CBC helps to recast defunct orchestra by Robert Everett-Green
Source : Globe & Mail
November 19, 2008
The CBC stopped paying the bills for its last in-house orchestra on Sunday, but it says it is willing to help a free-standing successor ensemble with broadcasts, commissions and rehearsal space.
Mark Steinmetz, the CBC Radio executive who announced the end of 70-year-old CBC Radio Orchestra last spring, told The Globe and Mail that the CBC was in discussions about how to support an independent future for the orchestra well before Sunday's farewell concert at Vancouver's Chan Centre.
"We have had conversations with conductor Alain Trudel and Philippe Labelle," Steinmetz said in an e-mail, referring to the Montreal venture capitalist who, with Trudel, has launched an effort to keep the ensemble alive as the National Broadcast Orchestra (NBO).
Steinmetz said the CBC has offered to give the rebranded orchestra three broadcasts next year and to commission more new works like the four performed at Sunday's concert. The NBO would also be able to use the CBC's facilities in Vancouver for rehearsals and its library of sheet music.
"I'm happy that this long-standing relationship with our colleagues at the CBC is continuing," Trudel said by phone from Montreal. He has already worked out a deal with the University of British Columbia that would allow the NBO to use UBC's Chan Centre and studio spaces and to form a new association with the university's arts programs.
Trudel and Labelle describe the NBO as a not-for-profit "multimedia orchestra" that would exploit the music-delivery potential of the Internet and cellphone networks as well as traditional broadcasting. It would be based in Vancouver, have its own board and do most of its work in studio settings with live audiences.
Fundraising has already begun, Trudel said, with the goal of building an endowment to help sustain a projected annual budget of $1-million.
"We're going to take our time and do this right, and start again with concerts in September,' " the 42-year-old conductor said.
© Globe and Mail
Mark Steinmetz, the CBC Radio executive who announced the end of 70-year-old CBC Radio Orchestra last spring, told The Globe and Mail that the CBC was in discussions about how to support an independent future for the orchestra well before Sunday's farewell concert at Vancouver's Chan Centre.
"We have had conversations with conductor Alain Trudel and Philippe Labelle," Steinmetz said in an e-mail, referring to the Montreal venture capitalist who, with Trudel, has launched an effort to keep the ensemble alive as the National Broadcast Orchestra (NBO).
Steinmetz said the CBC has offered to give the rebranded orchestra three broadcasts next year and to commission more new works like the four performed at Sunday's concert. The NBO would also be able to use the CBC's facilities in Vancouver for rehearsals and its library of sheet music.
"I'm happy that this long-standing relationship with our colleagues at the CBC is continuing," Trudel said by phone from Montreal. He has already worked out a deal with the University of British Columbia that would allow the NBO to use UBC's Chan Centre and studio spaces and to form a new association with the university's arts programs.
Trudel and Labelle describe the NBO as a not-for-profit "multimedia orchestra" that would exploit the music-delivery potential of the Internet and cellphone networks as well as traditional broadcasting. It would be based in Vancouver, have its own board and do most of its work in studio settings with live audiences.
Fundraising has already begun, Trudel said, with the goal of building an endowment to help sustain a projected annual budget of $1-million.
"We're going to take our time and do this right, and start again with concerts in September,' " the 42-year-old conductor said.
© Globe and Mail
