Top Dutch conductor Bernard Haitink has called the new government’s plan to shut down the public broadcasters national music centre and the three symphony orchestras and one choir based there as ‘a flagrantly scandalous act’.

The government plans to close the centre and shut down the orchestras – including the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra – as part of its plans to slash spending on the arts. Some 300 musicians’ jobs will go with the closures.
The orchestras and the choir are being ‘sacrificed’, Haitink, who has conducted top orchestras all over the world, said in a letter to the NRC.
Councils
Earlier, it emerged nine of the country’s biggest city councils have written to the government urging it not to slash spending on the arts as well as putting up value added tax on tickets.
The councils – Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, Eindhoven, Maastricht, Arnhem, Groningen and Enschede – say they accept the need for cuts but that the government’s plans will be disastrous.
The new government’s coalition agreement includes plans to slice €200m off spending on the arts and to increase the tax on tickets for the performing arts from 6% to 19%.
If the new cabinet wants to overhaul arts spending, it should set up a special commission ‘to do justice to all the interests at stake’, the council officials say.
Bolkestein
Former VVD leader Frits Bolkestein has also condemned the cuts. ‘As far as I am concerned we should spend less on development aid and more on art and culture,’ he said.
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