I have been reading the posts for the past few days on the plights of different orchestras and I would like to inform you of what is going on in Michigan. Due to a budget deficit of over a Billion Dollars, the Governor of Michigan has instituted cuts in nearly every department and agency in the state. The state's constitution demands a balanced budget. I think the only funding that will retain status quo will be K-12 education. Arts funding for the state will be slashed 50%. Major arts organizations in the state such as the Detroit Symphony and the Detroit Institute of Arts will be impacted, as well as most smaller organizations such as ROCO and community orchestras. This is a hard time for us in the arts community in the state. There will be in the coming days much political haggling over many sacred cows.
The first rumors stated were to the effect that Arts funding would be completely slashed. This was done in the early 1990's when the last Governor entered office Twelve years ago (Thank goodness for term limits.If I can be reflective, in the words of the country singer, "Thank God and Greyhound, he's gone") After this person realized that having arts funding restored would bring more tourism back to the state, he relented and restored some funding. Unfortunately,the orchestra that I have been associated with for many years never had our state funding restored, so we've had to work very hard to have and maintain a modest season. We were just getting back to a point where we once were years ago, we have never really recovered from the last round of cuts.
I serve on the Cultural Commission for the City of Warren, which is the third largest city in the state, and we have not been informed as to how much we will lose for the coming year. We have made our budget request to the mayor for the coming year, but we must wait until the state government finalizes the cuts to the cities. When we did our budget request for the new year, we did not ask for any increases,but we tried to maintain what we have had in past years. The mayor's staff were impressed that we knew as much as we did, as to my understanding, other organizations in the city were acting as if they were like a deer with their eyes in the headlights (we figured there would be no way we would see any more money). One cut that has already happened. The Warren Symphony will not open the City's summer concert series. We just cannot pay to have them. I have to state it was the hardest vote that I have had to cast as a cultural commissioner. Unfortunately, to vote no would have been a vote against the entire summer series. Just to mention, other cities in the Metropolitan Detroit area are now cancelling entire summer concert series, so for the time being, we can maintain ours. If anyone on the list from Michigan hears of any more stories like this, please contact me off list.
Meanwhile, our airwaves in the Metro Detroit area are still without a classical music station, what a crying shame.One can hear all manor of s*&^...(you fill in the blank). Most of it involves what I used to call rhythmic spitting and alleged music that is devoid of melody and features obscene poetry in iambic pentameter Thankfully, living on the Canadian border, we can receive CBC 2.Yesterday, I got to hear one of John Kowalchuk's colleagues from Humber college. This gentleman wrote a very nice Trumpet Concerto...
Anyway, we all must fight to keep music alive! We have to do more to get good music to the masses and educate them, or believe me, we will lose the thing that binds us together on this list.
Enough ranting for today, sorry to be so negative.
Walt Lewis
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