Where have the orchestras gone?

Six months ago the Australian orchestras were all over the newspapers (by 'all over the newspapers', I mean one article every few days...somewhere near the back). The orchestras review was predicting doom, the government was trying to edge slowly away, and the orchestras themselves were trying to talk up their acheivements and 'relevance'. Opinion pieces were launched for and against the review, some saying the orchestras were over-funded and completely irrelevant, others giving the state and federal governments a slap on the wrist for allowing funding levels to drop so far. Then the federal government announced $10 million extra for the orchestras, and everyone cheered right back up; it was business as usual, and everyone seemed pleased with the result. Little bits and pieces have appeared recently, most concerning the orchestras' rejection of the bid to forcibly seperate them from the ABC, but mostly there is nothing.

Several damning statistics from the report will not go away, and no small financial bandaids will change that. Most troubling is the suggestion that the orchestras will have to increase profits by as much as 12% (in the case of the beleagured Queensland Orchestra) PER YEAR for the next decade if they hope to even exist. There is no evidence if Labor were to win the next federal election that they would increase funding (in real terms) for the arts; in fact, before the last election neither even MENTIONED their piddly arts budgets until just two days prior to the poll.

Disturbing.