My attention was drawn yesterday to a fabulous blog by the composer, conductor and musician, Howard Goodall which discusses Brexit and music. As he began:
A few weeks ago I had an encounter with a man at a currency exchange desk at Heathrow airport and tweeted the conversation thus:
“Nice bloke at Heathrow currency exchange desk asks whether Brexit will be good for my industry. When I said no, disastrous, he said he asks everyone the same question: and Every. Single. Person gives the same answer. But a bunch of Old Etonian conmen think they know better.”
It is my most read tweet ever (8500+ retweets, 18500+ likes and 1.67m impressions).
He then patiently, and with considerable skill, goes on to explain just what the problem of Brexit is for musicians, whose work is peripatetic by nature. I could summarise that with a single word, which would be 'visas'. But the issues are much more than the admin impediment to work in 27 countries that Brexit will create. As Goodall also notes, UK governments, and especially Conservative government have a poor track record in defending copyright holder rights, and for many musciains these are what they live off because their music can otherwise be exploited without payment. He says:
So, as a composer of music that is disseminated all over the world I am extremely concerned that my interests will not be protected by our own government. History teaches us that Tories in government, with some honourable exceptions like former arts minister Ed Vaizey MP, are more interested in protecting the exploiters of creative work than in the people who create it in the first place.
And then there is the issue of both book sales (which will now be harder to make from the UK to the EU, with lower margins) and documentary filmmaking, which will now probably require visas for crews working in the EU.
The point he makes is this:
It's important to note at this point that music is not a subsidiary, luxury, minor industry for the UK. We are the second biggest provider of music to the world after the USA. Music is of enormous benefit to us as a country. That is a fact, not an opinion. Nor is it special pleading. For a modern, developed country to deliberately, wilfully strangle one of its lead exporters is bordering on insane. Indeed, the Creative Industries as a whole are the fastest-growing sector in our economy, worth last year just under £100bn to our national coffers (to put that in context, in 2016 the NHS cost us £115bn). The Creative Industries Federation are deeply concerned about the knock-on effects of Brexit on this sector and have published their concerns accordingly: https://www.creativeindustriesfederation.com/newsletter-archive/brexit-report-impact-leaving-eu-uks-creative-industries
But it seems that no one in government is listening.
Goodall's whole piece is worth reading.
But more importantly, someone really does need to wake up this morning and listen to the music and take note. We are committing the most extraordinary act of economic self-harm and the government is seemingly committed to it, come what may.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
And Jurgen Klopp is also against Brexit! That settles it, then.
His travails getting his equipment and staff to the concert at Klosterkirche Pfafers sounded awful. Imagine a youth ensemble from Belfast wanting to perform in Mayo going through those difficulties. It would be even worse as they haven’t got his status to pull the strings required ( weak joke! )
Have you read Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine, Richard (or anyone else here)? I’ve said before the Tories are trying to create a Hell they can reign over (deriving from Milton quotes), but reading Shock Doctrine, while I still think that’s the case I now see it in the broader context of Bolivia, Poland etc. where Freidman’s malevolent teachings were successfully imposed on democracies (unlike, say, Chile where Pinochet used tanks and torture in their imposition) when those democracies could be said to be in a state of economic shock and the people were open to it. This is what we’ll be in after a hard Brexit, giving me more reason to believe that aim is being deliberately pursued. The Tories will have uses for those Henry VIII powers, and they won’t be uses which enhance the common good.
I tend to agree with you
Yes, I have read the book
“The Tories will have uses for those Henry VIII powers,”
Hmmmmm… Henry VIII was quite an accomplished musician it is said. He’s generally credited with writing Greensleeves. Even royal wives expected to be wooed in those days so he must have written hundreds of sonnets and lute songs or perhaps commissioned them which would be reasonable second best.
Great patrons of the arts the Tudors. (Not sure about ‘Bloody’ Mary, I think she may have been rather dour)
It would be a great irony if ‘Brexit the Musical’ was never to be appreciated by worldwide audiences.
A frivolous comment I grant you, but we neglect our creative industries at our peril. A generation or more of criminal (I dare not say ‘Philistine’ in the present climate of semitic sensitivity !) under-funding of the arts (thinking music in schools etc…..) hasn’t yet wrecked the creative industries.
I winced the other day at the revelation that we have in reality paid …..dammit, I’ve forgotten how many million, to ‘buy’ a gold medal in Netball at the Commonwealth Games. I don’t begrudge money spent on sport, but I do condemn the obsession we seem to have that sport is inherently virtuous (because it’s competitive ?) and that the Arts which are largely cooperative activities are starved of support.
Well said
Both the gender pay gap on that netball team plus coaching staff, and the income inequality too are something to behold.
Give me the arts any day which are far more about teamwork, and the pay differentials between the stage hand, the lead violinist and the conductor are almost non-existent for productions of any reasonable size.
Johnson Fleming says:
“…pay differentials between the stage hand, the lead violinist and the conductor are almost non-existent for productions of any reasonable size…”
There are some fairly silly amounts paid to some media ‘star’ celebrities mind you. Even for the ones who are really quite good at what they do.
In your email update for today (Sat 28 April) you start with the item on the forthcoming Tax Haven transparency vote – and you end with the music item thus: “But more importantly, someone really does need to wake up this morning and listen to the music and take note. We are committing the most extraordinary act of economic self-harm and the government is seemingly committed to it, come what may” – which sums it all up nicely.
The Government and their associated hardline Brexit funders are going balls out to protect their dodgy “Economic” activity – but they really can’t give a stuff about the people’s/UK’s economy.
I still harbour thoughts that the threat of Brussels getting ever closer on Tax Haven Transparency may turn out to have been one of the biggest (largely hidden) drivers of Brexit.
Keep pedalling……….
In the submission to parliament that I am currently working on I suggest that the EU might sanction the U.K. for failing to tackle tax haven issues. This will be much easier after Brexit