Much like Harrison Birtwistle, I feel like I’m always writing the same piece, albeit one that’s more wordy, more political, and much more depressing. Following the lead of Arts Council England, who made a mess of both the announcement and communication of their National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) funding reallocations in November, the BBC too garnished its latest round of cuts with offensively-flavored management word salad: the perennial favorite “difficult decisions” is joined by the insidious “agility” and its doublespeak relation “future proofing,” with the corporation announcing that the BBC Singers were actually to have no future, with salaried orchestral positions being reduced by 20 percent for good measure. It has provoked rage from all corners of the UK music world. “The decision to disband the BBC Singers might be the most shocking & wrong-headed of all the recent measures to adversely affect the arts in the UK, which is admittedly a very high bar already,” tenor David Butt Philip tells VAN.
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