facing the next round of subsidies, with precisely the same committee (not a single member has been replaced in the last three years) and a new minister. Despite the committee s previous recommendation, La Petite Bande is going to apply for subsidies again. After all, an ensemble like La Petite Bande mustn t die, and cannot survive without government support. Is La Petite Bande no longer relevant? In the past three years, we have released no fewer than nine CDs (bringing our total number of recordings since 1972 to 76). These recordings give voice to the reforms and innovations introduced by founder Sigiswald Kuijken, such as the uncompromising decision to use soloists instead of a choir for Bach s sacred music (in which Kuijken conducts while playing violin), the rediscovery of the shoulder cello (or violoncello da spalla), which had a particular function in Bach s music, and the extensive research on authentic historic playing techniques for baroque brass instruments. The last three years concert tours have taken the ensemble to Belgium s neighbours the Netherlands, France, Germany and Luxembourg, as well as farther afield to Italy, Spain and Portugal and even to other continents (Japan, Korea, India, Mexico). It should be stressed that these concerts are done on a regular basis, that is, audiences at home and abroad want to enjoy hearing the ensemble again and again live. La Petite Bande intends to continue on this path for a very long time, but is also looking to the future in order to pass on the accomplishments it takes such pride in to the next generation; indeed, young musicians have explicitly urged La Petite Bande not to abandon the remarkable course they have followed. With this in mind, Sigiswald Kuijken selected the young harpsichordist and organist Benjamin Alard to conduct an occasional full production of La Petite Bande, starting in Born in 1985, Alard won the famous harpsichord competition

2 in Bruges at the age of 19 and has become a regular player in the ensemble as well as a soloist on some important tours to Japan and Korea. The city of Leuven, which has warmly offered La Petite Bande a safe haven, and where the ensemble has been in residence since 1997, confirms its commitment to the orchestra. In the words of mayor Louis Tobback, We are proud to be able to accommodate you and your orchestra as our city s house orchestra. The city council greatly values your contribution to the image of Leuven, as well as the excellent working relationship you have with Leuven s cultural institutions. The city will keep supporting La Petite Bande in the future as well. La Petite Bande aims to face the future with confidence. It would be a shocking and incomprehensible decision for both the ensemble s Flemish audiences and those abroad if the officially authorised subsidy committee themselves decide to abandon support. From Sigiswald KUIJKEN: All my life I ve followed a certain course, a line that was not a simple consequence of one decision or some principle that someone brought to my attention no: it is a path born of an inner necessity, one that arises from a kind of tiny, precious flame burning inside me. And what does that little flame say to me about music? That music (from any era at all) has a core from which it was able to arise and from which we also must try to perform it if we want its original, fresh impact to affect our experience of it. It is my firm conviction that this core also lives on today in each one of us, just like the core that burned in the composer while he lived and wrote if we want to understand him even somewhat, that is where we have to meet him! We thus have to develop a capacity for imagination and empathy, a certain kind of awareness of the composer and his time, for the style and worldview that dominated his time and environment, if we want to have a chance of a close encounter spanning the ages. Of course, in addition to our study and growing insight, we also need an instrument, the tools with which to continue this pursuit and present it to people. In just this way, for nearly forty years, LA PETITE BANDE has been this kind of instrument par excellence an instrument which I can claim to say I built and learned to play myself; in any case it s my main instrument. This doesn t mean it s the only one: after all, the very first instrument in anyone s hands is their talent, which was given to them without their necessarily asking for or deserving it LA PETITE BANDE is staying with its core business and not watering down its philosophy; it would rather (since we re on the subject of water) keep swimming against the current (which is what it s always done anyway!). This attitude, I think, is increasingly necessary in these times, in part as a signal that not everybody wants to go along with, let alone embrace, the growing banality of our contemporary cultural fads

3 I wanted to state all this clearly once again, now that for a variety of reasons LA PETITE BANDE is at a kind of crossroads, and thus in a situation where these ideas are certainly also important. Why is LA PETITE BANDE finding itself at this crossroads? I will name two elements; I m sure you ll understand the connection between them. The first is that now (mid-september) is when the official applications for arts subsidies for the next four years ( ) must be submitted to the Flemish Ministry of Culture. I m sure you realize that in the system that has evolved over more than 20 years, an orchestra such as ours has no chance of survival without these subsidies. You may remember how during the last round of subsidies (for ), the committee advising then-minister Anciaux clearly wanted to abolish subsidies for LA PETITE BANDE, for reasons still not entirely clear to us. We were nevertheless awarded some (though somewhat reduced) support in 2010 from Minister Anciaux, despite the advice to the contrary, and thanks to the world-wide support through an Internet petition. This campaign had made it clear that cutting support for LA PETITE BANDE would be viewed as a short-sighted act of cultural ignorance which would severely harm the image of Flemish culture policy I won t say any more about this except the following: the committee due to advise Minister Schauvliege in May 2012 is composed of precisely the same members who wanted us struck from the list of candidates the last time. Thus a dark cloud looks to be hanging over our head as far as subsidies go. LA PETITE BANDE may end up in a desperate situation We did think over and critically consider the commission s earlier objections to our work, and even had some dialogue with them about the matter. Yet one of their remarks in particular got us to thinking, all the more so since the subject had also been broached with us by another source, the many professional and preprofessional musicians in our field of early music. It was the question of what would (or will) happen if I (Sigiswald Kuijken) decided to cut back - or eventually stop working with LA PETITE BANDE. Of course this question is a legitimate one: no one knows what the future may bring, and at 67 I mustn t pretend I m 45. This leads us to the second element, and the second reason why I said just now that LA PETITE BANDE is at a crossroads in its existence: I ll confess that until reasonably recently I had assumed that at some point one that I would choose the adventure that LA PETITE BANDE is would come to an end. Since I had intimated this in 2008 during the last subsidy application period, the committee s questions about this (for just how much longer would LA PETITE BANDE have to be supported??? and wasn t this factor an argument for stopping the subsidies sooner rather than later????) were not completely unexpected. Thus, at the time it seemed to me unthinkable (if not unfeasible) not to have the group stop if I were to step down. And yet, there has recently been a shift in the view that LA PETITE BANDE would cease to exist once I left. As I said earlier, mostly because of the following:

4 Increasingly, young musicians and committed music students from our circles tell me how we are gradually becoming quite a rare bird among the ensembles working today, because we keep giving priority to our underlying artistic motivations and integrity, and not yielding to the trendy needs of the culture scene to ensure our survival. I was moved by this: I see that these people are speaking from what they ve experienced in practice. They assure me that if LA PETITE BANDE were to stop along with me, there would soon be an end to the kind of music-making and musical thinking that is alive and well in LA PETITE BANDE, and that this would be an irreparable loss for them. They emphasize that my life s work has to keep on flourishing - even if I m no longer there. They insist that I should gradually try to find a way to have the group live on without me and without forgetting or repudiating its own origins In time I started to use my imagination in what for me was a different and unusual train of thought; finally the call found some resonance in me and accordingly I started to imagine how this could or should indeed go. During its entire existence, LA PETITE BANDE has essentially been working with young talent; the interaction between generations was always very intense, and thanks to their artistic integrity, there was always a gratifying atmosphere of discovering and developing things together. Even now, this is the core of what we experience when we work together. The important thing now is to retain this essential aspect in the future since that s what young people in the profession are expecting from me. That s why we now have a concrete plan to do a few projects in the next few seasons in which I myself will not physically be working. These projects will be conducted by a musician we ve chosen, in whose talent we have a special confidence. The first of these musicians is the young harpsichordist and organist Benjamin Alard. He may be over forty years younger than I but, as we ve already noticed for a few years, we play and think the same way, from the same source, ideas and convictions. At the age of 19, Benjamin Alard won first prize at the famous international harpsichord competition in Bruges, and is also the organist at the church of St Louis en l Île in Paris. In a short time, he s built up an impressive career as a harpsichordist and organist; his CD recordings and concerts receive rave reviews everywhere. He has already been on two concert tours to Japan with LA PETITE BANDE, also performing as a soloist. It makes me very happy to have found such a talented and congenial kindred spirit who still has so much of his life ahead of him. He has a clearly structured mind, and musical ideas which he can present convincingly to both audiences and colleagues in his playing. We believe that someone like him is capable of taking forward what has grown within the LA PETITE BANDE s atmosphere and work, as part of his path, with his talent and his intuition. With this kind of experiment, we aim to comply with the wishes of a concerned and motivated younger generation, and concentrate even more on how to pass on our spirit and help it survive. In the future, we may offer similar projects to others besides Benjamin Alard, but we wanted to inform you of this development now. The idea is to do one project each season without my involvement.

5 Thus, starting with the season, you can share the experience of the beginnings of this experiment: in April 2013, LA PETITE BANDE will perform a programme chosen and conducted by Benjamin Alard, built around the organ concerti of Georg Friedrich Händel. For more information: Geert Robberechts or Helene Jacobs +32(0)16/ info@lapetitebande.be