Danish National Chamber Orchestra fights cuts by crowdfunding
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Version 0 of 1. Let’s save an orchestra: the Danish National Chamber Orchestra, which was scandalously disbanded on 1 January when this 75-year-old ensemble’s state funding was cancelled at ludicrously short notice, has been mounting a typically imaginative campaign to bring about its potential resurrection. It’s not just eating chillies, playing tango, and performing in shopping centres: thanks to the group’s refusal to take their fate lying down, they have raised enough money from private donations to bring the orchestra back from the brink. Through a Kickstarter campaign to raise 3m Danish kroner (£300,000), the orchestra received more than a third of that money from supporters, and have now had pledges for the rest of the balance from the Danish business community. Confusingly, because Kickstarter won’t accept single donations of more than 50,000 DKK, that then meant the orchestra has had to cancel their Kickstarter account and ask everyone who had pledged money to resubmit their cash in other forms before 28 February; but however it happens, the upshot is an orchestra that will be saved by private donations and public support. The orchestra’s chief conductor Adam Fischer will conduct the first benefit concert under these new auspices on 1 February in the repertoire that this conductor and orchestra are rightly so lauded: Mozart’s 25th and 35th symphonies and his joyous Exsultate, jubilate. It’s a tribute to how well-loved and well-run this orchestra is that within just a few weeks it has managed to sort out a new structure for the ensemble, and can realistically dream of a future in which private sponsorship and their own income, drawn from the huge variety of concerts they give – from adventurous pop and rock gigs to arguably the most imaginative Mozart playing you’ll hope to hear anywhere – can provide a future for them and for their loyal audiences. Let’s hope so: and meanwhile, I’ve been belatedly catching up with their boxset of 45 Mozart Symphonies with Fischer on Dacapo, and it’s frankly astonishing. Each symphony I’ve heard so far – including every note of the too-often-neglected early symphonies – is made to sound necessary, and every bar thrills with an immediacy and imagination that will engage, provoke, and delight, however well you think you know these pieces. Get stuck in on Spotify now. |