Fears for string quartet as RTÉ seeks cuts

THERE are fears the smallest of the RTÉ-funded performing groups – and the only one based outside Dublin – could be axed as part of a cost-cutting drive.

The State broadcaster has commissioned a report on its future options in chamber music provision.

It is being prepared against the backdrop of the economic downturn and belt-tightening within RTÉ, by Philip Hammond, a former director of arts development at the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and is due to be completed in January.

But the Director of the CIT Cork School of Music, Dr Geoffrey Spratt, said he is very concerned the report could spell the end of the RTÉ Vanbrugh String Quartet, which has been based in Cork since 1986 – a group he described as a significant “cultural asset”.

Dr Spratt said the report’s terms of reference and its consultative questions “clearly intimate that someone within RTÉ thinks that the future of its quartet has already been determined, and that its demise is to be by a thousand cuts.

“The people of Cork, led by the late Aloys Fleischmann, lobbied long and hard in the 1950s to have this residency established and have absolutely no intention of letting RTÉ take it away from them,” he said.

“Like all great and valuable things, a successful string quartet is a mixture of miracle and hard work.

“It takes time to realise its potential, but when it does you marvel at the myriad of beneficial effects it has, nurture it continuously, and never fail to recognise that while the investment makes returns in spades, you can lose everything that has taken half a century to achieve through a single act of short-sighted barbarism.”

RTÉ funds five performing groups – the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, the Concert Orchestra, the Philharmonic Choir, Cor na nÓg and the Vanbrugh. The report is focusing on the Vanbrugh only.

RTÉ has supported a string quartet in Cork since 1959. The quartet were appointed to the RTÉ residency in 1986, took first prize at the Portsmouth International String Quartet Competition in 1988, and have been the anchor quartet at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival since its foundation in 1996.

Its four full-time professional musicians are artists in residence at UCC and are internationally acclaimed.

The quartet is also of immense value to ‘Ireland Inc’, Dr Spratt said. But RTÉ has only renewed the Vanbrugh Quartet’s contract to carry it through 2010.

Dr Spratt said of the five RTÉ-funded performing groups, the Vanbrugh is the only one that is able to fulfil its brief by not merely performing in Dublin, but playing extensively throughout the country.

“This is the one group whose remuneration has been cut by 40% – all other RTÉ musicians had to suffer only a 5% cut – and whose contract duration has been slashed,” he said.

“The eve of the centenary celebrations for Fleischmann’s life and work is the ideal time for music lovers throughout the country to unite in ensuring one of the greatest cultural assets this country has is not lost.”

Members of the Vanbrugh Quartet declined to comment. A spokesperson for the broadcaster’s performing groups division said RTÉ constantly reviews its various services to ensure audiences get value for money and the best services.

“Given that work on the report is still in progress, any further comment at this time would not be appropriate,” a spokesperson said.