Paul N

Here's an interesting and fairly recently posted performance of Symphony in C. Says early 1970s, which means good camera work as well as great dancing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wIQyNW1zOc Quite a few more interesting videos uploaded by that user too....

That may be the case, but it doesn't alter the purpose of ACE which is supposed to be to encourage everyone to participate in the arts, and it should use its funds accordingly and fairly for that purpose. Further, a specific direction regarding their lottery funds is that these should be used to encourage those who don't currently particpate. I don't see any political points-scoring going on. The CMS Select Committee is cross-party, has a Conservative chairman, and made it's strongest criticism of a Conservative minister. Arts funding is not going to feature strongly in any election campaign, probably not at all. There are always going to be flaws in analysis of this kind; one here is that money invested in a particular region does have benefits outside the region, and these are difficult to measure (haven't been at all as far as I can see in this case). Nevertheless, I think the overall picture painted by these reports is broadly correct. The authors of the ROCC & PLACE reports are proposing that it is the ACE lottery funding that should be changed so that it is distributed on a fair, per capita basis. The other public funding would remain unchanged. This seems to me to be an entirely reasonable proposition, one that is difficult to argue against, particularly given that London does so well from these other sources and from private money too. If any region has the resources to plug such a rebalancing, it's London. The ROCC report gives us these figures (2011/12): Private money: "In 2011/12, 90% of all private giving to the arts by individual philanthropists was to London-based organisations (2010/11 89%), 68% of all business sponsorship was in London (2010/11 66%), and 73% of support from trusts and foundations was given to London-based arts (2010/11 68%). Of a total of £660.5m of private giving overall in 2011/12, £540.2m (81.8%) went to London-based organisations." Public money (England totals): DCMS direct: £493M ACE Treasury: £393M ACE Lottery: £211M Local Government: £439M So it's the smallest pot that the authors are talking about rebalancing. Whether their proposal would end up being to dance's cost and to the benefit of other art forms though, I have absolutely no idea. There may well be a 'resentment towards London' issue, a lot of which is unfounded. However, consider the variation in the distribution of Lottery money from all the individual lottery funds: (spend in London as % of spend in rest of England; totals since 1995) Arts Lottery Fund: 353% Big Lottery Fund: 185% Heritage Lottery Fund: 169% Millenium Fund: 230% Sport Lottery Fund: 140% Message: not just a 'London problem', there's an arts fund/ACE problem - the other funds have managed a much more balanced distribution of the money in line with the directions for use of lottery funds.

Back to ENB ACE Analysis of Opera Ballet (July 2014) "English National Ballet has recently appointed a new Artistic Director, Tamara Rojo, who is making impressive steps to refresh the company’s repertoire by introducing more contemporary works. The plans to extend ballet audiences through participation in festivals such as Glastonbury, Latitude, and through dance and health projects, are particularly exciting. We support ENB’s proposal to replace a week of regional touring for an additional one in London. This would enable the company to present the broader repertoire as outlined in Tamara Rojo’s plans, developing audiences for new work, and in the long term supporting the company’s ambition to present a broader repertoire on tour. The regional touring week could, after negotiation, be picked up by BRB. We also support the company’s ambitions to broaden its repertoire, although it will need to win over audiences. ENB is planning to invest reserves to further this ambition. It will have work to do on relationships outside London, but recognises this and wants to offer more to the cities it tours to. The recommendations we make around improving the working relationship between venues and touring companies will require changes of culture in all our touring companies and we will be expecting the company to set out in their business plan how they intend to implement this change of approach. ENO’s proposed new business model represents considerable challenges to ENB’s own operating model and we will be supporting both companies to work together to resolve this." ACE's funding planning figures for 2015-16: ENO - £5m reduction Northern Ballet - £550k increase WNO - no change Opera North - £600k increase BRB - £500k increase ENB - no change ROH - £800k reduction So some redistribution planned there, with a massive hit for ENO.

I was reading the Guardian article on funding earlier and was quite staggered by the degree of the imbalance. I have only read the headlines of the referenced reports, but it’s powerful stuff: The Select Committee’s report (October 2014): “The Arts Council is well-placed to tackle the clear imbalance of funding that favours London unfairly. It must do so with greater urgency if it is to realise its declared ambition to engineer the provision of great art and culture for everyone.” (Conclusions and recommendations #22:) ACE’s response: "We welcome the findings of the report, and the opportunity to reaffirm our priorities for the near future:" "we will continue to rebalance our investment intelligently – to build capacity outside of London, whilst not damaging the infrastructure in the capital" The “Rebalancing Our Cultural Capital” report (October 2013) "One way to begin redress would be to allocate London its fair 'per capita' share of arts Lottery funding, for an initial five-year period. The 'core' treasury funding of arts organisations and cultural institutions in London would not be affected. Funds available to London overall would reduce by just over 10%. Cultural production outside London could then benefit over the five years by a total of £600m. This is still less than the cost to the Lottery of the Millennium Dome." The PLACE report (April 2014) (focusses on use of lottery funds) All the headlines here should be read, but this one in particular is perhaps of most relevance for this forum: "Who benefits the most? Affluent people who live within easy reach of major cultural institutions and can afford regular attendance derive by far the most benefit from funds sourced from taxpayers and, now, from Lottery players. Arts Lottery funding to the five largest London recipients (The Royal Opera House, Royal National Theatre, English National Opera, Sadler’s Wells and the Southbank Centre) totals £315 million since the beginning of the National Lottery. This is in addition to the annual funding of over £80 million that between them they receive from taxpayers.These five organisations alone have therefore received more Arts Lottery funding since 1995 than the 33 local authority areas whose communities are least engaged with the arts." Does this mean the imbalance will change? Well, maybe it will. From the ROCC report again: "A pattern of public funding that favours London has existed since the foundation of the Arts Council. A trend to enhance the imbalance has been consistent for at least 30 years. During this period successive Governments and Arts Councils have acknowledged the imbalance but argued that it would need a significant new injection of funds to enable redress."

I'm reminded of one of my favourite Dilbert cartoons, the "Bungee Boss": http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1994-09-07/ I've seen it happen where I work.

I've been watching this on YouTube the last few nights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrTkqtDYUIM I think it's very good. Act 1 in particular is really rather wonderful with lots of colour in the costumes and sets, and the playing of the orchestra is pure magic: full of vitality, a great pulse, storytelling and drama. The whole thing is great fun and just keeps leading you on and on. Natalia Osipova in her first solo has wonderful musicality and sway. Bruce's review (of a Coliseum performance) is here and I totally agree with what he is saying.

Not sure if this one has already been noted anywhere else, but sure it will be of interest: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01sjjxq/Womans_Hour_Leanne_Benjamin/ Only about eight minutes worth - from about 33:40 mins in. I reckon a lot of people are going to miss her very much.

That second quote keeps getting dragged up - I've never really got on that well with it. Mr Crisp's recent ENB Sleeping Beauty review reads to me as unprejudiced, but it's revealing, and who is going to come along and say it's not worth reading or uninteresting?

Yes, I've always liked the football fan / ballet fan analogy, though perhaps ballet fans don't chuck things at each other as much, get drunk as much, and tend to be a bit quieter on the trains. But there is a lot of prejudice and home and visiting companies are not on a level playing field. Of course, many people are on close terms with home team dancers, chatting in person and via social media. That's bound to have an effect. Complacency? Perhaps it may happen that some home fans become, to a degree, blinded by prejudice or perhaps even tiredness (not in the literal sense), such that they do miss or overlook things that others, with fresh eyes and thinking, see and are less tolerant of. I suspect however that many people are well aware when they see shortcomings in their home team - how much of this they are prepared to say in public however is another matter. Don't think the criticism of NYCB dancers in the first post is fair - it was only a short tour with a narrow rep - are they not entitled to the benefit of the doubt as in "I have come to recognise and appreciate the individual Royal Ballet dancers" - emphasis being on "come to" i.e. it takes time.

My no. 1 has to be Mozart. I started with his piano concertos - before long I bought the complete LP box set of Murray Perahia's recordings. How can anyone fail to be uplifted by the start of no. 23? Symphonies 40 and 41 - doesn't matter how many times I come back to them, they're still fresh and fascinating. The string quartets and the two masterpiece quintets in C and G minor. The operas - Figaro and Cosi are my favourites. Then, probably Chopin. Just love all of this, can listen to it forever - waltzes, nocturnes, mazurkas, preludes, ballades. I love the old recordings c1930s by the likes of Cortot (especially) and Rubinstein, also, later, Lipatti. I was really irked when I heard the orchestrated versions used in Sylphides - didn't work for me! Schubert - again, his chamber music - the string quintet is a must, as is his piano sonata D960 (The Lindsays and Wilhelm Kempff respectively for me). I love symphony no 9 especially the second movement and the third movement scherzo and trio. Then, I just love his songs. I have several discs by Elly Ameling. Die Schöne Müllerin and Winterreise are also essential (but perhaps not if you want cheering up). Then, of course, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Brahms (German Requiem yes, symphony 2, violin concerto), Rachmaninov, Sibelius, Bizet.... Getting back to Germany.... Bruckner - symphonies 4 and 6 by Celibidache/Munich; no 9 by Giulini and the Vienna Phil. I like quite a lot of Wagner - I would have to single out bits of the Ring, and Meistersinger. I also like the Richard Strauss "sound" - massive dynamics and texture. Obviously his swooping songs; also some of the opera sounds - Elektra and Frau Ohne Schatten, also Arabella...... Hildegard Behrens, "Orest!" from Elektra: Loads more I don't have time for now. On film music.... Once Upon A Time In the West

There were several countries that entered more than one team in the beach volleyball, not just the USA. Same thing in the badminton pairs. Perhaps best to think of it as pairs rather than teams. The rules on this are not consistent between the sports. The most ridiculous thing is that the track cycling rules were changed since Beijing to restrict each country to one entrant (and hence at best one medal) per event. So, we weren't able to enter Chris Hoy as well as Jason Kenny in the men's individual sprint and he certainly missed out on another medal because of that. It's like having Bolt but no Blake, or Phelps but no Lochte.

Well, what a fantastic day for GB. Two wins for Murray and Robson, and six golds! Congratulations to all the medallists. Above all, particular congratulations to the fantastic GB women cycling pursuit team: as nailed-on a gold as any other in these games. They've now lowered the world record in every one of their last six competitive races. And the contrast between their ultra-professional, super smooth and frighteningly efficient performances with their joy after they've won and removed their helmets is just brilliant: http://www.dailymail...close-gold.html http://www.guardian....trott-dani-king

Swifts are one of my favourite birds - I just love the way they chase each other, very fast, screaming, over the town. The aerial birds (which may sound daft, but by which I mean those that spend a lot or most of their time, or look their best in the air - so swifts, swallows, terns etc) are the best. I once saw a group of 18 spoonbills at Minsmere - they were flying round together for ages, in great swooping circles, high and low, near and far, gleaming white against a bright blue sky. Completely different to how you more usually see them, wading and feeding in a lagoon/scrape. Oh, and then I was once at Eyebrook resevoir, Leics, in winter - about a dozen or so Bewick's Swans (now called Tundra Swans). Very nice. Carried on checking the rest of the water. Then I realised the swans were calling, and had in fact been calling for some time, but were now calling more and more excitedly. I looked up and was just in time to see them all heading off down the water and lifting up into the air, heading off north, in the direction of Rutland Water. An absolutely fantastic and memorable experience. But enough rambling... Now, who has heard a Nightingale this year? A question for those in the south-east only unfortunately. I think Pulborough Brooks is a good place for them (?)

Isn't that because it's perfection?

Bad luck thequays... but I think we do need to see it one more time... http://youtu.be/giu64gopZjY