Oh how we love a good scare story. Even newspapers which could be forgiven for misspelling the word ‘orchestra’, so rarely do they use it, have revelled in the news that a £33 million backdated tax bill “could kill them off in one fell swoop.” The trouble is – unlike most such tales – this one could turn out to be true. Britain’s orchestras have traditionally survived against all the odds. In half a century, the Bournemouth Sinfonietta is the only ensemble to have disappeared. The difference, this time, is that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs seem determined to play yet more games with people’s livelihoods. Not content with the fact our orchestral musicians are so appallingly paid that more than 80% of them are forced to take on ‘extra’ work, HMRC now seem prepared to drive them out of existence altogether.
You might imagine that musicians who have devoted their lives to enriching other peoples would receive a reasonable reward. Wrong. Despite all their years of intensive training, orchestral players in this country are paid way below the national wage. Most orchestral string players, for example, receive an annual gross income of £22,500 – so much for the myth that classical music is the preserve of the rich middle classes! On the basis that two bites of the cherry are better than one, HMRC have decreed that orchestras are liable for their player’s Class 1 (salaried) National Insurance contributions backdated to 2000/1 – even though almost all the musicians will have already paid their own Class 4 (self-employed) contributions.
A kindly representative from HMRC conducted an official enquiry into the likely impact on five ‘sample’ orchestras – and concluded that “four out of five would be forced into liquidation”. Thanks a million. Better still, make it £33 million.
I am sick and tired of reading and hearing that my profession is ‘irrelevant’ and ‘elitist’. Following the headlines about orchestras being forced to close, a letter appeared in The Times that was so bigoted and confused that you wonder why a responsible newspaper would print it. After lashing out at Classic FM and the Last Night of the Proms “with its dreadful audience” the writer concluded: “In England classical music is still the preserve of the middle classes who can afford to go to concerts”. She should get out more. It will cost her £130 to hear Coldplay at Earls Court compared to £27 for top price seats for the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican. What, exactly, is so ‘irrelevant’ about classical music? Its basic precepts of harmony and tonality permeate the music we hear at every level, whether in films, TV ads, shopping malls or churches. Even some of the most popular mobile ring tones are taken from the classics. New collaborations abound: the London Philharmonic with jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, the Britten Sinfonia and composer Nitin Sawhney, the Philharmonia and composer Dominique Legendre. All three expose the slightly sinister myth that classical music is for ‘whites only.’ I have taken my cello to inner-city schools where children from widely different ethnic backgrounds have crowded round me wanting to know more about an instrument they had never seen before. To infer that classical music is somehow ‘not for them’ smacks of inverted racism. People who think this way should take a walk around one of our music colleges where they will see lots of non-whites studying classical music. Admittedly many are on scholarships from countries in the Far East where their government’s still value classical music. How galling it must be for the ‘whites only’ thought police that so many of the hottest young classical instrumentalists are from these countries! As if to prove them wrong the stage of the Royal Albert Hall has been filled for the last three days with more that 2500 school children of all different shades of skin making music together at the Schools Prom. It only takes one spark to ignite a fire of enthusiasm for music – including classical – that can last a lifetime. No child in this country should be denied that opportunity.
